Being inspired, maybe – 21

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A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.  For instance:


And, then, the words:
There's a storm coming and in more ways than one.

 It wasn't just the overcast sky, the threat of impending rain, or the scudding black clouds being pushed across the sky by a foul wind, it was more than that.

 Was it the atmospherics that was creating a feeling of impending doom, that judgment day was upon us?

 It felt like it.

 The country's political system was in disarray, with politicians arguing among themselves rather than running the country.  It was far easier to lay blame than it was to try and fix the problem.

 The banks had finally been found out, accused of and charged with practices that beggared belief.  There had been a run on one bank, and it was predicted there would be more.

 The electrical grid was slowly collapsing through lack of infrastructure updates and additions, and the lack of interest in creating renewable energy such as wind farms solar farms was coming back to bite the government.

 Three weeks, it had been said, three weeks ago, that sanity would prevail, and then when systems started to break down, like transportation, food supplies, on top of the scarcity of petrol, society would start to break down.

 Fights were happening at petrol stations and supermarkets, systematic blackouts were getting longer, schools were shut down as public transport succumbed to the fuel crisis.

 What happened to cause all of this?

 A so-called deranged commander of a submarine fired a torpedo into a very large oil tanker that effectively blocked the use of the Strait of Hormuz.  No ships in, no ships out, no oil, and a lot of international wrangling over who was to blame.  With it came the sabotage of several important pipelines.

 It wasn't going to be a meteor that would destroy the earth as we knew it.

 It wasn't going to be a pre-emptive nuclear attack by some rogue nation.

 It was going to be human stupidity.

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