Limited supply

Limited supply

Set the scene

I am Sam, a friend from a city far south and in six months I will report back to my city about the problems people in Carbo are facing. I specifically centre my attention on my new friend roger and his family and the history of Carbo since the fighters arrived.

Roger and his daughter jo, live in a 12 floor tower block in the bustling city of Carbo, they live on the 11th floor and in the small three bedroom flat with them live roger’s, two brothers who are both suffering from spot syndrome and his mother and father who are both bed-ridden and live in the big double bed in the largest of the bedrooms, jo is the only other person who has an actual bed that is hers, the other bedroom doesn’t have any beds because they sold it for money. Instead roger and his brothers sleep on the floor.

Electricity and the fighters

The problem with Carbo was that though it was once a nice city when roger first moved here, since the fighters had arrived, everything has gone down hill from there on. The fighters are two giants the size of buildings and one day 5 years ago they landed from space and continue what roger has only known as the fight. The city tried to stop and the army came in for a while until they realised that they was nothing that could be done and they didn’t speak any English so no sort of agreement could be made. It seemed like these fighters were oblivious of there surroundings. A few days into the fright of the two giant fighters they accidentally pushed over some buildings. One of these buildings was the inner city nuclear power plant which also provided most of the city’s electricity supply. Thus meaning the electricity for most people living in the city was cut, inevitably most of the city was put in total darkness all day and night as Carbo was in the far north city where for 10 months of the year, the city is in a constant state of darkness unless by human means. The only other power plant for the city was in neighbouring town on the outskirts of Carbo called Krup. For this reason and this reason only everybody in the city were allowed coupons for electricity if they needed it. This meant everyday before work Roger would pop to the local coupon shop and get his £2 electricity coupon which provided him and his family 5mins worth of unlimited electrical supply everyday, generally this was never enough but they had to make do!

Roger

Roger had grew up in the outskirts of Carbo in sunny Blip, a nice little village with plenty of entertainment like the local bulb smashing contest ( that’s light bulb if you were wondering ) held every Wednesday which is a clear reminder of what life used to be like for Roger and his local pub. At the age of 18 roger had completed his strats and gained enough qualifications to work and live in the city comfortably. He worked as a manager at the light bulb producing factory. This provided roger with healthy pay check, with this he bought a luxurious three bedroom apartment as he thought someday in the future it might come in handy with what getting a girlfriend soon and possibility of a kid it would be worthwhile in the long term ( and so right he was ). At the age of 20 he was living a comfortable life with a girl called Jenny, his wife and their daughter Jo who was a year old. One of the many things Roger collected was his titanium plated lightbulbs which were a sign of wealth.

The problems

When Roger reached the age of 24 six weeks later the fighters arrived and the city of Carbo was turned upside down. For the first couple of days roger didn’t attend work as he didn’t know whether it was safe to go out and when the city council told on the radio that it was generally safe to go into town unless you were got more than three blocks too close to the fighters.
But Roger wasn’t the strongest of characters and so it was decided that Jenny would go into town to check Roger’s building and get the coupon but she never came back. Reportedly she was on the bus when the fighters had come out of the area they were fighting and one of them had stamped on the bus Jenny was in, completely flattening the bus and she was killed instantly.
Roger was in such a state, that in the end he had to find a way and the only way was to go into town and see the devastation. Not only was it a terrible sight of the flattened bus, but also his building was completely ruined, thus meaning roger was jobless, after a week he got a job shovelling wreckage into trucks to be sent to increasing pile of wrecked buildings at Krup. This job though alright, the pay wasn’t brilliant and it meant Roger had to wave goodbye to his lightbulbs and the local pawn shop. The money he received just covered enough to feed 5 people so one of his brothers went without food for a week when they were up, and the rest just covered the electricity.

The Filled Flat

The reason so many people were living in roger’s flat after the fighters arrived was for mixed reasons. To start with I will explain about his parents who are now bedridden because they were had their back’s broken when a piece of buildings fell on them when the fighters arrived. And as they couldn’t look after themselves in Blip they were staying with their son. Roger’s two brothers were there because they also were unable to look after themselves after they got the spot syndrome after they were caught up in the fighter’s fart area which was a major problem in Carbo, a lot of people had it and there was no cure. The symptoms are massive spots on the face and body and without lights causes the patient to vomit and for most of the time stay in the foetus position until light is provided and only then they slowly recover and gain some energy, typically it is closely related to hibernation. For most of the time Roger’s two brothers are in the flat they on the floor asleep until the 5 minutes arrived and they normally went to the loo. The bedroom where Roger and his two brothers slept was very cramped and was most uncomfortable been there was always a smell of vomit. Jo was now 5 years old and was attending a school made by teacher in flat 2 downstairs which was very basic and provided kids in the tower block with basic learning and she was doing very well under the circumstances. The common question Jo asked her father was when the light would come on, and it makes roger very upset and reminded of Roger of Jenny.

My review

I think the most important thing I have learnt here is the people of Carbo are in desperate need of some help though when I spoke to the council they said there was no problems with the fighters as they had split or even removed most of the unions of people from the city and this meant the city is very peaceful. Also I spoke to some other people who are hoping to die rather than continue so it seems though that if that’s the way they want it I might just fuck off home.