Armageddon

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Autumn looked down at the street below watching all those sheeple going about their stupid, pathetic, daily tasks. How could they do it? How could they fall for the lies and the propaganda? Look at all those rolls of Christmas wrapping paper and plastic bags filled with plastic packaging. The world was going to hell in a handcart and people were just shopping like everything was normal. Carry on like this and the world would open up and swallow everyone.

But it didn’t have to be like that. If everyone shunned the system like she did, then the whole capitalist construct would collapse and change would come. Mother nature would no longer be angry and the threat of Armageddon would recede. People needed to wake up, smell the vegan bacon of reality. Stop being slaves to the wage, stop taking orders from governments who don’t have their best interests at heart, stop handing over their taxes the man and start looking after the planet again. Become free. Autumn was free. Free as a bird.   

But nobody listened to her. They thought she was the mad one. Thought that she was the eccentric. most of them called her a nutter and walked away, some of them listened to what she had to say, but she could see in their eyes that they thought she wasn’t quite all there; patronising bastards, they were worse than the name callers. But she was telling the truth, and that’s what kept her going.

She turned away from the window and dropped the last capsule into her Nespresso machine. She’d have one more coffee and then get out there and spread the word. She sipped her coffee and opened her MacBook Air. Facebook reminded her that it was Thursday and the vintage clothes market was on in town. She needed a new coat. She didn’t mind that she spent thirty pounds more for the coats on the market, at least the money wasn’t going into some sweat shop in Laos. She’d nip to the market first and then start giving out the leaflets that she’d promised her friend Martha she’d distribute on the streets of Cardiff.

They looked good those leaflets, and sure most of them would end up blowing in the wind, but if just one person read all about the ‘Cruelty of Christmas’, then her day would have been worthwhile. Oh, Martha was cool. It was Martha who told Autumn all about the world swallowing itself. She hadn’t told Autumn exactly when this would happen, but she’d promised her it would soon unless people threw off the shackles of conformity. If Autumn was honest, she would say she had a bit of a woman crush on Martha, she was everything that Autumn wanted to be, clever, eloquent, slim and pretty, a perfect woman.

“No, no, no, fuck.” Autumn picked the computer up as quick as she could but the coffee she’d just knocked over had already begun to seep into the workings. A crackle and a fizz, then a hiss and a moan, the screen turned to blue and then black and the computer was no more.

“Fuck, shit, wank, bollocks.” why did it always happen to her. the bloody world hated her. She half felt that powers were working against her, working to eliminate her. That somehow the system had made her spill her coffee. But she had them beat; everything was backed up two or three times and she could easily replace the computer; she wouldn’t let a little spillage ruin her plans.

“Dad, Can I have some money? I need a new computer.”

She wandered back over to the window.

“I split coffee on it. It is fuc… completely broken.”

She smiled, even over Facetime it was a killer smile. Her dad would be online sorting out a new computer for his little angel in no time as all.

“What?”

Her face creased into a frown.

“But dad I…”

She bit her little finger, that always worked on her father.

“How am I supposed to live?”

A tear ran down her face, she threw her phone across the room and it bounced up on to her rather nice Laura Ashely couch.

Fuck, shit, wank, bollocks. The system had obviously got through to her father. Brainwashed him. Turned him against her. That meant it was getting closer to her. Soon she too would be reprogrammed; made into a robotic sheeple. How was she going to buy a new computer now? How was she going to buy that new coat? Or buy new coffee. She was going to have to get a j.. j.., she couldn’t bring herself to say it. No! That was exactly what they wanted. Once she got a job, they would start to grind her down; the indoctrination could begin.

Autumn walked around in a daze. She held the leaflets, but she wasn’t getting rid of them. She just walked here and there, there and here. She couldn’t believe that her father could have been influenced by them. How could he betray his own flesh and blood in favour of that anonymous machine? She felt like Winston in 1984; the system closing in on her. She wished the earth would swallow them all now. That would teach them, that would prove her right and them wrong. She shivered in her holey coat. 

Autumn put her right foot down and felt the earth disappear beneath her. She heard a sound like a giant’s trousers ripping and was aware she was falling, falling. It was happening the world was swallowing itself. She felt something hit her arm, then her leg then a huge piece of concrete smashed into her head.

Passers-by rushed to the new hole in the road. They got as close as they dared and peered into the abyss, but there was nothing they could do to save the strange looking woman who had fallen into the sinkhole.