Day 1
-8am US Eastern time: Millions of workers arrive at their desks across the US and discover that there is no internet access. At first it is believed it’s only a few companies, but unbeknown to Americans the problem is worldwide.
-9am: The porn industry collapses.
-10am: Realising that they cannot bitch about internetlessness on Twitter, millions of calls are made from cellphones to internet service providers who can offer no answers. Technicians are on the problem.
-1pm: News outlets start calling the lack of internet in America a “very, very serious problem”. It is also reported that the internet has not been working in Europe and Asia for at least a week before the problem is reported in America, proving once again that Americans have no idea what is going on outside their country. In South Africa barely anyone notices that the internet is not working. Most at first think it’s just slow service. The Department of Home Affairs reports that the internet crisis has not affected its operations. “Everything is normal for us,” says the minister.
Meanwhile, the rest of Africa is asking, “what is this internet thing?”
-3pm: Reports emerge that work has stopped across America in the absence of e-mail.
Many companies implement emergency measures whereby employees are forced to communicate in person. Such programmes fail as most have no idea how to do this.
Technicians say they’re still trying to restore the internet.
-7pm: President Barack Obama addresses the American people and calls for calm.
He also demonstrates live on TV how to make a call from a landline.
Networks air Baywatch and Seinfeld re-runs to distract the public. Oprah even offers to do a live broadcast.
Midnight: A gathering is staged at Silicon Valley where software developers, IT geeks and Star Wars fans commit suicide en masse.
Day 2
-Millions wake up hoping that the internet crisis was just a bad dream, but remain in bed and refuse to go to work when they realise it wasn’t.
-Wall Street doesn’t open. The director-general of the stock exchange asks, “what’s the point?”
-Everything tumbles, but fast food industry shares soar as Americans turn to their second favourite pastime in their time of difficulty.
-The makers of Valium and Prozac also report record gains.
-Youth in the UK decide that planning riots might be a good way to cure their boredom. However, barely anyone turns out to trash and destroy the streets of London as ringleaders cannot send out BBM or Facebook messages. Authorities are relieved. However, in some parts of the US, police report having to deal with cases of vandalism perpetrated by Facebook junkies and Twitterholics who begin scribbling their rambling on subway trains, bridges and walls of public buildings.
-Hospitals across the world are, meanwhile, overwhelmed with cases of neck injuries caused by people staring at their phones waiting for internet services to be restored.
-Technicians still cannot find the source of the problem.
Day 3
-Obama says that it is unclear “if” or “when” the internet will work again, but urges Americans to remain calm.
-Riots break out across the globe and the homes of telecommunication CEOs are broken into. Several of them are b*ch-slapped.
-In South Africa, Julius Malema raises eyebrows by singing “Shoot the geek”.
-A group of desperate techno extremists and members of an Apple cult dig up Steve Jobs and reportedly try to resurrect him. One sicko is heard shouting, “make it work! Please make it work” while shaking Jobs’s skeleton.
-Martial law is declared in most major cities across the globe.
Day 4
-Riots come to a halt as most are too depressed to leave their homes, leaving the streets of cities deserted. Those who do leave, do so only to restock on Prozac.
-A new unexplained behaviour starts to emerge in some places whereby heavily drugged individuals start digging up and chewing fibre-optic cables at night. Others have resorted to eating hard drives and other computer components.
-Electricity grids start collapsing everywhere as a result of missing fibre-optic cabling.
-Governments recognise the seriousness of the cable problem and give orders to shoot “cable gobblers”. But the problem is uncontrollable, especially as Prozac and Valium supplies run out worldwide.
Day 5
-The South African government announces that the internet has collapsed. This is after Telkom releases a statement saying that “some problems have been experienced over the last few days”. The company, however, insists that no refunds will be given to internet users.
-Malema applauds the announcement of the internet collapse, saying the internet is a “neo-liberal capitalist white thing that is counter-revolutionary”. He also calls for the nationalisation of the internet but retracts his statement when he is told that the internet is not owned by white South Africans. He later takes responsibility for destroying Twitter.
-Emergency sessions are called at the UN to plan the restoration of the internet and to strategise ways to govern during the crisis. President Jacob Zuma is selected to chair the sessions after he convinces world leaders he is the best man for the job. “I am the guy to sort this out. I govern a country where at the best of times there is no electricity or internet. This is not a crisis for me, this is just another day at the office,” Zuma tells world leaders.
Most people are like clouds. The sun comes out when they f*ck off...
