Babylon+OPEJOE


 * Heading**: Joe Beikirch 9E
 * Question**: When does this story take place?
 * Title**: Into the Future

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 * The story "By the Waters of Babylon" written by Stephen Vincent Ben é t, was written sometime in the near or distant future.** At first, it seemed the story took place in the past because everyone used arrows and were all mystical about stuff that would make you look stupid in this time. There were stories about fire falling from the sky, this can be interpreted as a nuclear bomb. That would explain why everywhere is a "dead place" and why everyone's technology was pushed back some hundreds of years ago. A regular bomb would just blow stuff up, in this story, John says that there are human skeletons in the houses he goes to, only an atom bomb can leave a corpse like that. Also, the "God roads" he is always referring to is actually a modern day road. After John started his journey to cross the river and go to the place of the Gods, it became clearer that this is actually the future. There are "Gods" described as modern day statues, such as George Washington. When he enters the building with stars on the ceiling, that is actually Grand Central Station. John is traveling around the ruins of New York. Since these things didn't exist in the past and we are fine right now, this must be the future.=====