2023, Early Spring
“You just gotta keep livin man, L-I-V-I-N”
David Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Music: I’m ok, Abby Holliday
I am thinking about the end of all things. The end of these old brick buildings, of the Labrador underneath the table next to me. The end of the guy who keeps making flirty eyes with a woman on the other side of the terrace. There is an expectation that the night will go on. It is probably the right. Though we have the technology to end it. One man’s decision and this whole terrace, this whole city, with all her dogs, humans and buildings, it could all go up in smoke.
Most of us don’t think about it much. Like the people on the terrace here, we assume the night ends before the world does. We will almost always be right. When we won’t be, it might not matter anymore.
In a nuclear world; continuation is an assumption. One we have to make to get anything done. Still, it remains an assumption; one that puts faith in the hands of unreasonable people.
There is an envoy! A friend of the girl makes contact between the terrace tribes. Groups can treat each other like alien civilizations. Our envoy is good though. Careful, charming, direct. Give her all the nukes I say. She would only use them for romance. Nuking for love, a difficult concept to contemplate for all but the mad. Yet more understandable than nuking for territorial gains.
The Labrador isn’t that worried. Neither should I perhaps. Perhaps I should approach the world with his tirelessly playful attitude. I just can’t seem to help myself sometimes. Too many things seem to threaten our world. A.I., climate change and as always: nuclear catastrophe. There are 50 ways to leave everyone with nothing. Imagining our final end is hard for some, not to worry about it is hard for others.
I just can’t see how we are going to get trough this.
Climate change; a slow rolling thunder, making everything else harder and harder. What happens with A.I. nobody knows for certain. Seeing how we are using it so far; it isn’t encouraging. All the while nuclear weapons hang over us like Damocles’s sword. It hangs over this whole scene. Nothing might be spared. Not even this most innocent Labrador, nor the flirty couple with their less than innocent intentions.
I haven’t even mentioned pandemics yet. I reckon we are all a little tired of those.
The truth, it seems, is that we can’t keep worrying forever. We need to flirt, have a drink, be merry. Without it, the world as we know it will have already come to its end. No shots fired. No matter how worrisome our situation becomes we have to keep living like we will be ok. It is living best we can. It is the only way we know how. Our brains aren’t wired to deal with the presence of impending doom. A charming feature of humanity, even if, it isn’t always helpful.
This terrace didn’t end yesterday, and it is minutes away from surviving yet another day. It probably will survive a couple more. The problem of induction be damned! We will have another day. We will be fine. Fine until we are not.
The flirty couple, the envoy, and I, we will just have to forget about Damocles and live on. What else is there to do? We just keep livin. Keep on being human.
Who knows? Maybe we will be ok.
