A Lawless Utopia

06:08: Miss Perkins calls me from her cell phone, complaining the carrier has cut her off for paying her bill 2 days late – 6 years ago! “Don’t worry,” I reassure her, “I’ll sue the living daylights out of them.”

06:14: On the way from the bedroom to the bathroom, I freeze as I realize that I’ve made a promise I won’t be able to keep. Nobody sues anybody, only in Kangaroo Court, because law and order has broken down as of midnight.

08:08: Two debt collectors arrive at my doorstep with a warrant to impound my Jaguar. I tell them to get lost, that warrant isn’t worth the piece of paper it’s printed on. The short guy starts giggling, the tall one with the dark sunglasses doesn’t even smile but makes a loud whistling sound between two fingers. A car pulls up to the driveway, four armed guys step out. A tow truck arrives, I hand over the car keys to the tall fellow, then hurry back inside for a few slices of toast.

08:32: No juice, no toast. The power company has my money, but they’ve introduced rolling blackouts it seems, and I’m first in line. I head out in the bathroom for a manual shave.

09:45: Morning traffic is dense as ever, nobody seems to be behaving different, except the carpool lane is stuffed with vehicles and has become the slowest of them all. Not a patrol car in sight. I turn on the car radio, pull out the cigarette lighter, and inject a charger for my mobile toaster.

10:30: Traffic has come to a standstill. Four or five vehicles have pulled off the curb, there must have been some sort of accident. It’s serious from the looks of it, there’s a small white Hyundai with a blackened front end, windows smashed. I stretch my neck to see if someone is lying down on the pavement, then I see a man approaching with what looks like a huge hammer. A knife blade glimmers in the sunlight, then gunshots ring through the air, momentarily overwhelming the noise of hundreds of idle vehicles.

10:45: I’m all locked down inside my vehicle, crumbs of toast on my pants. It’s getting hot in here, the air conditioning unable to cope and producing little more than an unpleasant smell. It’s neither sweet nor sour, I hate that smell, which reminds me of an execution.

11:14: I’m on the phone with my boss, who tells me that I shouldn’t sweat it, they won’t be needing me until next week. I can hear something is wrong, I’m in charge of their insurance claims department. Oh dear! No laws, no courts, no insurance, these jerks will be laughing all the way to the bank.

11:45: I’ve just sold my BMW to a stranger for 1,800 dollars in cash. I cross the freeway very slowly and carefully, crawl up the hill, and head towards a distant horizon of fields and shattered farms.