Just say no!
As the jets fly overhead, one can only pray that the bombs will drop and annihilate this disease riddled hellhole.
"Welcome to Halifax" a sign once jovially read, but since the military arrived in their drones it now reads " Welco e to Ha ifa ", a chilling message I think you'll agree.
It all began several weeks ago, the rain was hammering down, the sky filled with static rage and a burnt electrical smell in the air. People were milling around doing their shopping when suddenly, completely out of the blue, it happened. Maybe it was out of the sheer panic & confusion that ensued, but for some strange reason, just after it had happened everyone immediately began to swarm and congregate into the town centre. People fled their homes, abandoning them in the knowledge that they could never return, taking with them what little possessions they could carry. They could never go back. Ever! How had it happened? Why had it happened. Suddenly out of all the mayhem a lone voice could be distinctly heard rising above the cacophony. Was this an angel, sent here to guide us all to safety? Everyone waited with baited breath.
"TSSSKK... tap tap... TSSSKK... Is this thing working? No? Yes? Soz, I ain't used one of these before. TSSSKK... HELLO? Ah, here we go. TSSSKK... AHEM.... WHAT'S E.T. SHORT FOR? 'COS HE'S GOT LITTLE LEGS".
No! This was clearly not our saviour.
And with that, everyone realised our fate was sealed. We would be destined to this way of living forever. A life on the streets with no law, no escape and perhaps most worrying of all, no megaphone. It had been trampled on after that joke about a monkey in a wig.
The rudimentary shelter was up in a matter of hours, Basic? Yes. Makeshift? Absolutely. Flushing toilets & jacuzzi? Erm, no. But this was now our home. We had no choice. The smell of smoke from the numerous fires that had been lit quickly began to fill the air. This then turned to the smell of bacon. This was not just bacon though, this was reconstituted dried, powdered ration bacon. From Lidl. Epic!
As the days go by, thing are rapidly going downhill. A despondent, chaotic mood has taken over the camp. Violent, sporadic, outbursts occur for no apparent reason. The smell, immeasurably worse than a million putrefying goat testes hangs thick in the air. How I wish I could still smell the now long gone aroma of the powdered bacon. Even the smell of the fires would be a luxury. But everything that could be burnt has been. No more food save for a few scraps, stagnant water and no electricity. Is there an outside world filled with normality? We'll never know.
Sickness took a foothold very quickly. First the elderly and the very young were infected, but as conditions deteriorated everyone was at risk, even the doctors. I say "doctors". These were not real doctors, just some mentals who had donned white bin bags and were running around wielding blunt, rusted craft knives & nails, jabbing away without care at anyone. Still, this was a better health plan than nothing at all, and the "patients" must have been very sick as they were all dead now anyway. No medicine you see.
Disease. Famine. Pestilence. War. But this was a far more harrowing affair, than a mere apocalypse. We'd have been lucky if it had just been the apocalypse. Oh how I wish for just an apocalypse. And all this just because it had happened.
You remember that poignant scene from Mad Max? The one where Melon Gibbers isn't acting like an anti-Semitic, bigoted, alcoholic buffoon? No, me either. Anyway this is nothing like Mad Max. That was just a film; this is very, very real.
Why us? Why here, Why now? Why clef Jean?
A splinter group appeared made up of philosophers, poets, artists and free thinkers. They called themselves "The Dan Aykroyd Collective". I'm not too sure why. I don't think they did either. They were trying to figure out why it had happened. and indeed, how it had actually happened. They couldn't. All they did finally come up with, before they disbanded, was that it definitely had happened and also that everyone fancies their mother to some extent because of the way geese fly in a V-formation. Idiots!
This is the one big question everyone is constantly asking. WHY? It is, I fear, unanswerable. Almost as unfathomable as to how Graham Norton has ever been allowed on, and still persists to appear on television or how on earth I am managing to send you an e-mail from a place with no electricity, computers or technology. Well I say no technology. Someone has found an old, slightly cracked, solar powered Casio calculator from somewhere. This is providing hours of entertainment down by the now abandoned burger hut as people flock round to see 5318008 turned upside down. Something, I think you'll agree, that can never get old.
So as the jets fly overhead what is to become of me? Of us? Indeed of all humanity? I don't know. All I do know is we haven't long for this world. Food is at a critically low level. Water is polluted. Hygiene is none existent.
But the sound of the jets is being drowned out. Now there is an ear shattering drone. A monotonous, dull, nausea inducing, deafening, bland, drone. It's like the audio equivalent of celery. I feel dizzy. Has disease finally got it's gnarled claws on me? Make it stop. It's getting louder. Please make it STOP!
Wait, hang on a minute. This isn't Halifax. Yes, it's all becoming clear now. Everything is hazy, but I can make out people with beards, people with flowers, people with breasts, people with beards and breasts. Why of course, it's Glastonbury! Jeez, I really shouldn't have had that 'aromatic' fudge the weird hippy woman was handing out whilst watching Amelia and the Flatulence over on the Nicholas Lindhurst Cyberstage.
Oh thank goodness, normality has resumed. It was all just some weird trip. I feel a little jaded, and everything is a bit hazy but otherwise I'm fine. The world isn't ending, all is good. Hopefully I'll still even have time to make my way to see the last half of Rita's Sporadic Dungaree Jamboree at the High Hitler Hut.
But wait. No! Still that awful drone continues. It's physically painful. What is it? Where is it coming from? It sounds some distance away, but it's still a hundred fold times more horrific than the trauma I've just experienced in my tiny, fractured, fragile mind. I've never before heard such a banal, boring, yet annoyingly grating sound.
Oh god, no!
It really has happened!
Help us all!
RETREAT!!!!
It's Coldplay headlining on the pyramid stage!!!!!!!!!
Still, it could be worse. It could be U2.
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