Recently, I’ve been unaccountably happy. This has left me bewildered, yet still helplessly glad. Then I sat with friends as they discussed imaginary weddings: the dresses, the groom’s arrival on a dyed Shetland pony, while dressed as Khal Drogo... And I realised: I’ve never imagined weddings. I’ve always imagined post-marital murder-suicide pacts: the choice of weapons, the type of bin bags in which I would be stored…
You see a holiday abroad; I see a trip in a flying chimney, followed by exposure to unfamiliar diseases. You see a Turner sunset above a city; I see a towering cloud of carcinogens so toxic so they actually glow. Of course I’m happy. I’m finally in phase with reality. The doom is no longer impending; it’s here.
Already wobbly pension funds are now so deeply in deficit that the physical offices of annuity providers are being braced with girders to prevent them collapsing inwards and literally disappearing. The pound is currently worth 300 grams of potatoes (yes, I use grams, they’re a handy unit of measurement, not an act of treason). And I mean those slack-skinned elderly potatoes you might buy in a garage. The post-referendum Purchasing Managers Index strongly suggests we’re screwed. All five indicators on which it’s based are making that whooping red alert noise you may recall from the original Star Trek.
Mortgages, wages and loans have stalled and businesses may soon be charged for forcing our poor beleaguered banks to store their heavy, boring, old money. That’s the same boring kind of money generated by striving human beings and resulting in goods, services, tax revenues, healthcare, a postal system, trains that go anywhere, the future etc. The UK no longer likes that kind of money. It prefers the endlessly upwardly mobile kind that only truly exists as algorithms. And meanwhile, the Bank of England is hosing billions of our real(ish) pounds into the offshore accounts and betting syndicates of the hyper-rich. Jersey, the Turks and Caicos Islands and other tax-free paradises can now beat catastrophically rising sea levels by simply mounding boring old cash into new shorelines and mountain ranges. Meanwhile, the world stares at Britain and sees a drunk, dank rock crawling with Shrek-faced bigots and delusional schoolboys in grown-up suits. Happy? I’m light-headed with transcendent bliss.
No one can even badger me with unsettling upsides: “At least Boris Johnson isn’t… Oh… Well, we wouldn’t deprive a child migrant of rights because they use adult hair gel… Oh… Well, we can still rely on Human Rights legisl… Well, we still have a dedicated government body protecting us from global warming… Well, at least the hate-filled agendas of Isis, the FSB, Trump and our own parliament haven’t unified into a hellish echo chamber of… Well, at least recklessly hateful media moguls including a shrivelled Davros look-alike composed of pure… Well, at least death, cruelty and wilful ignorance don’t stalk the world, picking our pockets like… Well, at least Theresa May doesn’t define great leadership as a willingness to vaporise a hundred thousand strangers… Oh God.”
And meanwhile, Phil Green, the banking system, the Houses of Parliament and every hedge fund manager out there continue to harness their interior moral vacuums to hoover in the wealth, the light and the sanity of the world. Eventually, they will explode in a cloud of lies, voodoo and imbecilic irresponsibility and the rest will be silence.
Or screaming. Possibly screaming. Our screaming.
Because we of the 99% are not married to the 1%. We are told to share their values, pet them and please them, but they dodged the vows, have pawned the ring and are, even now, buying bin bags and shovels. We have chained ourselves to power addicts and, like the spouses of any addict, we are watching them sell everything we’re fond of, endlessly repeat damaging behaviour and leave us fretting that we can’t go out for a stroll or turn our backs without something important, like, say, the norms of a civil society, being incinerated because they’ve acted with no consideration of consequences or let their mouths make word noises without first engaging their brains. It’s all as I always dreamed it would be. Perfect. Unsurvivably perfect.
So, although I dread my return to any reality not based on murder and suicide, might I politely suggest that 99 is a big number and 1 is much smaller? And perhaps those of us still standing can examine this whole actofloveinacluster that is our status quo and realise that many excellent human beings are already trying to change it and maybe we can join them. We’ve been told for years that no mass movement has ever achieved anything, that charities are corrupt and futile, that anyone in trouble is a liar or an immutable self-fulfilling prophesy. But look at who has told us these lies to cultivate our fury and our helplessness – lying liars who lie. Politicians who no longer act on our behalf have lied, preferring to impress future employers, claim expenses and focus group with what will play well – even if it’s beating paraplegic children with homeopathic models of Jesus as an alternative to wheelchair provision. And behind them are our lying media: a hideous dangling sack of bingo sites, gossip, porn and clickbait venom that’s poisoned us all to such an extent that I now have to wear a safety pin to show I won’t tantrum at the mere sight of anyone who doesn’t look exactly like me.
Enough of this – it isn’t a marriage, it’s a penance and we haven’t committed the sins. For the first time in our species’ history, we have the technology to integrate and collaborate as a global entity – to save ourselves. We can replace conventional media and make the bullshit crawl while the truth flies. Our status quo is doing nothing but scream threats and hurt us, because it knows we have already reached Peak Deception. We’ll be reaching someone else’s rock bottom soon, watching them self-destruct. We don’t have to sink with them. We can leave. We can try building other lives. Beleaguered partners, ruined communities and societies have done it before – we can, too. We’re not pathetic, we don’t have to take anything back, we’re already ourselves. We can do exactly what we’re being told not to – help each other.
Piece by piece, day by day – donating online, learning, organising, smiling at strangers, finding my conscience relevant – that’s how I’m leaving this relationship. And my dignity is coming with me – the powers that were can have custody of the bullshit. I don’t need it.
AL Kennedy’s latest novel, Serious Sweet, has been longlisted for the 2016 Man Booker prize
