Thursday, August 03, 2017

A dream of war

Had a war nightmare last night.

I was at work, we heard a loud noise, looked outside, and saw that the sky had turned black - or at least part of it had, since the sun was still shining and you could see edges to the black. I realized that this was a dust cloud, rapidly approaching, and I yelled for everyone to duck and cover.

What happened immediately afterwards I don't know, but I think all electronics were knocked out of commission - something I believe will be an opening gambit in any future international war, a ploy that would disable all modern communication and put us on an  even playing field with, say, North Korea. What I do remember is the practical upshot: your wealth, your ability to buy things - food, specifically, the only thing people were buying - was reduced to the amount of cash you had available to you. No credit cards, no ATMs, no way to get more money other than to take it from someone else. I was able to get groceries for a few days for myself and my mother, but beyond that, I had no idea what we could expect.

I woke up feeling uneasy. I wanted to write this down before I forgot.

(One other detail: the trading tables where people could hand over their cash for a box of oatmeal or some cans of food were, for some reason, set up in space commandeered in my house.)

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