I love 'where do we go from here?' stories -- ones that focus on what life is like when the Big Event, whatever it happened to be, is over and the dust has settled. How are things different, and how do people deal with it? 'We're All Friends Here' is set in a post-alien-invasion world I've written about before, one that was strongly influenced by a story that has haunted me for DECADES -- the tale of the Warren of the Snares in Richard Adams's Watership Down, where most of the rabbits are fed and protected by the local farmer, in return for a couple being turned into rabbit stew every now and then.
Is that a good deal? It's kind of sensible and utterly horrific at the same time, so I've never been able to settle on an answer. For the rabbits themselves, some say no, and some go insane trying to avoid asking the question at all -- but the majority say yes, it's worth it. They follow the rules, and learn to live with it. And they tell themselves the farmer is their friend.
Read the full story for free in Issue 7 of The Sockdolager, and make up your own mind...
We're All Friends Here - SF - 4,385 words
In the old book our film's based on, Kip has a different reaction: he becomes more determined than ever to go out swinging, and the story ends with him getting killed during a huge shootout with the police in a third act packed with gunfire and explosions. Violent nihilism was popular in the twenty-first century.
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