I am privileged to be a player in David Edelstein’s message board game based on Steven King’s The Stand, running on the message boards of Dreamlyrics.
Currently the game has reached the stage where everyone is dying, and civilisation is collapsing. Despite all this doom and gloom, the last line of the most recent GM post I received. My character, Ivor Tregonning, decided to spend the last hours of civilisation reading usenet. But read the last paragraph!!
The newsgroups are now full of desperation, prayers, and raving. Someone is suggesting Britain should launch its nuclear warheads at America, in an act of dying vengeance. As lunatical as that sounds, a lot of people seem to think it’s a good idea. But most are just terrified and grief-stricken as the “American Flu” works its way through Britain, the Reaper’s swath cutting people down by the thousands, soon to be millions.
There are rumors the government has a vaccine. There are rumors spreading that all manner of things — high dosages of antibiotics, ultraviolet rays, crystals, freezing temperatures, heroin — will protect you from death by flu virus. There are rumors that China has detonated nuclear warheads over its own cities trying to burn away the epidemic. There are rumors that the Queen is already dead, and that Tony Blair and George Bush have been whisked away to a secret flu-free base in Antarctica.
And through it all, spambots continue posting messages about penis enlargement pills and a chance to help pilfer the coffers of third world nations with the help of former heads of state.
Yes, if a virus really did wipe out mankind, I can still imagine spammers send out their bottom feeding sales pitches right up to the bitter end. Spam and cockroaches will inherit the earth!
