The lure of The End

Here’s the thing about the apocalypse: it makes you free.

Here’s the thing about zombies: all you have to worry about is the zombies.

In this shitty world, this world overflowing with food that people can’t afford to buy, this world overflowing with medicine and kids dying of dirty water, this world that houses dolls that cost as much as some people earn in a month – well, there’s a whole bunch to worry about.

Here’s the thing about the end of civilisation: who the fuck wants civilisation.

Give me the zombies and I’ll sharpen my axe. Give me the werewolves and I’ll polish my silver. Give me the monsters in the dark and I will light the campfire.

But I can’t kill the grinding necessity of earning enough to rent a patch of someone else’s land to rest. The office politics and the boring meetings. The car repairs and the traffic at 9.30am. Matching socks and fear of failure. The restless urge to chuck it in, to go where the water meets the land and the sky. The endless circle of conversation: how’re you? I’m good, how’re you? I’m good, how’re you? I’m good, how’re you? I’m good.

My eyes are buggered, and my shoulders are hunched, and the flickering world beyond the screen is always just beyond reach and the world on this side is so desperately mundane. Text alerts from your bank to let you know you’ve dropped below a certain limit. Spam in your inbox. Meme’s of cats and doge. Kicking up the dry dust of arguments long since parched of meaning.

The photographs of starving children come through your mailbox, and petitions clamour for attention and the Government sells out another group of people and the Daily Mail sings of blood and fury.

Here’s the thing about the end of the world: clean slate.

The lure of The End