By Robert J. LeBlanc

SYNOPSIS

The end of the world came out of nowhere and the fallout continues.

TAGLINE

There is always fallout.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

GEN X: Any gender, Born near 1974. Gen Xer. What­ev­er, you’re the pro­duc­er. Do what you want.

MULTIMEDIA IN PRODUCTION

The mul­ti­me­dia present in this mono­logue, images, and light are sug­ges­tions only. They can be switched to any other sup­port­ing image or elim­i­nat­ed entirely.

At Rise: The stage is set sparse­ly with a simple tat­tered white scrim and a pro­jec­tor center. The pro­jec­tor is shining a pale pink light on the scrim.

GEN X enters and walks to center. The lights turn a sickly green and yellow as a video of a flying US flag plays on the scrim.

GEN X

I sur­vived the apoc­a­lypse. Almost all of us did.

In 1989, the end of the world as we knew it came out of nowhere. None of us were pre­pared for it either.

Well, almost none of us. One day we were sitting in class expect­ing war, turmoil, nuclear anni­hi­la­tion at any moment, then, BOOM!

(The video stops and smash cuts to a bright white light that slowly fades to yellow.)

It was over. Our world was gone. No bright flash of light. No The Day After, no Threads. No birds and snakes or air­planes. No road war­riors or mutant powers. No.

Just peace … and David Hasselhoff. 

(A video of David Has­sel­hoff in his black leather jacket with blink­ing LED lights plays. He’s singing on the Berlin Wall.)

In the non-blind­ing blink of an eye, Mutu­al­ly Assured Destruc­tion was gone. Every­thing changed, moved on, and what came in its place? The Post-Cold War vacuum where the danger of the day com­pris­es random acts of unspeak­able cruelty.

(The video dis­solves between inter­spersed scenes of school shoot­ings, vio­lence, January 6th, wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, our modern dystopia.)

The world as I knew it was gone. I’m just not sure if it was for the better?

(The video dis­solves to images of bell bottoms and avocado green kitchens.)

I was born in the year of the bar code at the begin­ning of the age of excess. All I remem­ber from that time is avocado green and ques­tion­able fashion choices.

I am Gen­er­a­tion X. You know, that gen­er­a­tion between the Boomers and Mil­len­ni­als that the world forgets exists?

(Pro­jec­tion shows famous image listing the gen­er­a­tions and omit­ting Gen X.)

For most in my gen­er­a­tion, it was not a matter of “if” the bombs dropped, it was only a matter of  “when.” We grew up with the fore­gone con­clu­sion that nothing we could do would save us. We were nuclear cynics from birth.

(The pro­jec­tion dis­solves to a warm yellow.)

I hon­est­ly think that’s the big dif­fer­ence between our for­got­ten gen­er­a­tion and Mil­len­ni­als. I think it’s why we’re for­got­ten. As a Gen Xer, the most we were guar­an­teed was a quick death in a nuclear war. We were made no other promis­es and, frankly, dis­trust­ed those who might have made them. When things changed, and pen­sions and job secu­ri­ty were pulled away, we were expect­ing it. Like Lucy with the football.

What­ev­er! We really didn’t lose any­thing. Not like the fol­low­ing gen­er­a­tions did.

The Mil­len­ni­als were raised after the end of the world—after the threat. Their parents found hope for the first time in their lives and tried to pass that on. The Mil­len­ni­als were taught that they were special and worthy, that they actu­al­ly had a future. They were told to follow a certain path to guar­an­tee it be a pros­per­ous one.

And they fell for it.

The same thing that hap­pened to us hap­pened to them. They saw their chance fall to the greed that came before them. They had all of it yanked away. The problem was, they didn’t know enough to expect it. They fol­lowed the path laid before them by their parents and society and are now suffering.

“Welcome to the Amer­i­can Dream! Here’s your life­long debt and no future in which to pay it off.”

They were blamed by the con artists for believ­ing the con.

(The video flashes to a nuclear explosion.)

Fallout.

(The video dis­solves to yellow.)

When the Soviets would inevitably launch, we Gen Xers expect­ed that we would simply cease to be. Or better yet, we would be able to live in a post-apoc­a­lyp­tic Mad Max land of adven­ture, wearing leather jackets and license plate armor. We were one fantasy away from riding with Ookla the Mok.

We were primed to fight along­side rough and tumble nomads with spiked hair, leg warmers, and chain-mail bikinis. Or, if we were exposed to the lin­ger­ing effects of radi­a­tion, we would go bald, grow a few ten­ta­cles, and live as some weird hybrid mutant Troma-style superheroes. 

We learned to roman­ti­cize the coming apoc­a­lypse. We saw it as a release from the dread …

(The video dis­solves to the lights from a spin­ning mirror ball.)

… or at least as an escape from disco.

(The video dis­solves to pink.)

We were pas­sive­ly waiting for the end of the world, as we knew it. When it finally came, it wasn’t any­thing like we expected. 

There were no bombs or radi­a­tion, no hideous mutants, though there were chain-mail bikinis on both men and women. 

Look, the world was ending. We didn’t judge. There were also cel­e­bra­tions, parties, and David Has­sel­hoff dancing on the Wall. 

(The video smash cuts to a picture or video of The Hoff dancing in Berlin, before fading to pink.)

The Cold War ended without a single missile being launched. 

We were lost in a way. We’d been in the exis­ten­tial dread busi­ness so long, when it was over, we needed to rede­fine our­selves. We were a nation of Inigo Mon­toyas and the Six-Fin­gered Man was gone. We had some soul search­ing to do.

Glam bands went out, flannel came in, big hair fell to the hole in the ozone layer, and for some reason chant­i­ng Gre­go­ri­an monks were the next big music sensation. 

(The video flashes, as each is men­tioned, to a montage of glam metal bands, of big hair, the hole in the ozone layer graphic, the cover of a Gre­go­ri­an Chants album.)

We had other things to worry about like the specter of AIDS, the veiled bigotry of family values, Tipper Gore, Parental Warn­ings, and making sure our friends, our family, our­selves, could love who we please without the fear of reprisal.                

Even­tu­al­ly we found a new threat, a new Cobra to our G.I. Joe. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.     

It was every­thing we needed to ride the wave of win. It was a made-for-tele­vi­sion war, hosted by the aptly named Wolf Blitzer, a name straight out of the apoc­a­lyp­tic B Movies we used to fan­ta­size about.

Our new enemy was a former ally when proxy wars were the polit­i­cal chic. It set the theme for the      new gen­er­a­tion of coming bad guys. He was one of the dic­ta­tors we backed back in the day when we took “the enemy of our enemy is our friend” a little too literally. 

Fren­e­mies.

We had plenty. We set the stan­dard of the typical social media influ­encer of today. We showed some skin, made lurid innu­en­do, offered hope, and then ignored our fol­low­ers. We trained them, we used them up, made promis­es we had no inten­tion of keeping, and when the Wall fell, we ghosted them. They were the polit­i­cal equiv­a­lent of a betrayed mistress.

And like all messy breakups there was … well, fallout.

(A still of the USS Cole bombing flashes to a shot of the burning Twin Towers, cutting to a flash of white and then the same nuclear explo­sion as before but muted.)

Regions desta­bi­lized, our modern dystopia of greed grew, and a madman took back Russia.

(The video dis­solves back to the waving US flag.)

Now here we are, full circle, back in the begin­nings of another Cold War. Only this time we have the Internet.

(A quick montage of media runs on the screen.)

I’m not sure that’s better?

(The video flashes white and dis­solves to pink.)

How will this one end?  I don’t know. Maybe nukes, maybe plague, maybe with ninety-nine red bal­loons, maybe nothing? Either way I do know one thing. This time it likely won’t be with peace and David Has­sel­hoff… but at least we escaped disco.

(The video returns to a neg­a­tive image of the flying US flag. As the lights fade to black.)

END OF PLAY

This story orig­i­nal­ly appeared in Stonecoast Review Issue 21. Support local book­sellers and inde­pen­dent pub­lish­ers by order­ing a print copy of the mag­a­zine.

Photo by Gary Yost