By John S.
In 1968, a handful of lucky little mice were placed into a tiny mouse city designed to give them everything they could ever possibly need. They had an endless supply of fresh grub pouring out of little rodent fast food joints, clean flowing city water from the tap, and endless rows of free housing. Towering brick row-homes formed the four walls of their miniature paradise. The one thing missing was an escape.
Imagine yourself standing in the center of the Utopia as society breaks down. Who or what do you become as society, in a perfect world, descends into a living hell?
The Alpha Male
Does that sound like you? Do you get the girl, make the babies, show the other gents what’s what? Before you get too comfortable in your role as top Mouse, there are a few things you might want to take into account: With no roads out of town and no neighboring cities to visit, all the competition has nowhere to go. You’ll be sharing the streets, the bars and your apartment building with all of your challengers. You spend all of your time fighting for your place, you stop going home, and you’re beaten and bloodied from constant street battles.
The Mommy Mouse
These are the mice stuck at home raising the kids. Abandoned by their husbands, they have to go it alone. Struggling to get the little ones to behave, they resort to violence for discipline and punishment, all of which creates a culture of violent behavior in the following generations. The kids are not alright and mum is stressed way out. The babies aren’t her only problem, as with her man gone, the rapey mice are a real threat; moving down the block can’t save you.
The Losers
So what’s left? Well the losers of the dating game have decided that since they can’t get the girl (and are tired of getting beaten up) they will join a street gang. They claim their turf and lump together in their new territory. As it turns out, power in numbers isn’t all that great–the mice scrap with each other constantly. Although they might not be living the life they dreamed of, they still have each other, even if their ears and tails have been chewed off by their bros.
The Beautiful Ones
There is one group that I can really personally relate to. They call themselves: the Beautiful Ones. These guys and gals at some point decided they didn’t want anything to do with society. They holed themselves up in their condos and spent the end of the world eating the free grub, drinking the free water and grooming themselves. You might be all alone in there but you look great, no bites, no blood, and your hipster beard is immaculate. Sigh, not too bad if you don’t mind the isolation.
Buildings are left abandoned, the populations begins to dwindle.
Maybe John Calhoun’s failed Mouse Utopia experiment doesn’t reflect the world we live in. Maybe people wouldn’t fall apart and become violent when trapped in a city with no chance of success or achievement, forced to live off of government handouts because there is no other opportunity or way out. Then again, maybe some of us are already living that nightmare.
Time Demise Trivia 