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Thursday, February 18, 2016 

He told us so.

The year is 2046.  30 years have passed since the great cataclysm, since the nuclear fire consumed so much of the globe.  Billions died.  Few survived.  Even fewer are alive now, as the Earth begins to repair itself.

Exterior: a lone cottage on the moor, which somehow escaped unscathed and still now stands, indefatigable.  Smoke rises from the chimney.  The windows are whitewashed out.  A bag hangs from the door knocker; through a slight hole the outlines of a dead rat's frozen face can be seen.

Interior: the only sources of light are the fire and a small oil lamp.  A table with four chairs stands in the middle of the kitchen.  Animal furs adorn the walls.  A skinned rodent lies on the draining board of the sink, where the tap drips a brown viscous fluid, clearly undrinkable.  As the camera pans we now also see that on the table is a all but worn-out typewriter, with a heavily marked piece of paper inserted in it.

Suddenly, one of the two doors also in view opens.  Through it shuffles an emaciated, wizened old man.  He is wearing what looks to be the entire pelt of a sheep, complete with the creature's eerily grinning skull on top of his own head.  His eyes are clouded, his lips shrunken and cracked, and he has not shaved in a very long time.  Hair peeks from out of his ears, nose.  He sniffs, then sits down at the table.

He peers at the typewriter, as though he cannot believe what he's about to do.  He contemplates, pulls at his curly, pure white beard, and water wells in his eyes.  Slowly, but certainly, he bangs at the keys, although we cannot yet see what it is he's typing.

Then he stops.  He pulls the paper out of the mechanism and stares at it.  Only now does a smile come across his face, and we see that he has only three teeth left of what was once a full set.

The camera focuses on the paper.  Although the ink has long since been used up, a faint imprint of the letters has been embellished on the material.  "WHY I'M STILL RIGHT, 40 YEARS ON", runs the legend.  On the next line reads "THE LEGACY OF THE EUSTON MANIFESTO".  After a gap of two further lines, "BY NICK COHEN".

The old man threads the paper back into the typewriter, and gets down to work.

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I want to laugh at this but a part of my brain tells me, sadly and irritably, that this is exactly how such a scenario would play out.

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