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Mary Irvine’s Blog: The Eve of Destruction – again?

I care about my planet, Earth. I worry about its future. The majority of people would admit that Man is destroying the Earth and, ultimately, Mankind. In respect of the latter probably no bad thing. Perhaps Man has a built-in defect – a self-destruct button. So let him do it. Start again. The problem is the sort of world that would be left behind. And is it already too late to stop this happening?

My first ‘protest’ demo was the local CND march during the Cuban missile crisis (1962).

Until the present day this was the nearest we’ve been to a nuclear war. Only a year previous Barry Maguire’s gravelly voice had given us Pf Sloan’s warning that we were on ‘The Eve of Destruction’. This song is now being parodied but the words do not require any changing.

They are sadly relevant today.

1967 saw Buffalo Springfield’s ‘For What It’s Worth’ hit the singles’ chart. Although not an anti-war song check out YouTube where Stephen Stills’ voice accompanies a slideshow of the march towards the destruction of our world.

In 1982 Fun Boy Three (ex Specials) produced ‘The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum’ The USA today exemplifies this although maybe the singular of ‘Lunatics’ should be used. Perhaps we should listen to Pink Floyd’s ‘Brain Damage’ better to understand the mindset of the people who put this particular lunatic into the Oval Office.

Maybe the present pandemic is an apocalypse. Maybe Mankind will destroy itself and our beautiful Earth will be free to set about its regeneration.

RIP Syd Barrett ‘I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon’…

Let’s start again

In a faraway expanse three entities are in conversation.

You look sad, Father .

I am, Gabriel, my son. It is always sad to lose one’s children.

What else could you do, Father? It was the only way.

Oh, Michael, you would have urged me to unleash  pestilence, famine and war but I loved them too much for that.

Did you not save any living being, as you did before?

Not one, Gabriel.

You did act rather quickly. Almost as though you’d finally lost patience and acted on impulse.

You should know by now, Michael, that I do not lose my temper.

Sorry, Father. Must have been thinking of someone else. What shall we do now?

We wait. Things have been set in motion. We have time. We will wait. Man let me down from the very beginning. I gave them every chance, even sending a Saviour but they knew better! Allowing them to develop and use that bomb was more than they deserved.

Gabriel and Michael looked at each other

The Father smiled wryly.

Just another working day…

Back on the planet Earth the sea laps gently over an empty beach. Something drags itself from the shallows. It flops and wriggles over smooth sands. It lies for a while, its mouth opening and closing in a desperate gasp for the air which it has never breathed, till now.

Mary Irvine, December, 2020

This section: Mary Irvine: Writer and Philhellene, Writing for the Festive Season