The world, a roach motel with neon vacancy signs flickering like dying hopes. The world, a scrapyard flung across a black rubber sky. Humanity, a million grease-stained fingers scrounging through the wreckage. Divided? You bet your sweet ass it is. Three main factions, clawing their way out of the smoking crater of the American Dream. Three breeds scuttle for purchase. The Survivalists, Bug-eyed cockroaches in mirrored shades, living out of fallout shelters they built in their parents’ basements all jittery muscles and canned beans, eyes scanning for the roach leg in the alphabet soup.
Bunkers in the Ozarks, huddled in bunkers built from paranoia and scrap metal, hoarding canned beans and assault rifles wired tight as a tick, eyes darting like cornered rats shotguns cradled like lullabies, paranoia a flickering oil lamp in the long night of their anxieties. Qaiting for the inevitable thud of boots on pavement. They see the world as a dog-eat-dog meat grinder, and they’re strapped in, teeth bared, ready to chomp down on the next sucker who wanders by. Every shadow a government agent, every rustle of leaves the mutant hordes.
Then there’s the Revivalists, Wide-eyed rubes in white linen robes, babbling about a Second Coming and the power of positive vibes. Faces pale and sweaty, twitching with suppressed hysteria. They clump together in megachurches repurposed from shopping malls or geodesic domes in the desert, chanting and juicing kale, waiting for the skies to split open and beam them up to a Celestial Costco., pumping themselves full of feel-good piety and apocalyptic pronouncements. Waiting for the Rapture to punch their ticket, or the comet, or whatever flavor of Deus Ex Machina their brand of snake oil peddles faces contorted in a rictus of ecstatic dread. Tongues lolling, eyes squeezed shut, sweaty palms clutching bibles hollowed out for bullets, their god a cranky vending machine dispensing pronouncements of damnation. Bereft of reason, clinging to fairytales woven from fear.
Last, the Cynics. Weary cockroaches with deadpan stares, laughter rattling in their chests like loose screws. They see the whole thing as a cosmic joke, a rigged carnival rigged by carnies with bad toupees. The Survivalists are clowns, the Revivalists are marks, and they’re the jaded carnies, hawking existential dread and stale popcorn from a booth that leans a little too much to the left. They see the game for the rigged carnival it is, the clowns all politicians, the Ferris wheel a loop of dead ends. But play they must, these jaded carnies, hawking existential ennui with a smirk, their pockets lined with the crumpled dollars of despair.
We laugh, a harsh rasping wheeze echoing in the hollow emptiness. Scrape by on dregs and apathy, the fuel of our jaded existence. No illusions to blind us, just the cold truth like a razor blade against our chests. We see the game rigged, the house always winning, and the only escape a terminal dose of oblivion.
The world, a three-ring circus of desperation. Survivalists twitching, Revivalists babbling, Cynics chuckling – all waltzing to the death knell of a dying planet. The air thick with the stench of fear and gasoline, the only flag we all fly.
Survivalists build their arks, Revivalists babble in tongues, and the Cynics? They light up cigarettes and watch the whole damn circus burn, a bittersweet smile twisting their lips.
But here’s the rub: the lines are blurry. The Survivalist stockpiles ammo while humming revival hymns. The Revivalist chants about reaping a bountiful harvest while secretly stockpiling MREs. The Cynic sells smutty postcards with pictures of alien anal probes while secretly prepping a fallout shelter of their own, just in case.
They all see the world ending, just in different flavors. The Survivalists see it as a fiery apocalypse. The Revivalists see it as a Rapture. The Cynics see it as a whimper, a slow fade to black as humanity chokes on its own exhaust fumes.
But hey, maybe that’s all part of the joke. Maybe the world isn’t ending, it’s just…changing. Metamorphosis on a cosmic scale. And maybe, just maybe, these three fractured factions are the building blocks of something new. A post-apocalyptic, kale-eating, cynically spiritual future. Or maybe they’re all just bugs on a windshield, hurtling towards a reality they can’t even conceive of. Doesn’t really matter, does it? Just keep turning the crank, folks. The ride ain’t slowing down anytime soon.