"Steady, Charlie, old boy! Breathe!"
“The Boomers will be
hunted in the streets by marauding Millennials raised on a diet of electronic
screens and empathy reducing paracetamol. Buy shares in a razor wire factory
would be today’s top tip.”
– Excerpt from a
comment posted on The Daily Blog
THE AGED DEFENDERS HEARD THE MOB before they saw it. The
rhythmic chanting of “Die Boomers, Die!” and “Fee, Fi, Foe, Fum – we smell the
blood of Boomer scum!” Moments later they were shielding their eyes from the
sun-bright twinkle of a thousand smart-phone flashes. The Millennials were
advancing up the road, taking selfies as they came.
“Any sign of the Police?” Charlie Watson spoke into his own
cell-phone, as the mob of Millennials flowed up-to-and-around the
razor-wire-topped, four-metre-high walls of the retirement village.
“Not yet, Charlie. Their dispatcher says that ours isn’t the
only village under attack tonight. Word is that the Restful Gardens complex is also under attack.”
“Really? I didn’t think these kids were that stupid. Don’t they realise that its full of the parents of
Chinese Gen-Xers? The Consulate won’t wait for the Police. The latest revision
of the Chinese-New Zealand FTA allows the People’s Republic to use deadly force
against anyone threatening the lives or property of Chinese nationals.”
“Yes, people are already tweeting that the Consulate’s
helicopter gunships are strafing the crowds. Scores of casualties, apparently.”
Charlie sighed. “When will they ever learn?”
Suddenly, the air was filled with the sound of a screaming
car engine. The Millennial sea parted as the electronically-guided vehicle made
for the village’s steel gates at top speed.
“Driverless rammer!” Charlie yelled into his cell-phone.
“Take it out, Bill! Take it out!”
Bill Ramsden squeezed the trigger of his 50-calibre
machine-gun and watched as the explosive rounds tore the car to a thousand
pieces. A great wail went up from the Millennials as the petrol tank exploded
in a searing fireball.
As if in sympathy, scores of Molotov Cocktails arced through
the air. In seconds the village’s prize-winning rose-gardens were ablaze.
“Bastards!” Charlie shouted, as his precious blooms burned.
Blood-pressure rising dangerously, the old Baby Boomer
jammed the butt of his sniper-rifle into his shoulder. His rheumy eye, pressed
to the scope, followed the bouncing laser dot as it traversed the bodies
seething beneath him.
Confronted with their magnified faces, a pang of guilt
tightened his throat. They were all so young: burdened down with debts they
could never hope to discharge; eking out a precarious living as gig-geeks;
cooped-up in the high-rise slums of the Unitary Plan’s sixteenth iteration.
These kids could barely afford to eat – let alone equip themselves with the
sort of high-powered weaponry authorised by the Boomer-dominated government
after the first Millennial hunting-packs had left dozens of elderly bodies
strewn along suburban streets.
Remembering the fear and outrage that had swept the country
after the first attacks, Charlie hardened his heart and brought the laser-dot
to rest on the “Non-Voting and Proud!” T-shirt of a bearded hipster working
furiously to haul away a dislodged coil of razor-wire. Gripped firmly between
his teeth was the Millennial killers’ weapon-of-choice – a wicked-looking
hunting knife.
“Steady, Charlie, old boy!”, he muttered to himself.
“Breathe!” The laser-dot moved steadily upwards and came to rest in the middle
of the hipster’s forehead. Charlie’s finger tightened on the trigger.
It was only in the split second between the explosive crack
of the rifle and the young man’s skull exploding, that Charlie recognised the
face of his grand-son.
This short story was
originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Sunday, 4 December 2016.
