Beyond The Fall - 3

By Ali Al Yousifi

This is the final part of a three-part story. Click here to view part one and part two.

POST-APOCALYPTIC PARADISE (3 of 3) 

The first fusion reactor started generating power for Kuwait in 2042. Since the United Nations banned all fossil fuel power plants, Kuwait invested all its remaining international assets to create an alternative source of energy. After years of struggling to power its newly walled city, the Japanese-built fusion reactor provided all the power Kuwait needed and more.

With clean electricity came clean water. On the day that was set to start working, a crowd gathered around the new desalination plant built on The Green Island. The plant’s head operator stood in front of the crowd next to a metal tap protruding from the ground. He slowly turned the tap’s handle; the crowd cheered as clean clear water streamed out of the tap’s nozzle. The water splashed its way through a path dug in the ground until it flooded a small vegetable garden planted especially for the occasion.

With clean water came agriculture. Easy access to fresh water made Kuwait City green very quickly. Barren empty stretches of sand that used to act as parking lots back when there were cars, became lush parks. When all those spaces were planted, unused roofs started becoming green roofs and windowless walls became green walls. Then the asphalt of the roads and highways was removed. It was replaced with long strips of farming fields flanked by paths for pedestrians, cyclists, and small electrical vehicles. Organic fruits and vegetables became plenty.

After some years where the inhabitants of Kuwait City lived in the concrete and steel towers of the pre-Fall era, new construction started to rise. The first of these was an apartment building with some retail space, completed in 2043. The building was ten floors tall, with walls, columns, and roofs made of mud bricks and corrugated metal. Most new construction was of this mid-rise height, always using mud as their dominant material. Soon, a unique skyline started to develop, a bizarre mix of pre-Fall steel and post-Fall mud.

With the hostile desert around Kuwait City’s wall infested with armed conflicts and sensitive borders, Kuwait turned to the sea. There was a global demand for trading ships and Kuwait worked hard of provide the supply. An impressive fleet of ships was acquired, some built locally and some bought from struggling neighbors. Being strictly neutral in all world conflicts, Kuwaiti ships were almost always given safe passage, allowing them to create an expansive network of trading routes. In 2048, Kuwait’s port became the largest in the Middle East.

In 2050, the first group of Kuwaiti citizens that had left after the Fall, seeing that Kuwait had survived its challenges better than most other countries, returned. Week by week, ships arrived at Kuwait’s shores carrying people hoping for a better life. In that same year talks started about building another fusion reactor in anticipation of rising energy demands. An extension of the wall was also discussed. Even plans for the forgotten Silk City were resurrected, but were quickly put down as a terrible idea.

All in all, Kuwait prospered, and all was well.

The end.