What I Want (or The Kids Fucked Up)

I want to be able to go outside whenever I want. But we've all been a bunch of dicks and now we're locked up for three to six months.

We've gotten so nasty, so fuckin dirty, so dependent on fragile systems that one tiny bat-shaped mistake got us all breathing poison over each other.

Now we're on the Naughty Step. A whole species forced to wash their hands for six months and think about what we did wrong.

Sutpidhead, I keep telling myself as I stand at my kitchen sink, looking out the window at a silent street.

The kids fucked up. Now we're all grounded. What's the best thing to do? Stamp around red-faced for a while and let off some steam then carry on exactly as before? Do we keep doing the same shit that got us here in the first place? Fuck yeah. Let's learn nothing. Let's crouch in the dust and keep torturing insects and mammals unfortunate enough to scuttle near our hunting, gathering fingers.

Or we can grow the fuck up. We can sit on the edge of our bed with our chin in our hands and stare into the distance and try to do what we're actually supposed to be doing which is think about what we did wrong in the first place.

So let's think about it. I don't know what you've done, rightly or wrongly, so I'll rephrase the question: What did I do wrong?

I'm not sure but my gut instinct is this: I got totally obsessed with a screen. I became so preoccupied with my screens that I let personal relationships suffer. I made the mistake of thinking people on screens were more important than their real-life selves, or, in fact, the real-life people right next to me. I ignored all my neighbors. I can't name a single one. I don't live close to any of my friends or family. I have to get on a plane to see my brother.

My relationship with products has also changed since getting hooked on the Screen. Now I assume buying something means looking it up on Amazon then it shows up at my door in a couple days.

Wrong. That product is an unbroken chain of people stretching halfway around the world. I was happy to ignore the people working in the shadows. Why did I allow my soul to harden? Everyone else was doing it. (Some people called out the bullshit – they've either got dreadlocks or shaved heads though.) Enough people like me were doing it that it felt normal to me.

Then a coronavirus-shaped baseball comes outta left field and knocks us the fuck out.

And so I sit on the edge of my imaginary bed and my little heart sinks because I know, deep down, that the voices in my head are right. I fucked up.