Yes, we realize that there are people who will feel the effects of the government shutdown, but we also know from experience that Barack Obama chose to erect those “Barrycades” around Washington, D.C. in 2013 as an act of political theater and nothing more.

So what is D.C. like after the shutdown? Bloomberg View’s Megan McArdle got the ball rolling on a bit of collaborative fiction dramatizing life in Washington after the #SchumerShutdown. Our story begins Friday at midnight …

Midnight. The National Zoo has released its lions. Good luck to everyone in Northwest DC. — Binyamin Appelbaum (@BCAppelbaum) October 1, 2013

It is 12:03 in DC. On the streets, mobs are forming as planets form in the dust of a birthing star, passersby swirling towards centers of gravity. Already, the Government Printing Office has been looted of all its copies of the Budget Act of 1974. In the darkness, a distant howl. — (((Megan McArdle))) (@asymmetricinfo) January 20, 2018

The only law is that there is no law, and the living envy the dead. But you can totally get a table at Komi. — Brady Howell (@bd_howell) January 20, 2018

In the slanting, golden light of late afternoon, the corpse-mounds along The Mall give off a sullen red gleam. — Brady Howell (@bd_howell) January 20, 2018

All who complain about the rationing of tuna sliders will feel the hot bite of the lash. — Brady Howell (@bd_howell) January 20, 2018

Not to mention those empty vending machines in the White House press room.

WH press vending machine update… it’s completely empty #snackshutdown pic.twitter.com/q5gopRE7gY — Jim Acosta (@Acosta) January 20, 2018

12:00am – Government shuts down 12:01am – Saying “Merry Christmas” is illegal again 12:02am – All student loan balances go to zero 12:03am – It is now legal to marry marijuana 12:04am – Tide Pods become sentient — Daniel Lin (@danwlin) January 20, 2018

The following morning …

9:29 in DC. There is a man on the corner hawking a copy of the Federal Register. He has no teeth , and from the look in his eyes, no soul. A woman lies next to him in the gutter: face gaunt, fingers wrapped around a Brookings Institution coffee mug. Soft weeping rends the air. — (((Megan McArdle))) (@asymmetricinfo) January 20, 2018

9:40 in DC. At the local Starbucks, a woman from OSHA brings in an enormous box of staplers and tries to exchange them for a Kind bar and a grande chai latte (not even a Venti). https://t.co/7FRsZSX9sR — Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) January 20, 2018

Fell tidings from the Tidal Basin, where a stranded tourbus has been set upon by starving, rabid undersecretaries. — Brady Howell (@bd_howell) January 20, 2018

Many thanks to @asymmetricinfo who braved the unbridled anarchy of Washington D.C. to provide the world these pictures of the government shutdown. Stay safe! pic.twitter.com/3Djqf80MCx — Sweet Meteor O'Death (@smod4real) January 20, 2018

Here in the Heartland, far from the Fallen City, there is still a strange air of disquiet. A mighty sheltering Pow'r is no more, but the deluge is yet to fall. The ravaging wave sounds, but the crest is still beyond the horizon. — Marc Whipple (@legalinspire) January 20, 2018

11:00 am in DC: consultants begin roaming the decimated remains of the city, shooting deer with makeshift bows and arrows and offering unsolicited opinions to anyone nearby in groups of more than four. — Brian Ruff (@DecaffDog) January 20, 2018

Suburban Maryland, 11:11 A.M. A military reservist is caught in a state of temporal flux. He is set to perform duty, but instructions from the Pentagon are unclear. He is neither alive nor dead, yet both. He exists and yet does not exist. He screams, but no one can hear him. — Ralph Furlough (@AdamEFreyWrites) January 20, 2018

A crackling sound and a smell of ozone permeate the air. The wavefront of the Shutdown approaches, shifting reality in ways subtle and menacing. Water is clean, then not, then clean again. Automatic weapons and marijuana plantations flicker in and out of existence. — Marc Whipple (@legalinspire) January 20, 2018

11:22: Legions of women's marchers, unaware of the shutdown, venture into the temporal wormhole of D.C. and vanish from existence. Deprived of their army, feminism is dead. Harvey Weinstein seizes Nellis Air Force Base and conquers the west coast. — Ralph Furlough (@AdamEFreyWrites) January 20, 2018

11:26: There is a sound of distant thunder, and every USPS truck is replaced by a rusted-out technical, manned by screaming fanatics bedecked with gold fringe ripped from Admiralty Flags. Those with the mystic power of ALL CAPS find they can command the living and the dead. — Marc Whipple (@legalinspire) January 20, 2018

Barefoot children, smeared with ash, adorn themselves with the finger-bones of the Council on Foreign Relations. — Brady Howell (@bd_howell) January 20, 2018

Fish hurl themselves from the Potomac as Sen. Elizabeth Warren speeds her fearsome war-chariot over the Key Bridge. — Brady Howell (@bd_howell) January 20, 2018

11:35am: They have taken 14th Street Bridge and the Constitution Hall. Flake and Leahy and Nelson fell there. The pool is up to the wall at the Washington Monument. The Deep State took Orrin. We cannot get out. The end comes. Drums, drums in the deep. They are coming. — (Not) Bill O'Reilly (@NotThatBill) January 20, 2018

2:41 in DC: There are zones safe from the Hobbesian war of all-again-all. The burned-out remnants of Le Pain Quotidien at Dupont. A playground in Friendship Heights. The D St entrance to 395. But you must know the password, which is "GS-14". And there is no safe passage to refuge — (((Megan McArdle))) (@asymmetricinfo) January 20, 2018

3:26 in DC. The screams, dear Lord, the screams. Hum to yourself–no, sing, very loudly. You sing brave patriotic songs, for there is still America in your heart, if nowhere else. But they cannot drown the screams. And now you must sing louder still, to quench the sudden silence. — (((Megan McArdle))) (@asymmetricinfo) January 20, 2018

5:55 in DC. Dusk falls. GAO and CBO have devastated the Botanical Garden with their pitiless battle for control over the Rayburn Office Building. Corpses lie amidst shattered glass, illuminated by the burning piles of draft legislation. Look away, someone says, but you cannot. — (((Megan McArdle))) (@asymmetricinfo) January 20, 2018

What real and what’s fiction at this point? It’s difficult to tell.

Members also complaining to me that the House gym lacks enough towels this morning and they wonder if it’s because of the shutdown. — Robert Costa (@costareports) January 20, 2018

It's like the siege of Stalingrad over there. https://t.co/jqFS43Ol6F — Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) January 20, 2018

I eagerly await the Ken Burns documentary with Morgan Freeman reading their despondent letters home. — Michael Grubbs (@StealthyMG) January 20, 2018

"My Dearest Margaret…It's day 4 of the shutdown. It is the memory of your lovely face which I keep framed in my heart that allows me to endure these tortuous days and nights. The cafeteria ran out of Coke Zero yesterday, and the stress is written on the parchment of our souls." https://t.co/SF3dTCNeMR — Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) January 20, 2018

My Cherished Wife, Conditions are despairing yet we persist. A brother legislator used a dirty towel at the gym and asked that I spare his family the details of his suffering if he succumbs. Pray my dear that God bring clean towels. Our cause must endure. — Real Mayor NYC (@DomerNYC) January 20, 2018

To be continued …