Warday

TOM MOON: “Hawaii, where I took a vacation in 1977, is now a Garden of Eden. The islands were annexed by Japan in 1989. All non-Asians were forced to return to the States. The official language of Hawaii is now Japanese. There is no rationing and people are getting rich off Jap tourists. The Japanese consider American food the height of luxury, and have kept McDonald’s and Burger King open. Cokes and Pepsis and milkshakes are readily available.

You can go to a twenty-course luau for a dollar. There are theaters that play only old American movies, and the local television stations rerun old network tapes, complete with all commercials, which the Japanese love.”

FACT: Hawaii remains a part of the United States. There is, of course, a substantial Japanese presence, and the Royal Navy maintains its Western Pacific Fleet HQ there. The local fast-food establishments are closed—as they are everywhere—due more to a lack of cheap meat and soy protein from the mainland than to any local economic difficulty. The local Coca-Cola bottler has recently begun to get syrup again, and is expecting to restart production soon. As far as television stations are concerned, forget it. The functional parts were shipped to California years ago, which is one of the reasons L.A. and San Francisco have TV themselves. This is quite a sore point with Hawaiians, by the way. Rationing is worse than it is stateside because of the island’s limited ability to grow grains and maintain its own herds. If you don’t like breadfruit and pineapple, do not go to Hawaii.

JOAN R. HAMNER: “There is a Garden of Eden on the Texas coast. The British have built a new port to supply Europeans in the States with luxuries we Americans can’t get. This city has a huge entertainment complex where they show first-run European movies and plays. The Berlin Philharmonic and the Royal Shakespeare Company come. In this port there is a four-star French restaurant.

Americans are not allowed, but only Europeans and Japanese. The city is all new.”

FACT: There is no such city in Texas, and we suspect that it doesn’t exist at all. Walter Tevis placed a similar city somewhere on the Pacific Coast, but almost in the same breath discounted the story as a rumor.

CARL DIETRICH: “Seattle is a Garden of Eden. The Japanese have taken over the state of Washington and are soon going to be turning out such things as high-pulse electromagnetic motors in the old Boeing facilities. They are planning to retrain former Boeing employees, to take advantage of the cheap labor. Soon the United States won’t even need roads because of the off-road cars and stuff they will make. Also, the Japanese are now basing their fishing fleet there instead of in the home islands. As a matter of fact, things are so good in Washington that immigration is out and you will be turned back at the border.”

FACT: We are not aware of any major Japanese presence in the Pacific Northwest. This area has become a thriving agricultural and shepherding community. Vegetables, apples, and mutton from the state of Washington are beginning to be exported to other parts of the country, particularly California.

The Boeing facilities are not functioning at the present time, although company spokesmen maintain that they will be producing the 800 series of aircraft there in the future. They will be powered by conventional jets.

VERNA MCDUFF: “Litchfield County, Connecticut, is a Garden of Eden. Rich survival freaks escaped into Litchfield County right after Warday and have formed a separate country, which has been recognized by Great Britain and Japan. It is about the size of Liechtenstein. It has its own gold currency and its own form of government, which is based on family status. The Europeans allow it to exist because these old families have such long-standing ties with them. Many of them own parts of the world’s great companies, such as Phillips-IBM and Lever House. Litchfield has a fully functional telephone system and satellite TV from Europe, and is full of luxury European cars such as Daimler-Benz 4 W D s and Leyland Stars. Unemployment in Litchfield is zero, and there is no such thing as malnutrition or birth defects. The living standard is even better than it was prewar.”

FACT: We learned in White Plains that Litchfield County has a population of about a thousand, roughly twenty percent of whom are triaged because of Warday exposures. The county hospital was closed in 1991 due to a lack of doctors, leaving only alternate practitioners and religious organizations to serve the population.

Interview Amy Carver, Teacher

Well, I feel stranger than I thought I would, doing this. Although it’s nice to talk about yourself. Ever since I got Joan Wilson’s letter from Kansas City about you guys, thoughts have been running through my head about what I would say. I hope I can do the whole thing without talking about the World Series. But the Pirates won the first game, so we’re all very, very excited.