My favorite genre of book to read is dystopian. There’s something exciting reading about the collapse of society, whether it be from drought, pestilence, political upheaval, climate change, zombie outbreak, robot takeover or even alien invasion.
I love reading how the protagonist overcomes obstacles, how they make it out of tough scrapes and survive another day in a hostile environment. They run for miles, they barely eat, they can’t find water, they must fight for their lives with tooth and claw. I love finding out what they are going to do next.
But in real life, nothing could be further from my bucket list than being someone who “survives” some terrible circumstance. Some people love to prep for calamity, buying enough canned food and water for the Armageddon, practicing their shooting and knife-throwing abilities, killing and dressing animals for fun, learning how to build a fire and survive without electricity and running water.
Not me. I won’t even go camping. If there’s not a flushable toilet in sight, count me out.
I don’t want to sleep on the ground. I don’t want to be sore in places that I didn’t even know I had. I can get a crick in my neck just napping on my couch. Laying on the hard ground is basically a death wish for me.
I remember reading the book “Hatchet” by Gary Paulsen as a kid. If you’re not familiar with the story, a 13-year-old boy is the sole survivor of a small aircraft crash in the Canadian wilderness. He has to build his own shelter, make fire, find his own food and spends much of the book being bitten by bugs, getting sunburned and being miserable in about every way possible.
Imagining that situation happening to me sent shivers up my spine far more than any Goosebumps or Fear Street book I ever read.
I’m a creature of comfort, and I am not embarrassed to admit it. I like reading my books, crocheting in front of a cozy fireplace, listening to music and watching a movie on my couch with a bowl of microwave popcorn. If the power in my house goes out for more than a week, I’m going to start reviewing my will. I simply do not have a survival instinct.
In some dystopian books, the characters end up being put into a fight-to-the-death competition. If I were the protagonist in one of these stories, the book would have been a pamphlet. Fight for my life? I won’t even fight for a good parking space. Give me those poisoned berries ASAP, Katniss.
If I found myself in a “Cast Away” situation, you wouldn’t find me slowly descending into madness talking to a volleyball. I’d be chugging seawater before I got my first sunburn.
Even a snakes-on-a-plane scenario might have me voluntarily opening the emergency exit mid-flight to see myself out.
In other dystopian books, people end up in groups according to their personality traits, whether they are hard working, brave, smart or kind. The protagonist is typically someone from the “brave” category. Not me. You’re telling me I need to jump off a moving train and chance getting shot to carry out some half-baked rescue mission? Heck no. I would never risk breaking my legs in a world where access to hospital care does not exist. Put me in whatever faction stays back at headquarters tidying up the rubble and preparing the vat of gruel for our evening meal.
I can hardly imagine any sort of calamity where I’d be willing to fight to survive in whatever terrible version of the world is left in the aftermath.
If I get one whiff of a zombie, I’ll be offing myself before you can say “apocalypse.” Realistically, do I want to live in a world where I’m hiding out in an abandoned warehouse huddling near a flaming barrel of trash and biding my time until I’m bitten to death? I accidentally bite the inside of my cheek at least once a month, and it ruins my whole day. I certainly would not thrive in a time where not only do I have the constant threat of being eaten alive, but I also have to think about them ruining my outfit with their viscous black mouth goo. Then I also have to keep track of where I put my blunt object for bludgeoning, as if I don’t have enough going on. And do I really want, “Wow, these zombies have some stank breath,” to be my last living thought? Pass.
If a little green man shows up on my doorstep demanding for me to “Take me to your leader,” I’m going to say, “Look in the mirror, homie. You’re my new boss now!” We’ve got an awful lot of problems on this planet. If these big-headed UFO drivers want to take a crack at being in charge, I say good luck to them. I will not stand in their way. If they’re smart enough to have figured out intergalactic travel, maybe they can whip us into shape. Or at least get us flying cars. I just hope Duolingo starts offering a course on learning Martian.
Same for a robot revolution. It’s probably for the best. Beep boop, yes sir, whatever you say, Emperor Zler7x.
Now, part of me does like the idea of being turned into a vampire so I’d have centuries of time to finish my “to be read” list of books. Being a ginger, I’m fairly adept at avoiding sunlight. But is life really worth living if I can’t drink an iced coffee or eat ice cream? It’s debatable.
At the end of the day, I’ve had a great run at life. I’ve had a million great experiences, and I hope to have a million more. But, if the day comes where my choices are to die in a nuclear blast or to live in a bunker for the next couple of decades eating canned beans and smelling my own farts, I’ll take the blast, thank you very much.