Wake me when the world ends

It’s late, and there’s noth­ing hap­pen­ing here. It’s early, so there’s always some­thing hap­pen­ing over there. Send it down the wires into my lap. At the push of a but­ton I can start a chain of events, unfold­ing them in a far-flung corner that could so eas­ily be the next street. All it would take is a few seis­mic shifts of the tec­tonic plates. The story is most likely being writ­ten in blood, penned in a for­eign field that would feel too close for com­fort if only I gave my con­science per­mis­sion to slide a thought in edge­ways, lodging it in the tight­est of gaps between my self-pity and my self-obsession.

I turn on the tele­vi­sion news for the first time in months. Here we are now, infotain us. Bring col­our to my grey­ness and gloom by assault­ing my senses with every bright, boun­cing graphic in your digital toy­box. Then ham­mer the point into my home with the most bru­tal weapon in your visual armoury.

Why won’t you make me bleed like they’re bleed­ing? Come here and phys­ic­ally drag me into the hor­ror and the tragedy, if you can. I need to be pushed down on my knees and have the gun held to my head. Oth­er­wise I’ll just stay here — entirely pass­ive, too tired to be aggress­ive — and con­tinue to enjoy my com­fort­able life on my com­fort­able sofa within my com­fort­able walls shrouded in the com­fort­able dark. The flick­er­ing images of fear, ter­ror, des­per­a­tion and destruc­tion will be beamed onto my face, yet I’ll still feel noth­ing. I’ll be your cousin, but twice removed and then some.

I’m not proud of my splen­did West­ern isol­a­tion. My spirit feels sickened by it. I’m not proud to be crunch­ing absent­mindedly on nachos and wash­ing away the work­ing week by slurp­ing from this sweet and bit­ter bottle. My stom­ach feels sickened by them.

Can I kiss it bet­ter? Can I do some­thing to make the pain go away? Maybe warm words will suf­fice. I’m good at those. They seep from my mouth like the most sooth­ing of balms. Trust me, I’m not spit­ting on you, I’m sym­path­ising. So let me tell you that I’m sorry for your suf­fer­ing. I’m appalled. Dis­turbed. Shocked. Angered. And apathetic. Don’t expect me to move or to be moved. Don’t count on me to do any­thing bey­ond let­ting my jaw drop open slightly and my eyes widen imper­cept­ibly. Instead, I’ll attempt to absolve myself from my crimes. If we ever meet in some altern­at­ive real­ity where the world has been moul­ded into that long awaited melt­ing pot of peace and love, I’ll ask you whether you’ll be able to for­give me. Will you par­don me for the fact that I couldn’t even be bothered to walk on by on the other side or come over and kick you in the stom­ach, but instead simply sat and stared and munched and drank?

I had a social con­science once. I was ideal­istic. I pro­tested and I shouted. I planned agit-prop and listened to agit-pop. I waved a ban­ner with one hand and poin­ted an accus­at­ive fin­ger with the other. I fought apartheid in my spare time, cried for Tianan­men, hid from the riots below Tra­fal­gar Square whilst secretly hop­ing for jus­ti­fi­able carnage up above, and finally — at last, at long bloody last — I stood on a bridge and watched a man pro­claim a new dawn.

I shone with hope and burned with right­eous indig­na­tion then. Now I nurse a mind that’s entirely blank. As blank as this screen will be, when I press standby and switch myself off.

Is that the time? It’s long past the hour for untroubled sleep.