Imagine you are chilling to Netflix on your 65-inch smart tv on a peaceful Saturday night. The air-conditioning is probably turned on (it’s about 27-30deg C on average here in the evening) and your legs are tucked cozily. Perhaps also your fingers and lips are crusty with salted egg potato chips (Hey IRVINS #dangerouslyaddictive!). Perfect way to wind down on a weekend.
Vecna is about to snap a poor boy’s head off when all the lights in your home abruptly go out, the whirring of your air-conditioning unit stopped. The only sounds punctuating the awkward silence come from you, your family and your neighbours in the estate – the grunts from the unwelcomed interruption.
The city has plunged into darkness! You can see ghastly faces floating in the apartment blocks opposite, starkly lit by their mobile screens. Like you, some of them are probably searching on Twitter or Whatsapp or Instagram or Tiktok, blessed by 4G/5G data (but for how long?), for some enlightenment. You feel your skin crawl. Your mobile phone shows less than 50% battery. You don’t know yet the withdrawal effects from technology and social media will manifest itself in minutes once your gadgets run out of juice.
You find out from social media minutes later that your homeland is under a sort of elaborate cyber-attack. Those you’ve only seen on Netflix. Some nefarious group has hacked into the public and private systems that govern all essential services and supplies. The entire internet network quickly becomes jammed by the juggernaut. It’s the modern day catastrophe for a populace brought up on reliable infrastructure; high penetration of ultra-fast fibre broadband; a stable government and structured education that have planned everything so seamlessly and ‘future-proofed’ our infrastructure and mindsets that our lives hum along to the waves of the internet and are wrapped around our gadgets.
Now everything ceases. Though your mind is in an overdrive.
There seems to be a growing dread in you. You suppress it by formulating a plan in your mind to tide through ‘the next few hours’. You optimistically remind yourself that your city is best known for its efficiency and ingenuity of our leaders and talents in resolving problems. This is no exception. You squash that nagging thought that no one here would have expected or planned for an elaborate fall-off-the-grid kind of attack. It’s simply not possible. Because it has never happened before. Must be some conspiracy theory. ACTUAL news will be out soon. Remember? We are about facts and statistics. ‘Trust the science’. None of our scholars have prepared a report to advise our policy and decision makers on the risk of the entire Lion City being thrown into a Faraday’s prison. Because it has never happened before. It’s not supposed to happen. It’s unfathomable.
So what do you do?
You can stave off the inevitable but you can’t stop it. You are powerless (pun-intended). Remember? Your life revolves around your gadgets and the Internet.
So you try to go to sleep. The silence is so loud that it keeps you up.
You tirelessly toss and turn in bed. You think about the innumerable solar panels strategically installed islandwide. The nation has been planning for alternative energy strategies. We are not powerless. You decide that when the sun rises, that’s when the dawn comes. Our nation may be small but it is resilient. Rather than just semantics to rally a nation of people, now will be the time for us to pitch in to keep the show on the road.
The story was inspired by a conversation with someone where I was asked ‘What will you do when Apocalypse strikes?’ This has NEVER been a moot point for me, being in such a blessed state. But I recognise that, also affirmed by a few living in locations rocked with increasing uncertainties, the thought of having their lives turned topsy-turvy in an instant has crossed their minds more often these days – their families have come up with a ‘What to do’ in the 24h once the lights go out.
Something to ponder on. Love and light to you.
[Leave me a comment if you do have a plan. Would love to hear from you.]
