Apocalypse on our stoeps

Being a huge fan of post-apocalyptic movies, I sometimes wonder whether I have it in me to be the hero, should the world I live in collapse. Could I be a Tom Cruise and save my family from an alien invasion? Would I be able to not only survive, but destroy the living dead like Brad Pitt? I know for sure I can’t be the Arnold that saves mankind from a future AI-villain.

Oddly, the apocalypse scenario is usually created by aliens, a nuclear disaster or war, a virus, or zombies. And it inevitably happens on a global scale. But it can also happen on a much smaller scale.

Think about events like the 1981 Laingsburg flood, or the 1994 war in Rwanda.

For the people involved, it was an apocalypse.

The closest I have come to a world-ending event was when load shedding was introduced.

At first, I was in denial. Typical reaction.

But after the first few days, when the gravity of it all hit me like a hammer on the forehead, I went big.

Candles, torches, rechargeable batteries, two-plate gas camping stove. I even installed a skottel braai in the kitchen.

But the wheels of commerce turned very quickly and within weeks generators were flooding the market, followed by rechargeable lights that automatically switch on when the power goes off, solar panels, inverters, deep cycle batteries and a host of other gadgets.

Well, 16 years later, and 16 presidential promises to end load shedding later, we are at stage six.

The generators now start themselves, the television and decoder are on an inverter so we don’t miss a second of Uzalo and the skottel braai has made way for a state-of-the-art gas stove.

I’m the hero. Finish and klaar. For now.

But in the past couple of days, I have been wondering what will become of us if the power does go off permanently, for months.

There’s a big difference between no electricity for six hours a day and no electricity at all, indefinitely.

Somehow, I get this horrible feeling that we are much closer to an apocalypse than we want to admit.

Shortages of fuel and food could become an overnight reality.

The big question is whether that will result in a shortage of our humanity.