Apple, now as red in the face as his name suggests, argues with John over getting a firearm. The next day, the news headlines are, “Panic Rises as Citizens Arm Themselves.” Mr. John agrees the crime wave seemed to come out of nowhere. Apple, his neighbor, sweaty with panic comes to talk to John. The next day, John wakes to the full force of news again on his phone, stating, “Citizens Growing Restless Over Rising Crime, Signs Downed and Screens Smashed”. “Fine, they’re going to leave me in the cold,” he grumbles, waving his arms in frustration sending the lobby monitor crashing to the ground. “Is it a holiday?” John checks his phone but no websites come up for his search and no co-workers have texted.
“No news is good news,” John murmurs to himself. The lobby TV is colored by a test screen. Twenty minutes late to work from his detour, John notices the newsstand is empty as he enters his work building. “Those damn sun flares” he thinks as he continues into an unexpected road closure and kicks the road sign down to relieve his anger.
(Unbeknownst to John, a windstorm brought down a cell tower onto the Hood Canal entrance severing all but satellite news media.) He tunes into his favorite radio channel, but is greeted by static. John is leaving his cozy farmhouse heading to an overtime shift. Hello everyone, I’m David Attenborough, and this is “Chimacum Without News.” Our observations start on a cedar-lined road. But, “What would our community look like without news?” Here in Chimacum, news flows through newspapers, broadcasts, websites, and cell phones. “No news is better than evil news,” proclaimed King James I of England in 1616.
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