No rain again today. The GPSES didn't show up for water distribution. People are becoming more desperate by the hour. At this rate we'll all be dead by Spring.
It's been three months since I buried my parents. I keep mulling over the stories they told me, as I grew up during what they would, laughingly, call the "End Times."
I was always amazed at their good humor as they would speak of things that I was horrified to hear about. How in the first decade of the century a new war had started over the last reserves of oil, at the same time that the environment was reaching it's breaking point. How a movement of extremist Muslims, from the oil rich Middle-east and around the world, had decided to fight for a world dominated by Islam, while a group of right-wing Christians, from the US, had decided that it was time for American Capitalism to do the same.
In the end, neither side got what they wanted.
The only time I saw my parents cry was when they would speak of the beginning of the oil cut-offs from the oil producing countries, and how a "State of Emergency" was declared by the government. They would say that this was the time when we lost all our rights as citizens. That was when the roundups of young men for the draft began. Anyone speaking against it was arrested, and young men who tried to avoid the draft were taken by force. Some were shot while trying to escape the PDS (Patriotic Draft Service) teams that went from house to house looking for men, and women, who were healthy enough to fight.
Many thousands were killed in the invasion of the Middle-east. Which turned out to be a lost cause, since the oil was running out anyway, and, on top of this, the long expected flu pandemic occurred. Millions died, and then, to add insult to injury, the weather began to change in a more extreme way than ever before.
The colder regions began to see unseasonably warm temperatures, and the warmer ones the reverse. There were extreme droughts and freezes. Hurricanes and great storms began to occur unexpectedly, and at odd times of the year, in places that no one would have expected. The Gulf and Jet streams became more and more erratic as more and more of the northern and southern ice-packs melted. Millions more died.
This was when the GPSES -- the Government for Public Safety and Emergency Services -- was formed.
The GPSES was created by a group of people who had managed to survive the war, flu epidemic, and weather changes. Mostly wealthy people, who had connections to the military, they had grabbed the reins of power when the old system finally collapsed. Some say they helped to expedite that collapse in no small way. The brutality they exhibited in getting control of what was left of the old government, and in bringing order to the general chaos that was occurring at that time, has become legendary. Thousands died, or disappeared, in what they now call "The Great Re-ordering of Civil Society for the General Welfare and Public Good.'"
Since then, "We the People" have been dying like flies. All I've known, growing up, have been the struggle for survival and the presence of perpetual death. The "Good Earth" and "Promise of Democracy" are just myths, taught to me by my parents; things that I will never know. And now, my parents are gone and I don't know how much time I have left. Who do I write this for?
Perhaps, if there is a future, someone will find th someond is com i
Jim Bush is a 61 year old, Vietnam-era veteran, currently living in Katy,Texas. He was raised in a military family. His father received the Silver Star for directing troops while under air attack at Clark Field in the Phillipines, survived the Bataan Death March, and spent three and a half years in a Japanese POW camp. He also received the Purple Heart for wounds received while a POW. Jim served as an army photographer in Okinawa and Korea. In 1987 he traveled to the war zones of Nicaragua with a veteran's group dedicated to stopping the Contra War.
