Phase Two: Cell (Part 6)

"The boy turned toward the sound of the shout, startled. His mouth hung open in a vacant gawp. There

was nothing in his eyes but vague alarm. He looked as if he was thinking about running, but before he

could even begin to put his legs in gear, Clay had swept him up and was covering his grimy, unresponsive

face and slack mouth with kisses.

"Johnny," Clay said. "Johnny, I came for you. I did. I came for you. I came for you."

And at some point—perhaps only because the man holding him had begun to swing him around in a

circle—the child put his hands around Clay's neck and hung on. He said something, as well. Clay refused

to believe it was empty vocalization, as meaningless as wind blowing across the mouth of an empty popbottle.

It was a

word. It might have been tieey, as if the boy was trying to say tired.

Or it might have been

Clay chose to hang on to that. To believe the pallid, dirty, malnourished child clinging to his neck had

called him Daddy."



    Continuing on with the "reboot" theory, this quote seems to suggest that The human reboot function truly exists. Think about it. If our minds were to get wiped, we wouldn't just say "screw the whole" thing and starve ourselves. We'd find ways to improve our scenario.

    In this section, Clayton just found his son. However, he's been exposed to the Pulse, the brainwiping mechanism. I'm recieving a few mixed signals though. The book suggests that Johnny is relearning everything by the way he tries to pronounce "Daddy." It seems that Johnny is relearning human speech patterns.

    However, it seems that Johnny still knows who his father is. Is this just one of Stephen King's plot points? Or is this a statement about human instinct concerning survival with parental guidance?

    I personally believe that it may have been a small plot oversight or a little hastily though out.

Final Thoughts:

    Cell by Stephen King is sorta of the wall insane. There's long periods of waiting around and small sections of zombie killing (only about 2 of them).

    It's actually kinda boring, and I'd have rather read the same thing cut back by 200 pages.Dieey, which was the way he had, as a sixteen-month-old, first named his father.

Phase Two: Cell (Part 5)

"I'm a computer geek," Jordan said over his mug of hot chocolate. Clay found the child's glum

assurance oddly charming. "A total McNerd. Been on em my whole life, just about. Those things're

rebooting, all right. They might as well have software installation, please stand by blinking on their

foreheads."

"I don't understand you," Tom said.

"I do," Alice said. "Jordan, you think the Pulse really

it. . . they got their hard drives wiped."

"Well,

was a Pulse, don't you? Everyone who heardyeah," Jordan said. He was too polite to say Well, duh.

Tom looked at Alice, perplexed. Only Clay knew Tom wasn't dumb, and he didn't believe Tom was

that slow.

"You had a computer," Alice said. "I saw it in your little office."

"Yes—"

"And you've installed software, right?"

"Sure, but—" Tom stopped, looking at Alice fixedly. She looked back. "Their

brains'? You mean their

brains'?"

"What do you think a brain is?" Jordan said. "A big old hard drive. Organic circuitry. No one knows

how many bytes. Say giga to the power of a googolplex. An infinity of bytes." He put his hands to his

ears, which were small and neatly made. "Right in between here." (PDF pg. 98)

    Cell provides an interesting analogy (though most likely incorrect) between a computer and the human brain. The Pulse was the signal that turned anybody using a cell phone into a zombie.

    Anyway, the thing that really interests me about the quote isn't the theory, but its implications.

    While Jordan (the kids they find later on) talks about the Pulse becoming a reboot signal, the initial reaction to the Pulse was somewhat odd. Instead of everybody dropping like flies, they all try to kill each other or commit suicide.

    Stephen King believes that a human's first instinct is to kill all competition around: Evolution at its finest!

He's a cold-hearted killer and he wants your blood.

    From a certain stand-point, I kinda see where King was going with this. I would have originally thought that a human's first instinct would be to find life's essentials: food, water, shelter, etc. However, King believes that a human's first instinct is safety, which, in this case, means killing everybody until your the only one left, eliminating any potential threats.

    Then again, if you're in an urban environment like downtown Boston, there's no real foliage of any sort, so "roughing it" is out of the question. This leaves only one other possibility....HUMAN MEAT!!! (Yeah, you thought it wasn't possible, but I just carried that meme over to a second book).

    It's a dog eat dog world out there - literally.

Phase Two: Cell (Part 4)

*Due to Blogger.com's incompetence as a website, I'm going to use a quote that was originally going to be included in the last blog. Apparently, Blogger doesn't like quotes in two places... or spell check. I just had to shut down my browser and restart becuase spell check made the entire page collapse on itself.

You know, I probably could have written this blog in the time it took to make that demotivational poster...



*I"M GOING TO MURDER BLOGGER!!! I JUST TYPED THAT ENTIRE BLOG AND POSTED IT, AND IT ONLY REMEMBERED UP TO THE PICTURE!!!!!! I'll move on to the next blog and come back to this one later.

Phase Two: Cell (Part 3)

    "They encountered a woman of about forty and a man maybe twenty years older pushing shopping

carts, each containing a child. The one in the man's cart was a boy, and too big for the conveyance, but he

had found a way to curl up inside and fall asleep." (PDF pg.81)

    The more that I read this book, the more I'm reminded about the fate of society in The Road. This scene almost replicates something seen in that novel. Coincidentally, both authors seem to think that an apocalyptic scenario involves shopping carts on highways.
    Anyway, if there were to be an apocalypse, the human race would be royally screwed do to its offsprings' lack of instinct. In a time of crisis, there's no way that a child below the age of 6 could take care of itself. It would have no idea what to do. Best case scenario: The child is born in the apocalyptic world and taught basic survival skills like foraging and firemaking. The child is then released at the age of seven to try and survive. THAT'S OUR BEST CASE SCENARIO. Natural Selection would eventually take its course; The best at adapting would survive and pass on their genes (if they could find a mate and figure out what the hell was going on - I'm pretty sure humans have the instinct to realize that they can reproduce, but I'm not sure if they can figure out how).

    Any kind of human child would have no idea how to instinctually live off of the land. Hell, they can't even move until ther're a year old! A YEAR! Most K-Strategists have released their young by then. It's bad enough that Human Gestation takes 9 months - the baby can't even function without at least 5-7 years of teaching.

    The worst part of it is that humans have grown out of "land living." Most of the available food (berries, leaves) is indigestible - we don't have the internal enzymes to process any of it. Scientists believe that the appendix was once used for creating the enzymes necessary to digest a broad variety of plant matter, but the appendix just kinda sits there now.

    That's enough rambling for one blog. Humans cannot produce viable offspring for survival and are likely to die off. Thanks, Evolution!

*God, I hate Blogger right now. The formatting is screwing me over. I've tried to type this up three times now and I have to go back each time.

    The small child in the shopping cart got me thinking about what would happen to future generations in wasteland-esque scenarios.

     Humans are "K-Strategists" (AP Bio term from last year), meaning that we hold on to our young for extended periods of time before letting them into the wild. Other examples of K-Strategists are deer, cows, wild cats, bears, etc. Meanwhile, there are "R-strategists", the animals that breed like jackals and completely abandon their youth, like bugs, turtles, etc.

    One Key difference between humans and other K-Strategists is the period of "infancy" Most K-Strategists will hold on to their young for 1-3 years before letting them off on their own. Most animals are fully grown by then. However, humans hold on to their young for AT LEAST 18 years (25 thanks to Generation X http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-we-ruined-occupy-wall-street-generation/).

Alright, Timmy. You're three years old; You're a grown man. Now go out there and procreate! You're mother and I want grandkids before we're 16.

Phase Two: Cell (Part 2)

"Some advice, sister," Tom said. "The police will no longer protect you as they did when you and your

self-righteous, holy-rolling friends marched on the family planning centers or the Emily Cathcart Clinic in

"That abortion mill!" she spat, and then raised her Bible, as if to block a blow.

Tom didn't hit her, but he was smiling grimly. "I don't know about the Vial of Insanity, but there's

certainly

you may well find that they'll eat the mouthy Christians first. Somebody canceled your right of free speech

around three o'clock this afternoon. Just a word to the wise." (pdf pg 40)
Waltham—"beaucoup crazy making the rounds tonight. May I be clear? The lions are out of their cages, and
    Again, I've acquired a digital copy of Cell through super-happy-file-shary-looky time, so the pages are highly condensed.

    Anyway, this quote captures the downfall of society, and is a sign of things to come in terms of environmental change. Though Cell does not predict an environmental dystopia or downfall, it goes through what happens to the human empire when the majority of people pass.

    Near the beginning of the "pulse", the incident that kickstarted an apocalypse, Clayton Riddell and his group of survivors begin to think in terms of what necessary, and have determined that religious obsession isn't one of them.

    Cell creates the idea that human institutions like religion and courtesy will be thrown out the window when life is on the line. Slowly, the human environment begins to fade away, leading into a new world where humans are, essentially, just another animal near the top of the food chain. There's an entire ecological system that humans have circumvented through technology. Instead of hunting, we've created an industry based solely around birthing and killing cattle in short periods of time or our consumption.

    Instead of living at the top of the food chain, we've put the food chain in a completely separate league, completly disregarding it. Cell eventually discusses a future in which we revert to a top predator, and not the ultimate power.

The Food Chain, as told by The Simpsons

Phase Two: Cell (Part 1)

 October 1, God was in His heaven, the stock market stood at 10,140, and most of the planes were on time (except for those landing and taking off in Chicago, and that was to be expected). Two weeks later the skies belonged to the birds again and the stock market was a memory. By Halloween, every major city from New York to Moscow stank to the empty heavens and the world as it had been was a memory.Civilization slipped into its second dark age on an unsurprising track of blood, but with a speed that could not have been foreseen by even the most pessimistic futurist. It was as if it had been waiting to go. On"

     Cell, by Stephen King, tells the story of a dying world where humans become zombies with a telepathic connection. Though the main cause of the downfall is technology, the novel contains the downfall of the human environment, the focus of my efforts.

    In today's sheltered society, we're given too much to work with. We raise our food as cattle; There's no hunting or risk of failure. However, Cell presents a world where a select few are left "alive" and are hunted a an overwhelming pack of predators. The novel examines a Predator Vs. Prey relationship and how we would react to having our environment suddenly taken from us.

    Throughout the novel, the main characters are fighting against nature, adventuring forth with modern - now useless - knowledge.

Phase Two: The Road (Part 6)

"The boy thought he smelled wet ash on the wind. He went up the road and come dragging

back a piece of plywood from the roadside trash and he drove sticks into the ground with a rock and

made of the plywood a rickety leanto but in the end it didnt rain. He left the flarepistol and took the

revolver with him and he scoured the countryside for anything to eat but he came back emptyhanded.

The man took his hand, wheezing. You need to go on, he said. I cant go with you. You need to keep

going. You dont know what might be down the road. We were always lucky. You'll be lucky again.

You'll see. Just go. It's all right.

I cant.

It's all right. This has been a long time coming. Now it's here. Keep going south. Do

everything the way we did it.

You're going to be okay, Papa. You have to.

No I'm not. Keep the gun with you at all times. You need to find the good guys but you

cant take any chances. No chances. Do you hear?

I want to be with you.

You cant.

Please.

You cant. You have to carry the fire.

I dont know how to.

Yes you do.

Is it real? The fire?

Yes it is.

Where is it? I dont know where it is.

Yes you do. It's inside you. It was always there. I can see it.

Just take me with you. Please.

I cant.

Please, Papa.

I cant. I cant hold my son dead in my arms. I thought I could but I cant.

You said you wouldnt ever leave me.

I know. I'm sorry. You have my whole heart. You always did. You're the best guy. You

always were. If I'm not here you can still talk to me. You can talk to me and I'll talk to you. You'll see.

Will I hear you?

Yes. You will. You have to make it like talk that you imagine. And you'll hear me. You

have to practice. Just dont give up. Okay?

Okay.

Okay.

I'm really scared Papa.

I know. But you'll be okay. You're going to be lucky. I know you are. I've got to stop

talking. I'm going to start coughing again.

It's okay, Papa. You dont have to talk. It's okay." pg.91

And the father dies...

...................................................................................................

There is no one place where countless cats can atone for the environmental travesty shown by the road.

Oh, wait! There is. Follow this link and come back in an hour.
http://icanhascheezburger.com/

    The boy is later taken in by a family that had been following the duo for "a while." Worried about the boy, they follow the two until the father dies from consumption. The action is McCarthy's way of showing that there is still hope left. There is still enough humanity in us all the save the boy and carry the "fire" of the good guys.

    McCarthy wanted to show us that we are the ones responsible for the current environmental threats to our existence. Without a stable environment, we would all lose our current sense of humanity. We would refuse to help others and result to cannibalism, making us inhumane.

End of Session Friendship Report!

• We learned that being human involves sacrificing to help your fellow man. The Road showed us what happens when the exact opposite is true
• Currently, we are unable to stop an environmental catastrophe unless we actually cut back significantly on the damage we've been doing.

Final Thoughts!

    Personally, I've refrained from explicitly stating my own reactions to the events of the novel. Instead, I chose to imply how I felt by inserting various pictures of cats everywhere. I found the book to be incredibly depressing, and I started to cry at three separate points in the book (not joking, unfortunately). At most points, the book was either suspenseful, scary, or extremely depressing.

    From a style point of view, it reminded me of The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway with it's constant draws of dialogue. I was also reminded of a History Channel produced film, Lucy, a two hour pseudo - documentary detailing the full exhaustion of our natural resources from the perspective of an 80 year old woman born in 2009. That was almost as depressing as The Road.

    Hmmm. I went this entire session without referring McCarthy's No Country For Old Men. What is this black magic?