I'll Have No Doom

It was midday but if you hadn’t been informed of it beforehand, there would have been no way of telling.  Dark clouds were on widespread creep, filling up most if not all the sky.  The wind was fierce.  It had a little bird caught in its push and pull, bobbing about in the air like a bug struggling to get out of a spiderweb.

--Stuck in time, remarked Devin.  Like us all, eh?  Doesn’t know if it’s coming or going.

Eventually the bird was able to free itself and zipping off backwards like a reverse motion effect in a film, it vanished in the sky; but perhaps it would materialise again in some other time zone where the wind was not so remorseless and the sky not so dark, for present conditions might have inspired in all living things a desire for time travel and for that time station to be one with less misery in the air.

Sasdy and Devin were standing at the front doorway, smoking cigarettes.

--Well, was he right, or was he?

--Who? asked Devin.

--Seamus Miller.

--I wouldn’t know.

--Anyway, how are you coping with all this countryside?  You’re a city boy, aren’t you?

--I am.  It’s not too bad. 

--I’m rural folk myself—Wicklow—but I have no quarrel with the cities and their urban sprawls.  Some in there would have all of them knocked down and replaced with miles and miles of flowerbed...but not me.  No.  I enjoy them.  Even when all curlicured and industrial such as they are when construction is going on.  I actually like to see all the cranes and new buildings going up, no matter how tall or ugly, since I am a genuinely optimistic sort of fellow.

--I like them too.  Since it means there’s a reasonable chance I can get a job in the place.

--And you know, Sasdy whispered, I’m not sure about all this greenhouse effect stuff.  I’m not convinced.  But...please...be whisht in front of the others.

--Well, I like your scepticism but...you’re wrong, you know.

--Ah, don’t be an old sourpuss or you won’t get a fag off me again.

--So you’re not the tree-hugging type of hippie?

--Oh, none of this affects my admiration for nature.  I’ve hugged a few trees, yes, and I’ll hug a few more before time is over. 

--But isn’t that the environmentalist’s argument – that time might be over faster than you think with all the pollution?

--Jumping to conclusions.  Nobody knows what the future will bring.  Some of them in there have it in their heads they’re the blessed prognosticators.  Mind that food woman!  If she gets her cards out in front of you, beware, she hasn’t a full deck...only the doom ones.  And I’m not the doom kind.  Optimism.  Like those clouds up there.  It’s a storm.  That’s beautiful to me.  Natural.  In an old film, that would mean something else, wouldn’t it?

--Doom.

--Yes indeed.  And I’ll have no doom.  Pragmatism and optimism all the way. 

--I don’t see how you get along with the rest of them.  They don’t seem at all pragmatic to me.

--I don’t necessarily get on with them all.  But you know we’re a melting pot of minds.  You don’t have to be on every single wavelength. There are many wavelengths travelling back and forth in there and all you need to do is find one or two to hop onto and you’re grand.  For me, I’m only here for Elder’s wisdom, and don’t worry much about the others.  He has it in spades and I could use some of it.  And with that I can gain sufficient confidence to go out and make my own name in the world as a famous philanthropist.  It affords some position being here, I think.  You can be seen living your best life.  And pretty soon when the film’s done everyone will see us living our best lives here.

--Do you have to be seen living your best life?  Can’t you just live your best life without needing to be seen doing it?

--For sure.  But it provides affirmation which in turn makes you healthier in your approach to things.  It reminds you why you are here in the now and what you are striving for thereafter.  And public relations as well, you know.

Image: Wikimedia Commons