Build Date: Sat Apr 26 08:10:47 2025 UTC
Maybe it's the Geekhive Effect.
-- Kakao Chouva
| The Grass Is Always Greener -- Reported 1999-01-14 00:45 by Lenny Tuberose | |
|
But North America had still been strong then--had retained some vestiges of nobility among the global decay and ruin. Her peoples--goaded by pangs of guilt for the fullness of their bellies amid the world's hunger, and shamed by the final, decisive failure of their claim to leadership and defense of the Free World--had been eager to show mercy to the pitiful few who reached their shores after the total collapse of the Old World. They had fed and clothed and educated Uri like the bastard son of some great aristocrat. Uri had shown an aptitude for science and an inability to form anything resembling an emotional bond with anyone. He had thrown himself into his brilliant academic career--the last of a vanishing breed. Alone in his ivory tower he had watched as North America followed the rest of the World into ruin. The first stage of the collapse had been the consolidation of Canada, the United States and Mexico into a single political unit: the Federal Republic of North America. That ill-fated union was less an expression of fraternity and co-operation than a symptom of decay--like the final congealing of blood in the heart of a great beast recently slain. Like three terrified orphans, those three nations had huddled together against the terrors of the great storm that was sweeping civilization from the face of the Earth. After Union had come Fragmentation. The Great Plains had become a wasteland and famine became widespread among all but the privileged few. The hunger-ravaged bodies of the under-classes--too weak to resist--became breeding-grounds for the various plagues that swept across the continent. Regions that were still able to produce food became unwilling to share it and seceded from the Federal Republic. Their less fortunate neighbors did what Europe had lacked the strength to do--they marched upon their ungenerous brethren with fire and steel. Their battles devastated many of the few productive lands that remained, and the bodies of the slain clogged the rivers and fouled the waters spawning plagues of ever-increasing virulence. The wars had only ended when the collapse of the gold-standard left the Government unable to pay its soldiers and munitions suppliers. The Government had tried to hold the people together with talk of brotherhood and the greater good--stale and vacuous echoes of the American Dream. But their successors--raised among the hardships of the final decades of the twentieth century--had come to know that dream as an empty promise. They had worked more and more for less and less as they watched their fathers grow rich upon their endless labors. The rich grew richer, and the poor grew angrier--their frustration and despair bred in them a nihilism of such overweening and vitriolic vehemence that it could not be contained. Those who governed--still beguiled by the milk-sop idealism of their formative years--failed entirely to understand the loathing in their children's eyes. The end came like a tsunami from west to east. It started with the Los Angeles riot of 2040. The city of excess had reeled beneath the violence, shocked and bewildered. To the myriad destitute of that city--like everywhere else--life had become an empty promise. Only death had meaning, and they sought death amid the ruins of that walking-dead metropolis, the City of Angels. They had besieged the wealthy in their walled palaces. They had cried for blood and vengence--for a final reckoning with the few who had lived like maggots upon the sweat and blood of the many. The wealthy had begged for their lives--had offered to share their wealth--had appealed to a humanity that had long since ceased to exist. The horde had jeered, implacable in their lust for purification through annihilation. The wealthy turned their private armies upon the horde, like hounds set to slaughter wolves, but there weren't bullets enough to pierce the heart of the great slavering beast that had come for them. In the end the private armies had thrown open the gates themselves in an attempt to save themselves by shifting their allegiance, but their action was too late to save them and they were butchered before the horrified eyes of their masters. The palaces had been looted and burned to the ground. The wealthy--the lucky ones--had died horrible, cruel deaths at the hands of the mob. The less fortunate had been led away in chains to suffer the lingering and humiliating death of the unfree. In that swirling sea of chaos and dissolution, slavery was the first institution to reassert itself. When the horde had slain all their enemies, they turned their fury upon their own--they turned from extermination to self-immolation. They had fired their own city like a demented phoenix and left it uninhabitable--a smoking ruin. The news of that holocaust had travelled outwards like ripples in cesspool, carried by the refugees who had survived the last days. They had carried the seeds of violence like a contagion, and everywhere that they went violence erupted to engulf the wealthy and the privileged--and then the destitute. It was a miracle that Uri had survived those desperate days, for he was surely one of the elite after whose blood the furies lusted. The others had left the underground complex in a vain attempt to whisk their families to safety--a safety that didn't exist. At first they had dribbled away a few at a time. At the end they had evacuated the complex with u
T O P S T O R I E S California Glory Hole attracts huge crowds A glory hole at Napa's Lake Berryessa is drawing huge crowds. According to Chris Lee, the general manager for the Solano County Water Agency, the glory hole hasn't been active since 2019, and only restarted operations on Feb 4. (More...) Republican State Senator busted after soliciting a teenage girl Republican State Senator Justin Eichorn of Minnesota was arrested for soliciting a teen girl on Monday just hours after he introduced a bill proposing "Trump derangement syndrome" (TDS) as a form of mental illness. (More...) Parents claim measles is not that bad after having only one child die The parents of a Texas girl who died from the measles are defending their decision not to vaccinate their daughter. "She says they would still say 'Don't do the shots,'" an unidentified translator for the parents said. "They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be." (More...) Delusional rich man tries to fire town staff "I'm mayor now" said write-in mayoral candidate and founder of Pirate’s Booty Snacks Robert Ehrlich after losing the election for Mayor of Sea Cliff, NY. Then he tried to take over the Village Hall and fire everyone. (More...) Musk claims Xitter security is staffed by idiots Earlier this month Xitter experienced a massive outage. In an interview, Musk told Fox Business that he believes the attack came from "IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area." (More...) The Future Ain't What It Used To Be Ideas have taken horrifying shape and rooted into our modern reality. (More...) 
C L A S S I C P I G D O G A Nobel Prize-Winning Author Describes Liquor Curled up cozy with a good book? All warm and snuggly and thinking about friends far away? So am I, reading the greatest story by the greatest writer -- when he suddenly starts waxing philosophical about liquor! (More...) Three Days and 25 Spocktails: A Cautionary Tale Johnnie Royale picked me up from the dental surgery. I felt warm, safe, cradled in the anathesia's loving embrace. The pharmacy downstairs gave me a bottle of Vicodin and a few instructions: take it with food, don't mix with alcohol, don't operate heavy machinery. I put it in my pocket and we left. "Do you want to go home, or do you want to go to a bar?" asked Johnnie. (More...) An innocent trip to the Central Market resulted in a severe attack of arachnophobia (and a meal) when a depraved street kid set her vicious pet spider on an unsuspecting shopper. (More...) The Liquidation of Hobo Junction Albany, CA's homeless hooverville by the Bay, "Hobo Junction," is going to be torn down by The Man. Entrances are already being blocked off, and it's now difficult and dangerous to get there. Worse, these obstacles are making it hard to get to the nearby HORSE TRACK on foot. Local historian, Pao Tzu, has an overview of situation. (More...) The Innocent San Francisco Mule Flesh and Abby have moved to an isolated rural location in the United States - equipped only with their sense of adventure. Recently they came down off the mountain briefly to file this report? (More...) We here in SMRL's Beverage Research Lab realize that there is more to life than just drinking spocktails. It's important to have other activities. One such activity that we wholeheartedly support is dancing six or more hours to Trance music. So we have designed a drink to accommodate this. (More...) 
| |
