From Dystopia to Utopia

There is a small island off the Antarctic mainland where the wind howls. But there was once another more chilling sound here. The walls of Building A wept with the growls of the world's most corrupt politicians.

Criminals and some ex-corporates also lived here. They had been here since doomsday 2023. They spent their days shivering in black second hand coats given to them by the Collective - the good people of the world who survived. Their knees would knock together as they sat on metal seats in recycled op-shop socks and boots.

In life before doomsday, the politicians would spend their evenings drinking Champagne and watching concerts in warm, music-filled auditoriums at the expense of the hardworking people of the Collective. All of whom worked many hours, years, decades and generations, to make their joyous and lavish lives possible. Most people of the Collective lost everything they had achieved. But no one successfully took away their happiness because money was never their higher purpose.

After doomsday, no longer would the corrupt Politicians live the way they did. They were moved into Building A and survived on the frozen porridge cubes they organised for an even more luxurious life. Before doomsday, they had packed this food away for life on other future planets - like Mars.

Typical alliances formed on this Antarctic island.

For example, Crudly, Stainsley and Dusty spent much time together in the running yard, where all detainees ran to stay warm. When they jogged together, the tall, lanky guard in the watchtower, Joe, watched them through binoculars every morning. Of course, he could not make out what they talked about each day. But, he did wonder what they could have to say to each other since their day of reckoning took away the power they abused for so many years.

In the running yard, the exercise itself was not the goal. Two of the men, Crudly and Stainsley, had no love for fitness before the Collective put them here. They were pudgy. Too many chocolate and sticky-date puddings, late-night wine-drinking sessions behind Parliament closed doors, and Chauffeur driven cars had expanded their already thick waistlines.

Dusty, their recruit in the run yard, was different. He didn't mind a run around a track or along a beach. Instead, he preferred to spend time on activities that didn't use up the resources of hardworking people.

Joe, the guard, would often laugh at this scene while enjoying his morning coffee. Crudly and Stainsley reminded him of the monkeys at the circus he went to as a kid back in the seventies. Even on a simple run in a yard, these guys still didn't know what they were doing. They barely pushed out a lap without tripping or clumsily bumping into each other.

Crudly was an ex-politician who paid millions of dollars to corporate friends to build websites for the government. The excessive-tech solutions never worked well. There were always glitches, bugs and crashes. They were useless to people. But he made himself and his friends rich, signing off and taking his cut on these deals. He might have saved much of that government money feeding the homeless and giving those in need a warm bed. But he didn't. He was placed here without his wife Ella and their four children - Bruno (18), Bryce (16), Jenna (10) and Camilla (8). They now lived in Building B, a separate space for women and their children.

Stainsley used to be a high-profile judge - as guilty as the many criminals he pretended to imprison each day. He spent much of his career making sure that horrible monsters made it into nicer prisons, ones with heaters and libraries, where they would attend Pilates classes daily. As a result, the judge saved these criminals from the path of people who could hurt them - like murderers. But, of course, that's if they went to prison at all.

Stainsley once lived alone in an astonishingly beautiful mansion that had a panoramic view of the ocean. He loved to watch the city across the bay through a telescope while drinking whiskey shots and nibbling on caramel popcorn—his favourite sweet treat.

Dusty, on the other hand, was a different case. He was a man with a big heart. He had noble, save-the-world intentions. His invention, which would drastically reduce carbon emissions, led him to create a not-for-profit organisation. He applied for and won government funding to make his dream a reality. But, as the dollars started rolling in and people started surrounding him offering him 'deals', he found himself in deep water. His invention quietly disappeared. He found himself swimming in oceans of corruption. He swam so far from home; he was unable to find his way back. By the time doomsday came - it was too late to explain himself.

Many people on the outside believed Dusty shouldn't have been there. Some people protested. But the decision to put 'all people associated with politicians in a certain category' was a blanket one. Due to the mayhem created by the politicians in the first place, the people believed the clean-up would be more effortless if they mirrored political laws back to the politicians who originally made them.

Mirrored laws seemed like the logical thing to do. Especially since the people of the Collective were time-poor and under-resourced, they didn't have the billions of dollars politicians had at their disposal. They had no room for error. So, every decision had to be correct, precise, effective, affordable and sustainable long term.

Dusty was well aware of the mistakes he'd made. But he couldn't turn back the clock now. Now, he was running laps to keep warm with the very people he should have avoided.

He should have gone with his gut.

The Antarctic building, where Crudly, Stainsley and Dusty lived, was a colossal pre-fab building. It looked impressive due to the aesthetically beautiful yet toxic asbestos cladding. Even though, back before doomsday, it cost the government hundreds of millions of dollars. The walls were thin and without the weather-proofing talked about in media stories the world over. It turned out that these million dollar walls would never keep the people they intended to put there - warm.

Before doomsday, this large detention centre was a place where government decision-makers like Crudly placed refugees. They had escaped hostile environments filled with war and family heartbreak. For instance, Anisah, a Syrian mother, nursed her daughter Calmira here as an infant. Anisah lost her entire family in a civil war. She and her husband, Hanifah, risked the four-month journey overland to save their daughter from the threat of losing their lives. When they finally arrived, the government captured them. They flew the family to the Antarctic island and placed Anisah and Calmira in Building B. They put Hanifah in Building A, where all older men were. Back then, the Politicians told Hanifah he would never see his family again.

So, life in lockdown, for doing nothing wrong, began for Hanifah and his family.

As a refugee in lockdown, Anisah watched Calmira take her first steps from one end of her cell to the other. She taught her daughter to read her first sentence in a book. On Calmira's sixteenth birthday, Anisah gave her a heart-shaped locket, which belonged to Calmira's grandmother. Inside was a picture of her father, Hanifah. It was a picture of him as a young teenager himself.

She watched the sadness in Calmira's eyes on this day as she looked at her father inside this locket. Her eyes were shallow and hopeless. The dark circles under her eyes showed a teen who could see no bright future ahead.

On this sad day, Anisah felt whatever hope she had once held close was gone. She thought of Hanifah, who was also helpless. He cried in his cell on this same day, holding his daughter's heart in his hands in the form of tears. What little power he had to make a life for his family was gone. He could do nothing more to help them. His purpose was lost.

But, here's what both Anisah and Hanifah didn't realise that day.

Love was still there. It still floated in the air in both their cells. It suspended like a helium balloon above that island in the Antarctic. Then, finally, their love reached the mainland. Love floated across the ocean, and finally to the people of the Collective who knew and understood it.

Meanwhile, Crudly, who signed off on the detention centre building, continued to share the same meal every night with Hanifah in Building A. They ate sausages and sloppy mash along with Stainsley and Dusty. And, Anisah and Celmira shared the same meal as Ella, Bruno, Bryce, Jenna and Camilla at the dining hall in Building B.

The politicians and criminals never came together and shared the same table as the refugees. Although, on some days, Calmira and Bruno would sit together and talk for many hours. She would tell Bruno the story of her homeland and show him her father in the locket. Bruno would hang his head in shame. He did not know what to say. He knew none of what happened was his fault, but he still felt part of all of it.

Calmira would sometimes grab Bruno's hand and tell him it would all be ok. She'd reassure him that it wasn't his fault. That together, maybe, they could make life better. They could even escape. They would sit together, often making plans on how they might dig tunnels and run away.

After doomsday 2023, anarchy did not happen the way the Politicians said it might. Nor did the world end the way people said it would. The world Collective started organising itself - and working towards a better world.

They no longer talked of Dystopia. Instead, they worked towards building a new Utopia.

To start with, if a politician asked to see his family, the Collective did as the politicians would have and denied them that request. The fear was that if all politicians asked to see their families, the rest of them would become 'unsettled' and do the same. After doomsday, the people's Collective decided, if the corrupt politicians stayed locked up for a while, whether they were good or bad, this would be for the betterment of all people.

This law was the only 'blanket' decision the Collective ever made. They brought in humanitarian laws. These good survivors worked together on essential projects to organise the planet better. They created new systems to make life fairer, more equitable and foolproof. They changed laws to remove evil and corruption. They worked together to bring back everything that was once good.

Neighbours started peering over fences to check in on the well-being of others. People pulled watering cans out of their garages. Seeds began to arrive in the mail. Gumboots were shaken out and dusted off. Children put down their devices and walked outside into the sun. Parents got off Facebook and called their old friends and the cousins they loved so much as children.

People started writing old-fashioned letters to one another. Books written by the world's oldest souls were dug up and pulled out. Writing and reading groups sprung up everywhere, as did vegetables. The plastic on the planet started to disappear. Single-use bottles were a thing of the past. The turtles in the oceans stopped dying. The Collective released the refugees and gave them citizenship and rights.

In the summer of 2025, the world started to regenerate. The hearts and love of the people returned. Crudly, Stainsley and Dusty rehabilitated. After years, living their laws, they now understood their wrongs. Gardens sprung up everywhere. People never travelled far to find their food. They made soup, cooked from their gardens and new neighbours got to know each other.

In spring 2028, Bruno married Calmira. They had their first child and named her Peace. She received the heart-shaped locket on her first birthday.