Bus smells like shit. There’s a man on here I see sometimes. He has no teeth and stained hands from smoke. Today he looks at me, whispering something under his breath, some strange idea or threat just for him to know. I ignore him, he’s not well. I look at my phone. It’s really warm for some reason. I took it into apple to complain, ‘the battery is terrible’, I said, ‘its new why is the battery so bad’. The man said my phone was just adjusting and getting to know me, to give it time to settle in to my routines. That it gets hot when its learning. Yeh nice. Everything’s fucking learning now I guess. For Christmas my brother got my parents an AI powered rice cooker that takes longer to cook rice than a pot with a lid on it. What a wonderful thing…
I find some news to distract me from the whispering man. Annie Jacobsen talking about nuclear winter, famine, and firestorms. It doesn’t relax me. At least now I know what a bolt-out-of-the-blue attack is. However, I doubt knowing will ever help me in such a situation. I imagined what would happen to the man if they decided to end the world. A white light so bright it blinds, his fucked-up hair instantly erupting in an inferno, and his skin facing the window blistered and melting. All in micro-seconds before the shockwave hits. The windows of the bus exploding into a billion pieces, a pressure wave so strong lungs are crushed and insides turned to moosh. Too quick to even process. We’d very likely be dead him and I.
But what if we weren’t, what if me and the local schizophrenic crawled out of the bus, saved by the gelatinous bodies of overweight Greek grandmas who’s mass and water content acted as thermal shield. We’d have to move quick. If the wind is blowing south we’re dead men, but there might still be enough time to get inside. What would he think I wondered, would he be scared, or would a nuclear blast be just another day of chaos. In a situation like that maybe you want someone a little unhinged, someone that deals with general insanity every day.
If we survive the radiation, we could be buddies, road men of the apocalypse. We’d have to get dogs, nasty dogs. Everyone needs a dog when the world is ending. Weapons too, gnarly ones to stop looters and the inevitable cannibals. We’d share stories of glory and violence around a make shift campfire, eating canned food stolen from the houses of the dead. Cars would be done, batteries would all be fried from the electro magnetic pulse so we might ride bikes or something. I made a film about that once. I’m not sure why I think about this all the time.
I realised I had been staring directly at the man. That’s rude isn’t it. That’s rude to anyone let alone someone that going through significant instability. What a horrible negative feedback loop for him to be stuck in. Where the paranoia of being watched manifests into physical ticks, that then in turn cause everyone to stare at you. I got off the bus with my shopping soon to be put inside computers, and wished him well for the end of the world in my mind. I think he’ll fare better than most.