Whenever I’m feeling particularly nostalgic for the old
days, I dig through my memory box and pull out my old passport. Ahh, the places I used to visit.
The stamp in my passport for England, and then again for
France when we got off the ferry at Calais.
The stamp for Belgium and Germany.
The stamp for Australia when I thought living down under would be fun
(it’s not. It’s hot in December and the
flora and fauna are out to kill you!)
The stamp for Japan, when I travelled there with the volleyball
team.
The multiple stamps from the United States when I would
travel to visit family across the country.
And the stamps to Africa, Europe, China, Russia, the Caribbean. I was very well travelled. Now?
There are no more public airports.
No more commercial planes. No
more travel.
Because five years ago,
came The War.
I don’t even know if the countries I loved to visit exist
anymore. Travel is completely
banned. Crossing borders is
impossible. Unless you are in the
army. Or you can find a way to cross the
border. But it’s illegal and people who
are caught trying to cross the border are killed on sight. No trial, no excuses.
The group in power now, I don’t even know what to call
them. What country they originate from
seems to change daily. All I can tell
you is that there is no more government as we knew it. No more elections. We’re essentially overseen by a military
faction. Rumour has it that it’s the
same in the United States. Whatever is
left of it. Rumour is all we have. There’s no more news that isn’t heavily
biased towards the Faction. Whatever
news we hear, it’s dictated by the Faction.
Which is what we call the government.
There’s really no other name. We
don’t even know what country they originated from. It wasn’t even a military coup of the
government. You can’t overthrow a
government when the government no longer exists.
It started out with rumours of war. Factions in the Middle East banded together
and started invading countries surrounding the Middle East. Then, other countries started taking sides –
both the invaded and the invaders. Some
sided with the invaders before they could invade their country. Europe fell first. Then Africa.
China joined on and North Korea blew them off the map. Pretty soon, most of the nuclear weapons were
either launched or destroyed.
Governments toppled before countries were invaded. Citizens were clamouring to their governments
for help. To ensure their countries
weren’t invaded. Then North Korea and
Iran attacked the United States with nuclear weapons. Before
we knew it, there was no more United States.
There was no more Canada. At
least, not in the way they had been before.
Some parts of what used to be the United States became part of Canada’s
land, but when the walls went up, it didn’t matter. Families were torn apart. And communication on the other side of the
wall was non-existent. I haven’t heard a
word from anyone in my family on the other side of that wall in three
years. I don’t even know if they’re
alive or dead.
The war lasted four years.
In some ways, it’s still being fought.
The American army, once considered so strong, was quickly decimated when
Iran and North Korea bombed the US.
First they took out whatever weapons installations they could. That included nuking the Arctic. Colorado is a huge burning hole in the
ground. NORAD doesn’t exist except as a
memory.
The British and Canadian armies fell immediately after. As did pretty much the entire European
armies. Germany, quite unsurprisingly,
took side with the Faction. China and
South Korea are also pretty much nothing more than large craters. And with the size of Asia – that’s saying
something.
Most of what we know about the outside world is what little
we hear from the Faction news and rumours that people say they hear from the
other side of the wall. Someone is
always saying they know someone who snuck over the border and came back with
news.
I don’t believe it.
My cousin tried to sneak across the border to get news of our
family. That was three years ago. He never came back.
