Day tripping is not what you think

Day tripping is not what you think. Or maybe it is. It’s like somewhere between being on holiday, and being so out of it you can’t really leave home. So you escape on condition that you can return to your life by nightfall.

The last time we went day tripping was to the outskirts of the city where there’s a kind of nature sanctuary mainly for wild plants. You can walk for miles and not see an animal, a person, a house or a road. 

The idea of nature proliferating unhindered in the city reminds one of movies like the early Planet of the Apes or The Lost Future, in which the city has been reclaimed by nature and humans are confused because they can still identify the city structures, but are afraid of the ruins overgrown with poisonous trees. And now, even shopping is a thing of the past.

All so-called normal activity has become futile in a world without electricity, running water or public transport. Sound familiar? 

People start to leave the city in their thousands, to head for the countryside where they can forage for food. To rear their children without the toxicity of the failed city. 

Meanwhile the city sits on the horizon, derelict and smoking its last puff of energy, before imploding from within. In those conditions the idea of a family vacation is a permanent getaway where the abundance of nature is a gift way more precious than anything you can tear open, in fancy wrapping paper. 

And yet, everyone still dreams of getting back to their old lives by nightfall.