Thinking Wogan

How would you deal with a non-future

Thinking Wogan                   t.mcdermott

 

Before he woke up. Before he opened his eyes. Before he gasped his first morning breath. The day was already over.

Finished. Not much could happen. Wogan was f*****g guaranteed nothing would. No change.

Always the same. Dull, crushing, blinding.

Why notice it, participate? No reason.

Some mornings, thoughts slipped into Wogan’s conscience. They scraped into his eyes. The same, as usual, grey light seeped in the only 2 by 2 window. Comforting as it was dismal.

He tried to forget the unforgettable day ahead.

He rubbed his eyes, crawled his legs over the edge of his bed and stood, wobbled and dizzy. Must be low blood pressure, Wogan said to no one but still out loud. He thought dizzy was the best way to deal with this life. His life.

Half awake, Wogan immediately thought he should just fall back in bed, close his eyes and drift. He scanned the steel walls, rivets that were his room. The absolute straight corners and walls. No sway, no movement he heard old, crazy men speak about

Homes generations ago settled into the dirt, into the earth, changing shape. Why, Wogan thought, would people make houses that were doomed to error from construction.

No wonder centuries ago those people, his shameful, idiotic ancestors, destroyed what the planet was. An environment entirely depleted. They didn’t look forward, money reigned; they forgot their children, grandchildren and generations to come.

And now humans, Wogan had no idea how many, lived this legacy. A legacy no one cared about anymore. Wogan didn’t bother, except for those few moments between sleep and awake. He barely remembered the lessons of ancient history he had to take as a boy.

Like most people, Wogan thought it was irrelevant but against his will he questioned. But he knew it couldn’t be changed. The environment was dead.

Who knows why scholars even kept the past alive? Smart people dumb enough to waste their time imagining what was? As if a magic formula could restore a few hundred years of discovery and prosperity. Those years that cast the world back to whatever it was before, and thrust it into this time of innovation of sterility, of steel trap lives.

He lived with no friends. Friends were a relic, a sign of regressive progress.

No one spoke about anything. What would they say? Everyone had the same possessions’. They shared nothing in common but the closeness of distance.

He dressed like the people passing him in sealed hallways, in the false light of transit ways. People nodded, pleasantly vacant, or muttered a disingenuous hello. To no one in particular.

Wogan wondered if anyone had his these thoughts. No. His mind battered against these thoughts.

No!

It was blasphemy. He sat back down on his bed. Looked at the walls.

A picture of a powerful looking bird hung in the middle of the largest wall. Slightly above two pictures of flowers, perfectly straight and the same perfect distance from larger picture.

He didn’t know what these were. It made no difference. No birds flew. No flowers grew.

Wogan took a deep breath of the created air and his thoughts fell in a hole in his brain. A crater filled as it opened.

He was tired and decided not to go work. He wouldn’t be missed, another cog would take his place at the churning wheel of the future.

Wogan called up the hologram of him looking pale, sick. Punched a button. And slept dreamless.

 

 

Author's Note

give me what you think. criticism is welcome, hopefully positve

Reviews

[Strider Marcus Jones]

Great depiction of reality for many today. I enjoyed how you explored your themes through Wogan's thoughts.