Drama kicked off as an attack helicopter was shot down on the night of 24th November. It had blown out the door of my neighbour’s house, before crashing next to Freedom Farm (an extension of my Blockhouse), so I had a front row seat to the chaos.

The resulting fire from the crash burned half the farm down as Government soldiers secured the area and discussed divvying up the wreckage and strewn boxes. I soon realised that it was pointless trying to save the farm, so I simply let it burn out whilst watching for scavengers. The immediate concern for thievery was obviously that the crash site would be burglarised if not guarded, but any thief would now be able to get their hands on the valuable farm plants in future, so I stopped growing anything in it, which inadvertently left the nearby Liberty Farms to once again become a monopoly.

This one chopper had inflicted more damage to the village than all of the threatening clans and individuals that had sworn to attack it combined. But the drama didn’t end there, as an argument over the crashed items was raging. The two sides of thought on the issue seemed to be that whoever called “dibs” on the helicopter got to keep it, while the other side (which was the popular idea) suggested that anyone could fire at the aircraft and that the spoils would be divided fairly (as reasonably possible).

Among the boxes I investigated, I saw a few rockets were hesitantly taken. I had only fired a handful of bullets in helping bring it down, so didn’t want to seize anything of value, but as nobody took what remained, a few attachments I saw were the only items of any practical use to me, so I took those (and then stripped the husk for metal after it cooled down). It seems strange to me that someone could be deeply unhappy with the events of the crash. We all walked away with a chance at some of the bounty we’d all earnt. I thought the democratic system made sense, and felt it was an exciting episode in the storyline of the village.

Categories: Investigative Journalism