Meltdown in progress. Handle with care. Toxic.
What is wrong with people? Me and you and us and them and all that lies between? What’s wrong? I’m sometimes too spooked to leave my own home for the very real fear of meeting someone. I simply cannot bear the suspense of not knowing what lurks inside the stranger, of what dark disgrace he is ready to commit, of what sin he shields from view. And I live in the middle of absolutely nowhere. In fact, that’s exactly why I live in the middle of nowhere – the fear and loathing of others, the suspicion that all is not well.
It’s just too catastrophic out there. The greed and the violence, the hate and despair, and such shocking indifference to pain. The me me me of the glass-eyed generation with their gadget fixations and simmering disorders and incomprehension of “wait”. Just wait. Please. You’ll get your turn, your needs will be met, and gratification will come. But please oh please just wait a fucking minute, why don’t you, my zombified chum?
And that’s just fat and corrupt westerners with way too much time on their hands (like me). It’s enough to make you scream internally and rupture something or other (with a weird sounding name) inside. Is there a doctor in the house? Taxi for soul - hopefully heading upstairs. The bubbling fear and near-surface implosion that waits impatiently, with a gathering guile, for the final and obliterating release. It doesn’t take much, to be sure. Oh oh. I’m going off on one again. How many words already?
And I’ve just got to quit my Rwanda habit. What is wrong with people? I simply cannot leave it alone after all these years. Book after book and film after film and nothing to show for the pain. These dark shrieks that pierce the air, a keening, an imagined abyss that is woundingly real, an affront – an absolute, straight down the middle, fucking affront – to our collective and shared humanity. Is it at all possible, really, please help me, that we all just sat back and watched? Did we actually do that thing? Did Rwandans actually do theirs? It rips into me.
What is wrong with people? Where in the name of God are the good guys? How is it possible to twiddle one’s thumbs as these babies cry out in despair? A club to the head and a knife through the heart and a mother slumped dead in her chair. A blood soaked mountain stinking of death. Too much to take in, too much to deal with, and all so very far away that it should feel just fine. It really doesn't though. I’ve got to quit this Rwanda habit immediately, because it simply does my head in. This shattering confirmation that the world has gone to hell destroys the will to live. Does it not, sweet Romeo?
I’m going to get help from the UN. They should know a thing or two about quitting Rwanda. The dirty, self-regarding, bastards.
