Tonight, via Twitter, RTE’s Frontline (a program I’ve never seen and will never see) asked “What’s left of Ireland for those under 30?” (topic of next Monday’s show).
“Splutter!”, I spluttered derisively, “Typically absurd & reductive meedja question”. At least that was initially. Then (after a few minutes) I stopped spluttering and started getting the fear. What if…?
I rose gingerly from the couch and tugged the curtains a lickle bit apart with a shaking index finger. And that’s when I saw it. Or didn’t see it.
There was nothing out there. Just a void where the street used to be. Even the wheelie bin was gone. Turned, now, into a sickly (and not even there) non-mass of trans-dimensional quarks and gluons. The neighbours’ Ford Focus? A shimmering un-black no-puddle.
It was like the head-fuckingest Sapphire & Steele episode ever. Without the laughs. Or David McCallum.
And I’m over 30.
Here’s what’s left for me (18, Leaving Cert this year): less college places because over-30′s are now taking them, a minimum-wage job even if I get a masters degree, higher energy costs as we reach peak oil, ever-worsening health as more and more chemicals and unnatural, overly processed shite gets fucked into my food and the thought that if I ever get to mate – my children will reach adolescence and act like whores.
But then again, I’m quite bitter.
Dude, all that misery’s good for you! Character forming. I grew up in the rain-lashed and gloom-saturated 80s and it didn’t do me any harm.
*Sighs, downs another glass of wine, and stares despairingly off into middle distance*