The Parochialism of Dystopia

I. How Humanity Arrived at the Present

I begin this retrospect in the custom of my Modernity: by naming things what they are. That is, to plainly say what is meant. The unraveling of twenty-one centuries’ development shrunk and fit neatly into a little timeline, all to save my rheumatic fingers a bit of scribbling. Along this timeline we will, plainly stated, observe the old world order, what we call “The Old World” and its order; we will see it completely overthrown. Just as we call the people of The Old World “Oldies,” our thinking is plainly stated. The events on this timeline have been plainly titled and briefly summarized. Keep in mind the overlap. The demise of that past life was borne from many dynamic parts. Note that the below dates are suffixed by “bf.” refers to events occurring before flood. At the time of my writing, it is the New World, specifically the year 25.

The Hesitation (1970-2030 bf.)

The world, emerging from a tense coolness between powers, believed the worst threats were dealt with. But new, latent threats were revealing themselves. The world was gradually heating up, and every science pointed to imminent devastation. Perhaps nobody did anything because the world, not so long ago, was too cold?

The Melt (2000-30 bf.)

At the Century’s turn, the polar ice caps gradually began melting. Every science pointed to imminent devastation. Less ice meant less heat reflection which meant more heat and less ice. People polarized over what was responsible for this.

The Wars (2025-40 bf.)

The world realized that it never emerged from the cold, as countries distracted themselves with wars over resources and status. In 2030 however, when The Melt reached its peak, more conflict erupted over the global-scale immigration crisis. People who lived on islands and coastal areas watched their homes gradually get swallowed up by a hungry sea. These people had two options: move to land or become very good swimmers.

The Flood (2030-31 bf., New World)

This event is what haunts the Oldies. Many of them fear the water we live so close to. The Melt reached its peak and the world shuddered, outraged at the neglect it had suffered. Every science pointed to imminent devastation. The Flood destroyed indiscriminately. Cities, monuments, every mark of humankind was gradually cleansed from this world’s surface, absolving itself of the claims to superior life they thought they had earned.

You see. This process was gradual and expected and preventable. Warfare is cruel. Seeing what gruesome mayhem explosives and self-justifying ideas wreak upon the world is pure horror. Craters in the earth, scars from The Wars, were filled in by flooding. Where fire and blood razed the earth, flooding nourished and re-birthed. The Flood loosened humanity’s vice like grip on the earth – and it twisted free. I will not mention Old World locations. Maps give headaches instead of bearings. The Wars and Flood redesigned the landscape. The Old World truly is gone.

My community is situated on the White Coast (the sand is white). Further inland, the white sand surrenders to rolling hills of verdant, melon-green grasses. Poking up from the ground are pieces of old and unrecognisable structures which we built shelter from. Diminished, the Oldies who survived formed small groups, inspired by a lackluster spirit as energetic as a grey sky. The New World, to them, is broken, haunted, desolate, dystopic. They survive.

II. Introductory Thoughts on The New World

Now, we have reached the biographical section of this account. In writing with an impassioned idea, I inevitably stray from the custom of my Modernity, to plainly say what I mean. When I hold the riches of human literature like dragoons gleaming in the golden starbursts of sunlight on some triumphant adventurer’s ocean voyager; to plainly state the gallimaufry of this new life, is to strip it of the sentiments and colors within which the New World takes shape. The terror of those who passed, the despair and longing of the survivors, the great expectations for my generation.

I grew up around Oldies, shaping my understanding of the Past and Present. I omit the Future because as we have seen, the Future is more like a passion-fruit vine, growing where and as wild as it wishes, adhering to no scaffold. It doesn’t care for visions or premonitions. To the Oldies, who had tried to control and tie that wild vine they named the Future, ceding to uncertainty’s sovereignty must be bitter. For the earth-shattering events that spelled the end of the Old World remain in the memories and palates of my elders. Of course, I am not weighed down by the ghosts that linger in Today’s every corner, Yesterday’s debris.

Two particular Oldies feature here. The first, my Mother; the second, our neighbor who lived alone. I knew my Mother best in her sorrow. One winter morning when the air chilled my mind to numbness, I saw her shuddering at our rickety meal-table. I thought she was cold. Until I shuffled close enough to hear the whimpers crawling from her heart out into the air, floating in a sorrowful mist. It strikes me now, the contrast in that image. My Mother’s despair and longing for perished comforts still warm enough to condense in the icy air of her leftover world. Being a child at the time, I shuffled closer still and asked what was wrong. In a mess of mourning she clutched me close and cried, “my poor, poor boy. You’ll never know heating!”

Our neighbor lived on the outskirts of our little town. I called him Hermit. Our town was a collection of shoddy cabins built from rubble, and all the Oldies were quiet. Retreating into their shells, salvaged from wreckage and memory. But Hermit was uniquely forlorn. More detached, his sadness surrounded him like a mist instead of the weight that loomed over other Oldies.

It was between these two, Mother and Hermit, that I came to understand a concept that we will return to: the dystopia, a hell which the Oldies believe my New World is. The Oldies often gathered in town and, like their abodes, scavenged their memories for warmth and nourishment where they only felt destitution. There, the Oldies shared their souvenirs, lasting tokens, and stories of a well-gone world.

III. The Campfire Reveals a Relic

One night I remember distinctly. The Oldies sat around a struggling fire, seated on stacked rocks resembling graves, and splintered logs that looked more uncomfortable than the hard-packed dirt. Myself and other kids sat in a whispering cluster trying to guess which way the smoke would billow, into whose eyes, and if they would cry. We kids would listen, vaguely interested, to stories about a realm of no importance to us. Though we were more transfixed by the shadows dancing and flickering in the sunken eyes, and across the Oldies’ faces, with their sharpened angles. From where I sat, that night, I could watch Hermit with close attention. Silently, he fished a chain out from his pants. The shape hanging limp from the chain pulsed red in the smouldering light of the campfire. Suspended in air, it seemed defeated, like an outlaw sentenced to the gibbet.

“What is it?” I asked. Black eyes, made blacker by the fire’s shadows, fixed on mine. Slowly, Hermit flicked a barely visible latch, making it open ever so slightly that he had to pry it completely open with his nail.

“A locket.”

“No, the shape hanging off the end. It looks sad.”

Hermit blinked, drawn from whatever dark thoughts swirled like embers behind his quiet composure. He seemed confused by my question, so obvious to him.

“A love heart. It is two hearts angled together. A locket opens up for you to keep a picture of a loved one in.”

It was my turn to blink. “That’s all?” As I asked, I scrutinized this locket, this shape. The chain was too flimsy for any practical use. The heart was too small and dull to serve as a tool. I said as much that night by the campfire. I remember, Hermit smiled at the practical way I – and the other kids – saw the world. Frankly, we had no interest in things of no immediate use. But Hermit gestured at me to come closer. He showed me a faded picture of a handsome man.

“Who is that?”

“My world.”

There was a rasp in this that invited no further questions. It was an accessory, simply to be worn. The existence of this thing was inexplicable, useless, to me. But it mattered to Hermit. Later, Hermit explained the nature of such accessories, made so impractically.

IV. What is Dystopian Depends on Perspective

I lack an affinity for my Mother’s music. There is a world of wait between words and notes. It reminds me of The Hesitation. I don’t listen to music to be melancholic. That’s how she and Hermit pass the windier nights, where they listen to the deep breathing of their comatose dreams, made trivial having been stripped of their modern contexts. Mother was studying to be a lawyer, specializing in technology and privacy law.

She explained to me that, “the people who controlled technology and this immaterial ‘internet’ made money by stealing information and manipulation.”

Why would anyone bother about ‘money’ that much? In the New World, we help each other get by. That’s all there is. At the same time, why would anyone use technology so much that you could be manipulated by it? Mother says my world is a dystopia, but in the Old World people found pleasure and dependence from a pocket-sized piece of glass. In that other life, a heart-shaped locket was made with anything but love in mind. A cheap trinket which serves more purpose today as a requiem for what and who was lost by people like Hermit, who are hermits because they have nothing else. The more I hear of the Old World, I imagine more vividly a world where people were born dying. The sorrow of survivors is undeniable. But the formal definition of dystopia is “an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives.” Humanity overcomes hardship. If the Old World was anything other than dystopian, it would have conquered and survived The Flood.

My world is real, and it may be rough. But I am immersed in it. I live in a community where we may go without old comforts – electricity-charged shards of glass to keep us distracted from the reasonable demands of the then-present. My community may be few, but we each matter more for it.

When I fetch freshwater for my community, I hike to find deep craters filled in by The Flood, torn from the Earth’s flesh by the vicious and insatiable maw of Humanity. When I find these craters, I stand on a precipice of concrete from some forgotten building, overgrown with lush weeds; it presides over the White Coast I call home. When, having drawn pails-full of water to take back to my little community so tightly-knit like my Mother’s Old World cardigan, I press my bare feet against the cool concrete and ticklish prickle of new grass, I consider this vista offered by Yesterday’s turnout. When I look at the White Coast stretching forever from East to West; when I stare in wonder as the pale morning sun causes the horizon’s rosy blush; when it gently kisses the sea which shudders adoringly, the gentle waves’ advance captures this morning’s light like the brilliant surface of a diamond. When I hoist my pails and turn away, laughing at the Old World’s sorrow, when I begin walking home, to our wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives: I muse. It is a gorgeous dystopia indeed.