When will it end? When will it ever end? And why does she fight it? Putting off the inevitable, the inescapable. No point really, hardly any point at all. Yet she’s back at that desk again, looking out into the darkness in front. Dark trees beneath a dark sky, with dark puddles within the dark mud. And maybe, just maybe, a dark hell is encompassed beneath those trees, enveloped in some nth dimension.
The glass in the window presents a plastic interior for the room, with the bookshelves reflected in the shiny surface. Only the lights of passing cars flickering through those trees give any sign that it is not just a part of a badly done, under-budgeted stage set. For although it’s a wall of a room of a house in a road, the glass itself could just as easily be 2D, and then who’s to say which is the outside, and which the other, the side seen from within. For if it’s 2D, then there is no inside, but neither is there an outside.
And the glass is so sheer, so flat, it might as well be 2D, there is no sign of perspective to give away its secret 3rd dimension. But the girl looking through the index pages of text books to find another elusive phrase on the past paper sees only the exterior side. It is not the interior of the room with a pinewood curtain rail and tasteful curtains, but the exterior of that dark world under the trees. It shows her that black front with the flashing cars, but it is completely 2D.
And the new day bought a new sermon, another public speaker re-iterating the same old, and with an over-fondness for dramatic pauses. That same old the sun repeats more fluidly with every rising, that the clouds cry out with every rain drop. For are we not fortunate, we lucky few, have we not been blessed by Io, and by blind luck? In this way each and every one of the people in this western world knows this, for none can deny the pure truth of the matter. They see the gaunt faces on that ever pervasive information medium, the gog box. No, they say, that is not good.
So they are moved, and are entrepreneurial in their compassion, generating through their sweat and toil relief for the tiny malnourished bodies of the children of a strange people living in strange countries, with strange customs and even stranger weather. For in some countries, it is said that the rain is not incessant, and the sun beats down vindictively.
Some will sleep sound when evening comes, content they have done their bit, that they have made the world a little better, a little easier. And in December they will look back and say, Yes, that was a good thing that I did, if I do but one thing in the coming year, let it be just as good.
And some will not sleep, and will not feel rested, and maybe they will adopt-a-granny, and donate to WorldVision before finding an orphanage in East Africa to which to leave their life-earnings. But then they’ll sure as hell have a relative who’ll be damn pissed that they got cut from the inheritance.
And maybe somewhere there’s a girl asphyxiating in a past paper, and incinerating herself with pictures of skeletal bodies too weak to swot away the flies. And it’s all in her head, and they follow her everywhere. Until she is moved to distraction, and embarks upon a spiral journey culminating in letter bombs to dictatorial regimes and death by hunger strike in a bare prison cell. Or maybe that is another girl, with another story, and perhaps she did not find the past paper quite so very hard.
But the woods whisper to little children in the dark, and it is easy to loose the true path of light and fluffy bunnies. It's not like its badly signposted, it's just lacking a fluorescent background, flashing neon lights, a happy jingle and yellow brick paving. They could all very easily hammer in the morning and hammer in the evening and hammer the whole bloody day, but until you see the Shawshank redemption it all seems pretty pointless, and then when the world finally decides it should show this epic in schools to encourage young delinquents to fulfill their moral hammering obligations for society, there're always going to be sectors of the population that believe that personal hygiene must come first, or what the hell are we fighting for? So then comes Mel Gibson's big moment, but once again, there're major issues regarding health and safety, not to mention the arguement that no matter what one is fighting for... blue make-up? Sooooo not even last season.
People trip, and people stumble, and before you know it, entire civilisations spring up next to black-berry bushes. So the collection of do-gooders bringing aid to the starving gradually thins out. Hansel and Gretel stop to storm the Bastille, doing away with the aristocracy, and Jack initiates free trade, and introduces the bean currency, which is of course a huge success, as it manages to be even more available, useful and acceptable than the Euro. Goldilocks starts the freedom of speech movement in the media via her very own porridge review column, Robin Hood initiates the Trade Union movement, and the Princess and her Pea introduces consumerism.
*Note: the author of this does not even pretend to be a history textbook. It is suggested that if the reader wishes to know the chronological details of any of these turning pionts in the development of modern day codes of conduct, that they can go and fucking look it up for themselves. And then throw themselves off of a cliff cos you're way past therapy, sweet thing.*
Little Red Riding Hood started the Woman's Liberation front along with the right to roam issue, the 3 pigs starteed off the concept of insurance policies, and the Ugly Duckling fronted the campaign to legalise LSD, although this last issue is as yet unresolved.
So you see, the ranks of the righteous quickly become depleted. Of course, the one that really steals the most wannabe-saints is Beauty and the Beast's cosmetic surgery clinic, and various debates on possibly setting up a free health service.
If you think about how many readers made it through the last few paragraphs, you could probably get a vague impression of how many pilgrims might make it through that forest. If you're one of the few still reading, then congrats, you should go ahead and feel a sense of acheivement. (As well as a profound sense of depression that your life is this empty that you could actually be bothered. God, you must be a sad, sad, sad, bored git.) But spare a thought for lost souls with their boots stuck in that aforementioned dark mud.
Those few that make it to the finish line, tired and spent, how much of themselves do they have left to give to the starving? Prescious little, for determination and strength have their own extortionate price tag, and are not VAT free in the least, for the funds for that free health service have got to come from somewhere.
So the starving die, or stay starving, or become that 1 in a million who wins the lottery of life, and joins in the race through that forest. And that person must deal with what's happened to them, the fact that they're no longer the impoverished majority, but all of a sudden against all the odds have joined the minority of the stinking rich. Hope they wear deoderant.
So until next time, don't live a little, live a lotto. Like I'm giving you any kind of choice in the matter.
