image from collectiveevolution.clom
Nazis in Atlantis
“It was a memorial to Atlantis, those stone buoys
that mark a drowned world.”--Christopher Hitchens.
What if,
after the Great Flood,
the angry seas
did not recede, and
our ancestor dolphins
developed arms and legs
as their superior intellect
allowed them to create vast civilizations
under the water, the same basic
continental regions that became
independent undersea kingdoms?
Technology would have developed,.
and we would have flying submarines,
huge kelp farms and tuna ranches.
As a species, we would live to be 200
because our diet would be ocean-based.
Of course, the seas would become polluted
and we would look to the stars
for refuge and succor.
What if the Confederacy
had won the Civil War,
and the Nazis had won WWII?
What if we had used the atomic bomb
on North Korea in order
to be victorious in 1953?
What if we had used nuclear weapons
to turn the tide in Viet Nam in 1968,
likewise in the Middle East in 2005?
We would be the bringers
of scorched earth and nuclear winter.
What if every President
had been dictators,
and we only had ten of them
since 1868, where our dystopian
world view would have created
a darkness, where Donald Trump
would not have been an anomaly
and he would have been
assassinated by his generals
during his first State of the Union address?
Given a vote,
I would choose the amphibian version
of history, where I would enjoy
clam and oyster ale,
living in a water-logged democracy
and Flipper Ferguson
could have been President.
Glenn Buttkus
Posted over at dVerse Poets P
16 comments:
What if the Japanese had won the war? There is a book about that by Philip K. Dick and how the US is divided into zones, some run by the Nazis. it is called: The Man in the High Castle.
"I'd like to be... under the sea..." Potent ponderances...
Brilliant speculative verse, Glenn! :)
What, Flipper Ferguson isn't president?? Lots to think about here, wonderful what ifs!
What if...your dystopian world view could be a new reality. It could have been a different world with different world leaders. I really like your option too, eating clam and oyster ale and cheering for Flipper Ferguson!!!! Happy new year!!!
I wondered if someone would do an alternative history, but I never imagined the dolphin world. I like it. That would be my vote, too. Well done!
Considering those ten dictators things could have been worse.
I can't imagine any world where Donald Trump would not be an anomaly....but I'm all in with swimming with the dolphins....or being one.
Enjoyed this very much!!
I would vote for Flipper. He had a great sense of humor in the 60s TV show,(always laughing). And i love tuna, man that's two for two!
What were you on when you wrote this, Glenn! You’ve blown my mind with your dolphin super race, which could have evolved from the old Gerry Anderson puppet show Stingray (I used to love it when I was a child, especially Aqua Marina). I’d trust the dolphins to do the right thing. There has been a lot of speculation about what would have happened if the Nazis had won WWII and it gave me nightmares thinking about all your what-ifs
I missed something here -- is it that history will find its misery no matter what? The alternate blue universe fails just as miserably, perhaps because we're in it, too. Dunno why that's preferable, as you suggest in your closing stanza -- is it that the grass is greener here because our worser histories did not come to pass? We're rocketing straight into climate apocalyspe without a whisper of complaint -- what's worse than that? Sorry, I ended up lost.
I would probably vote for a being a dolphin as well... but maybe I could cope even with Trump and a world up in the air.
I detect some serious wishful thinking here Glenn, especially them generals... ;-). This was wonderfully magical, I kept humming, "we all live in a yellow submarine"...
It's wonderful how you start out so whimsical, and that theme carries through, but there are elements in the middle where you realize how close we could have been to such a reality.
Ohhhh Glenn......I was rolling along with you....reading, absorbing...thinking the what ifs....and then I got to Flipper for president and just laughed out loud! Fabulous ending!
It actually would be worse to have the generals do that, because then you are left with no method for peaceful correction, just look at all the multiple banana republics through the years. Better hang on and roll the dice with a vote than to allow power to pass to someone willing to take it by force - soI have no wishful thinking for a military coup, but I tell ya, I would vote for Flipper Ferguson today if I could.
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