Last Call For Caviar Read Online Free

Last Call For Caviar
Book: Last Call For Caviar Read Online Free
Author: Melissa Roen
Pages:
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managed a thriving restaurant. He had forty employees-and their families—dependant on him. His sense of honor and duty wouldn’t allow him to abandon those in his care and flee. What was supposed to be a two-week trip for Kai became one month, then two.
    The story that everything was fine only bamboozled the populace for so long, until the number of deaths from radiation poisoning became too large to conceal. Then, the once-disciplined and law-abiding Japanese populace exploded in blood-filled riots against the governmental and corporate duplicity. When the authorities, in turn, used force to quell the protests, the archipelago erupted in an even greater paroxysm of looting and burnings. Japan became an inferno of desperate people fighting for their survival and dignity.
    Six months after she left Monaco, Kai went dark; no more emails, texts, or posts on Facebook. Radio silence.
    The subsequent series of 9-plus earthquakes that hit Tokyo in the summer of 2013 literally tore Japan apart. The images and video footage that found its way onto the web, posted by survivors and people who wanted the truth known, was more frightening than the bleakest of any imaginary sci-fi film set in a dystopian future.
    I followed the unfolding disaster, watching countless user—generated videos and news feeds, hoping to catch a glimpse of Kai lost amidst all that chaos. But all I saw were legions of people, homeless and sickened by the radiation poisoning. An army of zombies roamed the streets, scavenging through a ghostly landscape of toppled buildings and yawning abysses, explosions and flames burning out of control, desperate for food, shelter, or to escape the spiraling madness of slow-moving death. The government and rule of law collapsed; the rest of the world quarantined Japan, hoping to stop the contagion of anarchy and radiation.
    Even after all this time with no word, I still searched every day for a sign Kai was somehow alive, hoping against hope that an email or a Facebook post would arrive. Her account was still active, so how could she be lost to us forever, swallowed by the nightmare that Japan had become?
    Even if the world community wanted to do more to save the Japanese, almost every nation was dealing with its own natural disasters and descent into anarchy. Though there were still pockets of relative stability scattered around our bristling and pissed-off globe, humanity was waking up to a new world disorder of panic and fear.
    The problem facing everyone was where to find sanctuary. In previous wars or natural disasters, there always seemed to be some country that symbolized safe haven and succor from the death and pestilence and misery. Now all of humanity was imprisoned within the same out-of-control juggernaut, helpless to do anything as we raced towards the wall.
    The Chinese have a saying, “May you live in interesting times.” If nothing else, we had front-row seats to witnessing the mother of all systems breakdowns, a catastrophe that appeared to be building towards an apocalyptic end. Strange but true, it was weirdly mesmerizing, watching the world unravel right before my eyes.
    People have an amazing capacity for denial. Often, it’s a perfectly legitimate coping mechanism to protect us from facing harsh realities that we can’t process. But then, when we emerge from this protective bubble, after meandering along the paths of least resistance, kicking the can down the road, the harsh realities must still be confronted.
    And that’s where I found myself today. While I had been locked in solipsism, losing track of time in my own dream world of grief, the planet and all its people seemed to have passed the point of no return.
    Luckily, I hadn’t missed the boat. But that’s only because there didn’t seem to be any boat coming to rescue anyone. I would have to rescue myself if I intended to survive. I had nowhere I could easily flee to, no family or sanctuary near at hand, to take me in and shelter me.
    What
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