You’ve got to give respect to the multiverse if only for keeping its bases covered. Consider this one, close by, almost next door. A column of black limousines slowly parade down crowded streets. There are protestors but they’re held back blocks away. Democracy was last November, not today. The president elect steps out of his car surrounded by secret service agents. Donald Trump is about cement his place in history. Yes Donald Trump. I told you it was a close by universe. The ones with Ellen, Michael Cera or Hilary Trump taking to the stage...those universes are further away, more improbable than in our cluster. There are no bullets in the air, be they from China, the Liberal Elite or a Central American immigrant. They’re for other universes too. In this one, the differences are almost imperceptible.
After President Trump makes his pledges, believing them as he repeats the words, reads out someone else's speech trying for the reaching out to all America schtick for probably the last time he sits down and takes in the show. Beyonce was busy. As was Britney. Hell even LMFAO wouldn’t reform. With only the slightest of pauses Metallica take to the stage and kick off with something from their latest album.
In the name of desperation
In the name of wretched pain
The crowd are restless. It's been two minutes and they're not still not great. The tensions, the issues, the politics - those that caused them to vote, to stand in the cold January air wanting the lies in their heart to remain undisturbed. They were back.
In the name of all creation
Gone insane
Fists are flying. Who invited “them” to a KKK rally? There are sirens in the distance. Tear gas grenades pop. Water cannon pumps start up. Safety catches are clicked off, both along the avenue and across the nation. TV lenses focus in.
Were so fucked
Shit outta luck
Hardwired to self destruct
Welcome to 2017. Welcome to the year it all comes true. When we’ll build walls, both real and conceptual. When something means something. When climate change is a hoax. When not buying into disintegration if off message. Welcome.
Wikipedia defines the phrase “pissing contest” as a “metaphor used figuratively to characterise ego-driven battling in a pejorative or facetious manner that is often considered vulgar”. How quaint. How 2016. This year of no rules, our new deal, means that the phrase now refers to when someone pays prostitutes to urinate onto a hotel bed linked to someone you hate. Is it fake news? It’s 2017. It doesn't matter. Meanwhile, beyond the locker room jokes and carefully worded euphemisms on news broadcasts a more concerning narrative as to the extent of Russian influence over the incoming US President is conveniently brushed passed and focus can return to what dresses were worn by who at the global globe awards. Is it La La Land’s year? Very much so. And for the film too.
Back over our side of the pond the talk has been similarly lascivious if with some local end of the pier tawdriness. Do you want it hard or soft? Slow and thoughtful or fast and brutal? When do we want it? Brexit that is. Pin-up for the undead and unashamed unelected Prime Minister, Theresa May finally, long after confirming that brexit means brexit and it should be red, white and blue in colour delivered a speech to announce the Government’s position. Like the trade unionists she despises we’re going to be out, out, out. Goodbye single market. Farewell european court of justice. So long customs union. It’s also hello to free trade apparently through a new negotiation with the EU. From Europe there was predictably responses ranging from bemusement to outright derision. The argument seems to be stuck at the level that BMW don’t want their UK car sales to fall whilst to allow free trade without free movement just for us risks fracturing the whole union. We’ll have years of negotiations, neither side will get what it wants but both will claim victory. Similar to other high profile divorces, but less likely to appear on the front cover of magazines in supermarket checkouts. There’s already been some hints of negotiation stances, one being that if we don’t get what we want we’ll turn the UK into a colder version of Panama and become a tax haven for all morally flexible corporations, ie all of them. When our opening gambit is a drive to the bottom the next steps appear to be bringing back feudalism, worshiping rocks and burning anyone from outside the village.
There’s a live feed on youtube from the international space station. It glides above us, beaming down calming images of the expanses of land and sea that we call home. Of course eventually its orbit will decay, with most of it burning up in the atmosphere whilst the odd fragment will strike our cold planet, long dead from a nuclear exchange triggered over a mistranslation involving the words “tiny hands”. Hello 2017. What’s next?
