Winter Kills
Writing Eating Babies was a real shock for me – I just didn’t know where that story came from.
Here I’ve tried to work backwards – to find out a bit more about the war.
The trouble is that anyone who was capable of explaining it is probably dead by now.
And those still alive have only got their own personal experiences to call upon. Still, here goes…
I was in the basement with Carla when the bombs exploded. Or, should I say, one of the bombs.
I don’t think anyone knows how many bombs were detonated that day.
I don’t think that anyone expected that the five hour war would totally change the way the world worked.
I don’t think that anyone realised that when the radios and telephones stop working, when the hospitals fill up and the drugs run out, when the food runs out…. well then, anyone with a gun becomes a warlord.
Yes, we all saw pictures of the run up to it on the TV. I guess none of us thought that it would go so far. But that was Mogadishu and Somalia, and Iraq and Iran.
It’s different when it’s Basingstoke and Brighton. It really is.
And five hours is all it took. From the chemical bombs in London to the suicide nukes in the States – the world didn’t die from nuclear fallout, just the total breakdown of communication and supply chains.
And, of course, the greed of the survivors and the weakness of those who couldn’t adapt in time.
Winter Kills is published in Different Roads (due to be published in February 2010). To find out more, take a look at… Different Roads
