In 1957, Nevil Shute's 'post-apocalyptic' novel, On the Beach, was published. It was popular enough at the time to spawn a big star movie two years later. I saw the movie and and read the book. Its theme deeply impressed me. What was left of civilization was waiting in a momento mori world. There had been a nuclear bomb exchange between Albania and Italy, then Egypt bombed America and Britain. The Soviets were blamed. NATO bombed the Soviets and as part of its general retaliation, the Soviets bombed Red China because they had simultaneously invaded their Russian border. The whole mess began foolishly like 'The War to End All Wars' and this time it did.In the aftermath, the Northern Hemisphere was wiped out either by bombs or cobalt enhanced radiation fallout from the bombs. Places like the major cities were destroyed. The Golden Gate Bridge had fallen as seen by a lone surviving US Nuclear submarine. The Southern Hemisphere was not destroyed by nuclear bombs, but it was slowly being killed off by the nuclear fallout drifting south as it flowed and concentrated with the wind patterns.
Most of the tale takes place in Melbourne, Australia. It is on the southern most tip of the island continent. Its geographic location has allowed it to survive, but its radiation levels are increasing daily. They are on the last tip of civilization and are awaiting their inevitable reckoning.We, today, are hunkered down in place, wearing masks, limited in our movements and marshaled by our governments who mostly seem to stabbing in the dark for solutions. We are "On the Beach" so to speak. We await what, by chance, may be potentially inevitable. Our potentially deadly predicament is not nuclear fallout, but viral fallout. Like the cobalt enhanced radiation in the novel, our viral fallout came manmade from a laboratory near Wuhan, China. It was developed as part of the experiments in the Chinese Institute of Virology. Unfortunately for the world, the Communist Chinese, as are all Communists, sinister. Whether by accident or by design, their strain of the Chinese-Virus escaped into the Wuhan region. Its virulent nature spread rapidly into a pandemic. Being central planners and totalitarians, they covered up their outbreak for months until it got out of hand and spread to the rest of the world.
Now we wait, hoping the pandemic will subside enough for the working world to return to, at least in part, making a living.
As with the Spanish Flu in 1917-1918, the Chinese Flu could return after its initial contraction, when or if that comes. Fortunately death is fractional with the virus.
But still, as for now, we are on the beach.
