"That's never good..."
As you drop down towards the High Street on a dark and gloomy morning in late November as you make your normal journey to the railway station, it's always rather irritating if something interferes with that familiar routine. If the street you normally pass along is taped off and there are fluorescent-jacketed police officers all around and flashing blue lights appear to be everywhere, the irritation quickly turns to shock and then a nagging curiosity as to just what exactly is going on. Nevertheless, you calmly follow the diversion and go about your usual business but somehow that nagging worry that your own quiet neighbourhood has somehow been visited by an unpleasant event persists, even as you find another way back through the town and head on your way towards your own typical working day.
Throughout that day the mind drifts back and imagines the various horrific possibilities that might have unfolded. You are reminded of the man run over in the charity shop doorway one New Year's morning and wonder whether something else similar has occurred, a car spinning out of control, an unlucky early morning pedestrian pausing at the newsagent's at just the wrong moment to collect a paper or a packet of fags. They might just kill you, you know? The mind spins off to darker places, the lonely newsagent himself, standing all alone behind his counter as the ram raiders strike, or the young newspaper delivery person all alone and vulnerable on these dark mornings and prey to the darkest of fate's twists. Occasionally you check the online news channels to see if the headlines have been struck by this obviously appalling incident, but everything remains quiet and you begin to wonder just how bad it would have to be for such a blanket of silence to fall.
But surely those were reporters speeding along the road in the other direction as you headed off towards work...? Nobody else would have been that eager, or that keen, to get there at that time of the day for any other reason, would they? Yet all remains quiet, the tale remains untold and the wildest of speculation is all that is left for you.
Late in the day, as night falls, you head home and find that same street is still blocked, but the reason becomes clear and you smile to yourself as you pull up in the car park of the supermarket, no longer finding it necessary to ask the staff what's been going on like you intended to. The answer has become as clear as crystal as the heavy wagons and trucks block off the entire street because tonight is the night of the fair, when the main street is closed and families emerge into the crisp dark night to gaze at the town's Christmas lights as they are switched on again after an interval of nearly a year that seems like the merest blink of an eye. The lights that burn brightly are telling a tale of joy that baffles you and not of the sadness you thought so inevitable, although later on, you do hear tales of an actual gas leak that morning which leaves you pondering again. Nevertheless, those news reporters on the television, newly housed in their shiny new Media-crity will have to find other tales to tell tonight as all along the high street are scenes of joy that you yourself will avoid like the plague and miss out on again.
But other dark thoughts remain. Tales of the self-destruction of a public figure have scarred your day and that of many others, but still you read the dark, dark writings of the "Have Your Sayers" who always "reckon" that they know better. So many have been removed for breaking the house rules by being too judgmental, too damning or too plain offensive. Yet still their dark shadows remain as those offended by the offensive refer obliquely to the removed content which somehow makes it worse. The incident itself, as they always do, leaves more questions than answers, because these things are unanswerable. When so-called "public" figures do these things the statistics of other similar incidents tend to "spike" in, well not exactly "sympathy" as such, but perhaps in empathy. Perhaps, however, this inexplicable act finds a way to bring home that "special scar" that too many of us quietly bear to those who have never had to personally experience it, and perhaps a little understanding and insight will come out of it, but, when you read what people, in their judgmental way, have written, you doubt it.
"Experts" are interviewed on the radio as you travel along, even though no-one really knows anything as yet, but that taboo subject we know as "depression", so often the subject of accusing whispers, gets discussed with as much frankness as it ever does, being in the spotlight for once. You hear what they say about sufferers seeming so very calm and relaxed and at ease because they have finally made their decision, but the survivors fail to understand this. "They seemed so happy" they'll say, not realising that, for the victim, they finally were. Other words are mentioned like lives being lived in a very "emphatic" way, or sufferers setting themselves unattainably high standards, or becoming socially isolated and you find yourself looking inwards and wondering.
But you know you've still got battles to fight as your anger can still be triggered by a society that tells its most loyal and long-serving servants that it "can't afford" to pay them for their hard work and loyalty, and sells the lie that a pension that is fifty percent of an income that was generally pretty poor anyway is not something that should be given lightly, and then blames those same people who feel that they have been given no alternative but to withdraw their labour, however briefly, because it is their last resort, for all the troubles of the world, and then hopes that they will reconsider in precisely the way the powerful won't do themselves, all the time urging them to spend more of their hard-earned pittance to boost an economy that those being asked to do the spending can't expect to benefit from, and perhaps get into a debt that you can be sure that those oh-so-grateful economists would never write-off like they do for the rich and powerful.
And so the die is cast, the horns are locked and the immovable object meets the unstoppable force, and the bright lights flicker just as the blue ones flashed in the morning, sometimes telling a tale of joy, sometimes a tale of woe, and sometimes it's difficult to say which is which is which, which is why you should always approach everything you see, whether on a dark, gloomy morning or on the brightest of cheery days, with an open mind, because sometimes the blue flashes of light do mean that there is actually something good going on.
But surely those were reporters speeding along the road in the other direction as you headed off towards work...? Nobody else would have been that eager, or that keen, to get there at that time of the day for any other reason, would they? Yet all remains quiet, the tale remains untold and the wildest of speculation is all that is left for you.
Late in the day, as night falls, you head home and find that same street is still blocked, but the reason becomes clear and you smile to yourself as you pull up in the car park of the supermarket, no longer finding it necessary to ask the staff what's been going on like you intended to. The answer has become as clear as crystal as the heavy wagons and trucks block off the entire street because tonight is the night of the fair, when the main street is closed and families emerge into the crisp dark night to gaze at the town's Christmas lights as they are switched on again after an interval of nearly a year that seems like the merest blink of an eye. The lights that burn brightly are telling a tale of joy that baffles you and not of the sadness you thought so inevitable, although later on, you do hear tales of an actual gas leak that morning which leaves you pondering again. Nevertheless, those news reporters on the television, newly housed in their shiny new Media-crity will have to find other tales to tell tonight as all along the high street are scenes of joy that you yourself will avoid like the plague and miss out on again.
But other dark thoughts remain. Tales of the self-destruction of a public figure have scarred your day and that of many others, but still you read the dark, dark writings of the "Have Your Sayers" who always "reckon" that they know better. So many have been removed for breaking the house rules by being too judgmental, too damning or too plain offensive. Yet still their dark shadows remain as those offended by the offensive refer obliquely to the removed content which somehow makes it worse. The incident itself, as they always do, leaves more questions than answers, because these things are unanswerable. When so-called "public" figures do these things the statistics of other similar incidents tend to "spike" in, well not exactly "sympathy" as such, but perhaps in empathy. Perhaps, however, this inexplicable act finds a way to bring home that "special scar" that too many of us quietly bear to those who have never had to personally experience it, and perhaps a little understanding and insight will come out of it, but, when you read what people, in their judgmental way, have written, you doubt it.
"Experts" are interviewed on the radio as you travel along, even though no-one really knows anything as yet, but that taboo subject we know as "depression", so often the subject of accusing whispers, gets discussed with as much frankness as it ever does, being in the spotlight for once. You hear what they say about sufferers seeming so very calm and relaxed and at ease because they have finally made their decision, but the survivors fail to understand this. "They seemed so happy" they'll say, not realising that, for the victim, they finally were. Other words are mentioned like lives being lived in a very "emphatic" way, or sufferers setting themselves unattainably high standards, or becoming socially isolated and you find yourself looking inwards and wondering.
But you know you've still got battles to fight as your anger can still be triggered by a society that tells its most loyal and long-serving servants that it "can't afford" to pay them for their hard work and loyalty, and sells the lie that a pension that is fifty percent of an income that was generally pretty poor anyway is not something that should be given lightly, and then blames those same people who feel that they have been given no alternative but to withdraw their labour, however briefly, because it is their last resort, for all the troubles of the world, and then hopes that they will reconsider in precisely the way the powerful won't do themselves, all the time urging them to spend more of their hard-earned pittance to boost an economy that those being asked to do the spending can't expect to benefit from, and perhaps get into a debt that you can be sure that those oh-so-grateful economists would never write-off like they do for the rich and powerful.
And so the die is cast, the horns are locked and the immovable object meets the unstoppable force, and the bright lights flicker just as the blue ones flashed in the morning, sometimes telling a tale of joy, sometimes a tale of woe, and sometimes it's difficult to say which is which is which, which is why you should always approach everything you see, whether on a dark, gloomy morning or on the brightest of cheery days, with an open mind, because sometimes the blue flashes of light do mean that there is actually something good going on.
