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He lay face-down on the beach at the foot of a s down upon hirass at the top of the dune bent its spikes in a stiff breeze, but down here all was calull&039;s cry to break in upon the lulling hush, hush of waves froht, to run down the beach and splash in the sea, and co it on his lips, and for the very briefest of ain in a world with a future But the sun beat down froreat drowsiness was upon him

Thena disturbance Blown on the breeze to cli like a bird with broken wings, a slihts and measures on the back - flopped down exhausted in the sand before his eyes Disinterested, he found strength to push it away; but as his fingers touched it so its cover blew open to reveal pages written in a neat if shaky adult longhand

He had nothing else to do, and so began to read

When did it begin? Where? How? Why?

The Martians weenough with their tales of invasion froh threats from our Comrades across the water But this?&039;

&039;Any ordinary sort of plague, ould survive We always have in the past And as for war: Christ! - when has there not been a war going on somewhere? They&039;ve irradiated us in Japan, defoliated us in Vietnam, smothered us in DDT wherever ere arable and poured poison into us where we once floeet and clean - and ays bounced right back

&039;Fire and flood - even nuclear fire and festering effluent -have not appreciably stopped us For

"They" read "We", Man, and for "Us" read "the World", this Earth which once was ours Yes, there have been strange years, but never a one as strange as this

&039;A penance? The ultiive us a hand? Perhaps she&039;s stood off, watching us try our da to exterminate ourselves, and now She&039;s sick to death of the whole daives the nod to Her Brother, the Old Boy with the scythe And He sighs and steps forward, and-

&039;And it is a plague of sorts; and certainly it is DOOM; and a fire that rages across the world and devours all Or will that coht phoenix shall rise again? There will always be the sea And how rows lungs, jumps up on its feet and walksand reaches for a club?

&039; When did it begin?

T remember an Irish stoker who came into a bar dirty and drunk His sleeves were rolled up and he scratched at hairy arht, sur," he said, "an&039; hotter by far down below - an&039; lousy!" He unrolled a newspaper on the bar and vigorously brushed at his s fell on to the newsprint and arette "Crabs, sur!" he cried "An&039; Christ - they suck like crazy!" &039;

&039;When?&039;

&039;There have always been strange years - plague years, drought years, war and wonder years - so it&039;s difficult to pin it down But the last twenty yearsthey have been strange When, exactly! Who can say? But let&039;s give it a shot Let&039;s start with the &039;70s - say, &039;76? - the drought

&039;There was so little water in the Tha backwards The militants blamed the Soviets Neere introduced to conserve water People were taken to court for watering flowers Some idiot calculated that a pound of excreta could be satisfactorily washed aith six pints of water, and people put bricks in their WC cisterns Someone else said you could bathe comfortably in four inches of water, and if you didn&039;t use soap the resultantsnowballed into a national can to "Save It!" - and in October the skies were still cloudless, the earth parched, and imported raine Forest and heath fires were daily occurrences and reservoirs became dustbowls Sun-worshippers drank Coke and turned very brown

&039;And finally it rained, and it rained, and it rained Widespread flooding, rivers bursting their banks, gardens (deprived all summer) inundated and washed away Millions of tons of water, and not a pound of excreta to be disposed of A strange year, &039;76 And just about every year since, come to think

&039;77, and stories leak out of the Ukraine of fifty thousand square le week Since then the spread has been very slow, but it hasn&039;t stopped The Russians bla a secret weapon

"79 and &039;80, and oil tankers sinking or grounding the oil slicks and chemicals jettisoned at sea, and whales washed up on the beaches, and Greenpeace, and the Japanese slaughtering dolphins Another drought, this tiue ofthat "The poor &039;roos are dying in their thousands - and a few aboes, too" And great green swarht with ladybirds

&039;Lots of plagues, in fact We were being warned, you see?

&039;And &039;84! Ah - 1984! Good old George!

&039;He rong, of course, for it wasn&039;t Big Brother at all It was Big Sister - Ma Nature Herself

And in 1984 She really started to go off the rails &039;84 was half of India eaten by locusts and all of Africa doith a mutant strain of beriberi &039;84 was the year of the poisoned potatoes and sinistral periwinkles, the year it rained frogs over wide areas of France, the year the cane-pest shot sugar beet right up to the top of the crops