The Island

Looking over the stereotypical, post-nuclear-esque wasteland, flyblown rags of curtains flap in the breeze, litter blows in facsimile tumbleweeds down the street and rabid dogs scavenge for scraps. The few remaining humans are lurching Euro-Zombies, searching for brains and Penal Colony Britain has finally voted itself into oblivion. Where once we sent our criminals to a god forsaken outback on the other side of the world, Europe now funnels its unwanted overfill into department EU/AS/01, a gulag where the lowest are sent to survive… or not. Those who try to escape believe they will be gifted homes and good living off the island, but nobody escapes from Ukatraz.

Fortress Britain is quiet; the roads no longer rumble with traffic and industry’s gears have ground to a halt. Flights neither arrive nor leave and the long dead birds no longer sing in the non-existent trees. Mostly concreted over, the only access to the gigantic prison yard formerly known as Kent, is via the heavily guarded EuroTunnel whose sole purpose is to act as a one-way portal into, but never out of the EU’s ultimate immigration holding camp. The only way off is to brave the treacherous currents of the French Channel, constantly patrolled by seaborne drones programmed to intercept and destroy all unauthorised craft.

Some still talk of Albion and of a boy King who will symbolically free a sword from a stone and somehow bring about resurrection, but others know this wasteland for what it is; the end of the long road. It is used to corral those inflicted with madness, rage and the crime of expressing an opinion. Some still speak of a divine creator and heavenly father who will save the faithful in the final apocalypse but others know that fantasy for what is it. This land is also used to contain those infected with islam and other irrational superstitions; their deities appear to be quite happy to leave them to it.

Britain finally achieved what many wished for, to be self-contained; because there is no traffic with the rest of the world other than the inward traffic in people of a dangerous mind-set. The islands of Crete and Malta and Cyprus and Kos eventually proved too small and too easily accessible for efficient containment purposes and have been returned to their former status as holiday camps for rewarding public sector workers – there are few other types of worker nowadays, with private businesses all propped up one way or another by the impenetrable system of bureaucracy which administers the sovereign EU.

Meanwhile, back in Fortress Britain – ex-Airstrip One – the siren sounds, signalling another escape attempt. Ironic really: as one boat-load of refugees from Africa is rescued from the warm, azure Mediterranean then transported across Europe and through the tunnel to their destination of choice, a similar boat load of escapees is blown to bits in the cold, dark waters of the Channel and transported to their own end. The EU has a final solution for Britain… don’t think it couldn’t happen.