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Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY
IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I
generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family
rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to
write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote,
website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will
simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test
or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes
of them.
SF Trope: Post-cataclysmic
rag-tag armies struggle to kick [some bad guy] out of the good ol' US of A
Salvador Cadenas
de la Parras screamed, “¡joda la tierra!”;
he also cursed the sky and the very air he breathed. He threw his hat over the
cliff and cursed an invisible America two thousand kilometers to the north.
Yomery Kauam
smiled, shook her head then laughed, saying, “If only you’d have expressed you
passion to the Commander in Chief, you’d be on Haitian and Dominican soil at
this moment, smashing through that pestilential wasteland on your way to
Florida. Instead, you’re here, throwing your hat over a cliff into the bright
morning sun.”
Sal spun around,
cursed her, fixing her with as fierce a glare as he could. “I wanted to be
there!”
Yomery shook her
head, “You didn’t want to be there – you wanted to be a hero with El
Presidente’s medallion on your chest and women on your arms.” She gestured to
the far-away target. “Invading America today is nothing at all like invading it
forty years ago!”
“It’s the same!”
Yomery headed back
down the hill. Sal ran after her, grabbed her shoulder. She grabbed his hand,
stopped and let gravity and mass work together to flip him over her shoulder.
Keep her hand firmly on his wrist, she pulled him back toward herself until he
came to a sudden, breathless stop on his back, at her feet. She leaned over,
kissed his nose and said, “Let’s talk when you calm down, OK?”
She scramble down
the trail, listening carefully to make sure she hadn’t broken anything
important on Sal. When she heard him groan and scramble to his feet, she headed
to the monitor bunker they’d been sharing since Venezuela had launched its
preemptive attack against what had formerly been the glorious US of A. She’d
been born there in the Decadent Decade just before the Fizzle. The one-time
world power was now reduced to planning invasions of one-time failed countries like
Venezuela...
Sal limped up
beside her and said, “¿Por qué hizo usted
esto?”
She replied in
unaccented American English, “Because you tried to bully me.”
“I...I...I...”
“You should
practice your English, Sal. We may not be in on the real invasion, but the
occupation of America should keep us busy for…oh, the next decade.”
“America might...”
“America’s not
going to do anything except surrender.”
He stared at her
and said, “Haven’t you ever watched the Mad
Max movies?”
“I don’t see what
some ancient, flat, American movie...”
“It has everything
to do with this whole invasion! We may be strong; we may be brave, but the
Americans have corazón profundo.”
“What’s that
supposed to mean?”
“They have a deep
spirit when they’re forced into a corner.”
She pursed her
lips, glanced north in the direction of the legendary “land of the free and the
home of the brave” and said, “That may be true, but I’ve heard that El Presidente
has a surprise up his sleeve for the Americans.” Sal ran up behind her, reached
to grab her arm then jerked his hand back. Without turning around, she said,
“Let’s just say that Americans may have a history of resisting oppressors –
Brazilians have a history of subverting
our oppressors.”
References: http://www.mrqe.com/lists/post-apocalyptic-movies/cinemas-best-to-worst-postapocalyptic-movies
Names: ♀ Venezuela
(both); ♂ Venezuela (both)
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