The Echo of July 4th: A Global Reckoning

By

The Living Breathing James Brown

The night sky over College Station, Texas, on July 4, 2025, erupted in a symphony of light and thunder. Echoing thunder roared into Bryan, Texas as well. Each burst, a pure Orchestra’s Performance a of Fireworks Show, a fleeting masterpiece of color, marked the arrival of Elias. Poor, poor Elias, son, why was you born? Didn’t no one tell your Daddy? He was born into a world still largely oblivious, celebrating traditions while the foundations beneath them subtly, inexorably shifted. His infancy was cradled in the warmth of family, his early childhood a blur of scraped knees, the dizzying thrill of first roller coasters, and the simple joy of chasing fireflies in humid summer evenings. Yet, even then, a faint, discordant hum resonated beneath the surface of everyday life. Mankind’s own Body Foundation waz, it was waz and not was, already Older than he or she knew yet.

As Elias transitioned from a curious child to a questioning teenager, that hum intensified when he slipped silently into a night long discussion with AI, becoming a persistent drone penetrating the very shores of anger, then a blaring alarm. His mind was exploding. He wasn’t alone in hearing it. In Lagos, Nigeria, Aisha, and this wasn’t an African Child Story neither and yet, what is waz was 1000 times more than a scholarly grouping of words so a dumb “stupitfied” rich person who helped do it to all of us so folk might see, learned to ration water from a young age, her family’s life dictated by the erratic flow from communal taps, a stark contrast to the once-reliable boreholes. The desertification pushed ever southward, swallowing farmlands, forcing migrations, and turning once-fertile plains into dust bowls. “The land is tired,” her grandmother would sigh, her eyes reflecting generations of wisdom and now, deep worry. What grey dog did we let in here? This evil is done twisted so can’t never get it out.

Mankind, earth’s been ejaculating in our faces for way long past time to see, but what itty bitty shit brain excuse did you come up with next?

Half a world away, in the bustling metropolis of Tokyo, Kenji, a brilliant young engineer, poured over climate models that painted increasingly grim pictures of rising sea levels. His city, a marvel of human ingenuity, was building ever-higher seawalls, developing sophisticated flood barriers. Yet, Kenji knew, deep in his bones, that these were temporary bandages on a gaping wound. He saw the data on the unprecedented typhoons, the erratic currents, the subtle but relentless creep of the ocean. He tried to innovate, to design solutions, but always felt like he was running against a clock that sped up with every passing year.

Elias, in his suburban American home, devoured every documentary, every scientific report, every grim projection that scrolled across his holographic display. He saw the graphs of dwindling reserves of essential minerals – lithium, cobalt, rare earth elements – the very building blocks of the digital age. He watched the accelerating climate shifts: the unprecedented heatwaves scorching Europe, the devastating wildfires consuming vast tracts of the Amazon, the polar ice caps melting at rates previously unimaginable. He saw the insatiable consumption of a globalized society, a ravenous maw that chewed through resources with no thought of tomorrow. A spotted woodpecker with a big Dick sat up beside the blind boy who couldn’t talk. Didn’t matter none cause knowing causes seeing, listening, and time waz, well it was way pastimes of none of that.

“Didn’t everybody know this shit was coming?” Elias would demand, his voice raw with disbelief, sitting with his friends in a dimly lit basement, the scent of stale pizza lingering in the air. They were discussing the latest environmental disaster, a new resource conflict erupting over a dwindling copper mine in the Congo. “How could they just… watch it happen?”

No one had a good answer. His parents, part of the generation that had inherited the problem, offered weary apologies and explanations of political inertia, economic pressures, and the sheer, overwhelming scale of the challenge. “It’s too big, son,” his father would say, running a hand through his thinning hair. “Too many moving parts, too many powerful interests.” But Elias couldn’t reconcile it. He saw the vast wealth accumulated by a select few, the incredible technological advancements, the collective human ingenuity that had put rovers on Mars and connected billions across continents. Why wasn’t it being marshaled for this? Why weren’t the governments, the global leaders, the billionaires – those with the power and the means – trying hard enough to avoid the inevitable? And old elderly used their fingers trying to get the first part of the poop out of being “stucktified” in their Assholes. And tune a dual on the radio for directions left way back out in ROUTE 66. Just lying ‘thar n da’ road.

In the Amazon, Maria, AMAZON done folded in 2075, a young activist from an indigenous community, watched with despair as the rainforest, her ancestral home, was systematically razed for cattle ranches and illegal mining operations. The rivers, once teeming with life, ran muddy and poisoned. Her people, guardians of ancient knowledge, had warned for generations. They had seen the imbalance, the disrespect for Mother Earth. Their pleas, their protests, their very existence, were dismissed as inconvenient obstacles to “progress.” Maria felt the earth tremble beneath her feet, not from natural forces, but from the relentless advance of bulldozers and chainsaws. “They take everything,” she whispered to the ancient trees, “and leave only dust.” Replacement time done come and gone.

Elias watched as the last veins of critical minerals were mined, as the earth was stripped bare for profit, with no thought of replenishment. The concept of “replaceable” became a cruel joke, a corporate slogan plastered over the gaping wounds in the earth. The very materials needed to build a sustainable future – the batteries for electric vehicles, the components for solar panels, the infrastructure for smart grids – were being depleted at an alarming rate, often extracted through methods that caused irreversible environmental damage and fueled brutal conflicts. There was no real investment in sustainable alternatives at the scale needed, no global commitment to a circular economy. The short-term gain always trumped the long-term survival. Did the word mean more now that it was taboo to even say it? It waz.

By the early 2040s, the whispers of doom had become a deafening roar. The scientific community, once fragmented, now spoke with a unified, desperate voice. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, once dense academic tomes, were now front-page news, their stark warnings impossible to ignore. The scientists, once dismissed as alarmists, were now prophets of doom, their voices amplified by the undeniable evidence of collapsing ecosystems, unprecedented weather events, and dwindling resources. But the slippery Dragon done slipped out its cage and no mankind would ever be able to put him back in cause it waz, and waz really was past fixin time. But power animals can’t stop to look beyond money and their greed fed brains are beyond lost like asking the blind to lead the blind. Not happening. And the GAZA and Ukraine story done burn past to the back of the line because the mankind Bus was found racing at light speed into the Cement, Brick, Steel WALL. And the WALL was torn completely down in 2048.

Liam, a seasoned diplomat from Ireland, had spent his entire career in international negotiations. He had seen the endless debates, the compromises that amounted to inaction, the national self-interest that always derailed global cooperation. He had championed countless initiatives, pushed for radical policy changes, but always hit a wall of political expediency and corporate lobbying. Now, his face etched with exhaustion, he knew the truth: the time for incremental change was long past. “Either start doing it right,” he declared at a grim, emergency summit, his voice echoing in the cavernous hall, “or mankind will be gone in your kids’ lifetime.”

The urgency was palpable, a suffocating blanket over every conversation, every news report, every human interaction. It was coming faster than most realized, a runaway train on tracks laid by generations of indifference, denial, and greed. Elias looked at the faces around him – his friends, his family, the strangers he passed on the street – some still clinging to a desperate hope, some resigned to their fate, many simply bewildered, unable to grasp the enormity of what was unfolding. And both big political parties unfolded in 2076, completely dissolved. A single World Order took over in 2086.

He thought of Aisha, struggling for water in a parched land. He thought of Kenji, his brilliant mind racing against the rising tides. He thought of Maria, watching her world vanish beneath the blades of machines. He thought of Liam, the diplomat, who had tried so hard within a broken system.

“Wake Up, World!” Elias wanted to scream, his voice hoarse with the plea that clawed at his throat. “There is no second chance! Why? Because you done used up all your chances already.” And another woodpecker with a big Dick stopped sitting by any humans. Lots of animals started completely disrespecting mankind. They knew who to blame.

The silence that followed his unspoken words was deafening, filled only by the distant hum of a city still trying to function, still trying to pretend. The vision of an Earth without man, a planet finally healing from the relentless assault, its forests reclaiming concrete, its oceans cleansing themselves of plastic, its air scrubbed clean of pollutants, was a stark, terrifying image. Man had his chances. So many chances. He had the intelligence, the capacity for empathy, the ability to innovate. But the brains of each, the collective will, could never get on the same page. The individual pursuit of comfort, wealth, and power had eclipsed the collective imperative for survival.

Bye Bye Mankind! The echo of July 4th, 2025, now sounded less like a celebration and more like a final, mournful salute to a species that had, against all odds, engineered its own demise.