ALL SYSTEMS ARE NOW CLOSING - A FABLE OF DARKNESS

A future not so very far away when war has been the meat-grinder of all minds exposed to it and all resistance to it is ended.

We were nearing the end. We could all feel it. The spirit had finally and completely been knocked out of us. The birds still sang, nature remained in all her glory. Yet a grey mist seemed to hang before all our eyes. The endless wars had ruined all this for us and it almost seemed like sarcasm was being thrown in our faces by every joy that remained of nature.

The wars had traumatised us. We no longer seemed to smile. We could find no pleasure in things as we once had done. Too much death and misery had entered our minds through eyes glued to tri-d sets and v-real. Somewhere along the line all that death had deadened us too. We had soaked in too much suffering. Our intelligence networks were stuffed with effluent, the scummy nature of humanity had been too often revealed. And we could smile no more.

I sat in my apartment and stared into space. The black rectangle hung before me but I dared not switch it on, never mind the wallscreen. The tri-v I should have disposed of when the wallscreen went up. But I had never made the time to do it and besides, the refuse dumps were absolutely clogged up with them and even now, six months later, the queues were still long to dump the things. Besides, somehow the silence, though not comforting, was preferable to any sort of loud noise, especially that of gunfire.

War was all you saw on the wallscreen networks now, or at least it seemed that way. Since the start of the Sino-West war the level of coverage had soared. The ongoing Iran War feeding into that just put the whole thing into sensory overload. The Chicago Bombing and all its gore added to the overall blackness of course. The Moscow Metro tragedies too. The entire world appeared to be suffering with no way out, no way back to normality. They had thought the wallscreens would help cheer us up… but the news of all the wars transferred immediately and, unless you found a way to terminate the coverage totally, it seemed to effortlessly seep its way back into your consciousness.

I pondered the way it had all come about. 9/11 was of course the start. The political warrior class took over from the mix of officials and diplomats that had preceded them. To the new bozos ever problem was a nut and each solution a hammer. You can make one helluva mess with a geopolitical hammer and they proceeded to make the mother and father of all messes with theirs. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Lebanon, Russia and now China. The entire world was aflame and they had lit the fuse.

There seemed no end to it all now. It had become too complex, interwoven with alliances, grievances and hatreds, scores to settle, dead relatives to be avenged and ambitions to be realised. We were in a whole world of trouble now and we knew it. Where to start? What first steps can be taken when you are tripped up with each indication you’re going to move? No one trusted anyone any more. Why would they? All we had heard for decade after decade had proven to be lies. Lies had simply been one of the best weapons of war and there had been no escape from them.

But taking on China? What madness was this now? Why should we, thousands upon thousands of miles away, care about an island off the Chinese coast that was quite obviously part of the same country? Why should thousands, perhaps millions now die over it? Why should death and destruction descend upon so many for such a far off, virtually trivial (at least to us) issue? It made no sense, no sense at all. But little did these days. We had no control. We were told to shut up and only lend our support. Otherwise keep quiet and out of our way… while we war.

Finally I got anxious. The quiet had gotten to me. My nervousness unsettled me and I called for the wallscreen to start. 

I regretted my decision immediately as the first image began to appear. The tri-d sensors at either side had also kicked in immersing the room in a red, flaring glow. That alone was enough to shift my nervousness up a gear toward a semi-panic state. Next came the roar. Why had I set the volume that high? That was the roar of some missile hitting its target. A fuel dump, some military headquarters or a mis-hit where a bunch of innocents got fried by mistake. Sure enough the remnants of blackened apartment buildings appeared, the tri-d effect almost making the nearest seem to touch my nose. Black smoke roiled from it as well as flames. The O-C unit delivered what it considered was an approximation of the stench. Speedily I called for the odour-control to be switched off.

My eyes were tortured most though. My ears too. There were bodies. There were also screams. Nothing was left to the imagination now. The last gasp rule for the networks in a vain attempt to create revulsion for war by showing us, the viewing public, the entire unsantised reality had come too late. Our powers of protest had been tried before the Bush/Blair Iraq adventure and had failed. Since then even the small amount of power could demonstrate then was removed from us. We partly did the job ourselves of course. We began to prefer nOT to see. Now that they were MAKING us see it just sickened us doubly as we knew we were powerless to do anything about it.

The voiceover spoke of one endless tragedy after another. A world burning in every possible way. Atrocity, catastrophe, disaster, the endlessly nihilistic mayhem of war with hardly the opportunity to escape unless you had the bank account of a billionaire. Even then you could not be assured of your safety. The sea lanes held their dangers now too. Planes were falling from the sky with great regularity. The Middle East was one vast battleground. All structures ancient and modern were being lost to the bombs. The world was screaming and no one was hearing. These were the words now being spoken. It was clear the narrator felt just as we all did now. It was hopeless. It was the end. 

I rose and walked to the window. The sirens were screaming of course, it wouldn’t be nighttime in New York without them. The heavens had opened an hour or so before and the rain now fell in tropical style. Red lights twirled down on the street, racing through the night. My fellow humans were seeing what last morsels of excitement, entertainment or satisfaction they could gain in this dark night of humanity, vicariously careless of all else but the fire burning within them too. I looked up. The drone convoys still criss-crossed between the clouds. Why worry about expense now as figuratively Rome is burning. Order it up now while you still can.

I retreated back to my seat and tried to comfort myself within its embrace. The wallscreen still did its thing, relentlessly informing of one disaster after another. Facts and figures displayed how many deaths to the nanosecond that day, endlessly increasing just like those of the national debt, each figure inexorably climbing upward with no end in sight.

Then. Suddenly. A blank red screen. Then to black. No image. No tri-day display.

And out of the sudden darkness a voice.

“Everyone in reach of a screen. Your attention please. Alert those who cannot hear this with the following message. ALL SYSTEMS ARE NOW CLOSING. We have reached the end of any benefit in the describing of reality. From now you are on your own to create something other, free from all description. You must describe yourselves now or not at all. We have not improved our world but helped destroy it. We are now ending ourselves. We wish you good luck and hope to see you again in the real world.”

A sunset or sunrise, I don’t know which, then appeared, in full, glowing splendour. It remained for a minute or so then slowly faded away. I was again left in darkness and silence, save for the sirens outside and the faint noise of a drone as it swept by… before the sudden reverberating explosion and flare of pulsing light as it crashed into my wall.

It was only then that all went truly black.