Another day

The noisy ringing persistently knocks at your eyelids. Too much hot, your mouth dry, unbearable heaviness in your legs. You cannot stand your burning ribs. A finger on the switch and the morning news fill the room. Is it morbid fascination or is it just that there is no other reality? Is it that bad things are the only ones occurring, or that good news is boring, unmarketable? Who knows? But the world is ending. Definitely. A nightmare of deserts, clouds-in-Chaotic-movement black skies, flooding foul seas and wretched beings jostling your head. What will your sons live through? And their sons? What if there is no water anymore? A dying planet. Slow and doughy, and dehydrated death. How long could it take? A huge meteorite would be better: a wandering cosmic rock, hitting the world all of a sudden… plafff!... Just in a second. And much better at night, while we sleep, and more much better if we’re sleeping with alcohol and sedatives in our veins. A comet would not work; a comet follows a predictable path. It would be a quick death, no doubt, but painfully foretold. No. It should be a quick – clean? – blind death. And if there is something further on, then we will remember, suffer – correct things? If there is nothing, well, just the vacuum, no memories, and another non-transcendental second of universe. How did they get to think and invent the steam engine? Incredible. Black strong coffee, sensual yellow-frothed coffee. The scent is the same as always, but what if they would have seen this coffee maker three centuries ago? Incredible the steam power, and nowadays there are the microchips, as compressed and vast as the egg of the universe, cloning and human genome and wireless communication. Not even Verne would have dreamt of it. But the world is ending. Terrible, uncertain… when and how? After a second looking at the fishbowl – beautiful deaf majestic indifferent fishes in their tiny brief world – he sat at the table and mechanically took his breakfast, his eyes fixed on a scale-modelled sailing ship on the shelf. Books, adventures, trips, inner exploration, the exhaustion of virgin geography. Another machine: eating, working, buying, wasting, using, resting, re-starting, eating. Nonsensical and logical. No thinking. And living is becoming rougher, more money needed, much working, faster and blinder and more indifferent cycle in this brief world. Aftershave toothpaste cologne deodorant shoe polisher soap clean hands cream. A foam hill in the washbasin. From here it all goes to the sea, and it must be millions like me every day. Thousands of millions every day. Always. And there are the oil spills and the rubbish dumps and the toxic chemicals. Tons of them, every day. How big is the world? how much crap the Earth takes? It is ending. When or how is the question. Open door, torrid hot: that is the global warming. How long will the world stand it? Into the street, some trouble in the carburettor, low quality fuel, too much fumes, but no time to fix it. As long as it keeps working. Heavy foggy, indifferent traffic. Thousands of millions every day. The office. Escalator, talking lift, comfortable efficiency. Not even Verne. The office is bright lighted; the air conditioning is strong, space ship-like ambience. Delicious coffee in a disposable glass. Progress is delightful. Uffff…