The garden produce has been ripening quickly. It’s a challenge finding time to record and edit audio files. Maybe if I was better at it, it would go faster. :-/
The popular advice to writers is to start a story out with a big action scene to hook a reader’s interest. While logical enough (and often used), it seems pessimistic about the attention span of modern readers.
Advice aside, I thought it would be more realistic to have a “disaster” unfold more slowly. With normalcy bias, people would react more slowly — especially if they think the problem will get cleared up in a little while. Even with normalcy bias, pushy people will have more urgency to their pushiness. Rude people will be even less patient with others. Nonetheless, the world won’t go Mad Max in a few minutes.
I hope you’re enjoying the tale.