Harsh times

Is it just me or are things seeming decidedly dystopian these days? The 21st century started with a bang and it seems like we're now living in a very different world - but then perhaps in the 90s I was too young to fully appreciate 'the state of things' and maybe, whatever age you happen to be living in, there is a tendancy toward pessimism. Also I generally try (not always successfully) to put things in perspective: there are always bigger woes out there than those I've seen or imagined. It says something quite dismal about human nature, though, that we're not usually quick to remember this. "Me, me, me" is the credo.

I wrote something today inspired by certain circumstances that you may have heard about in the media. It's a rough first draft, but here's an extract:

“The university had been aflame for months. Some faculties such as Natural Philosophy and the Department of Hydrothermal Mechanics cobbled together engines from rubber hoses and old bathtubs of rainwater collected through smashed ceilings or in the few quadrangles not open to sniper fire in order to tackle the blaze wherever it encroached upon their territories. Others were not so fortunate: the poets watched sadly, with trembling lips and pens ascribble, as their halls were reduced to dark oaken ashes.

Government troops had issued the ultimatum: pay us what’s ours or we’ll come in and take it. The bean counters responded by reassuring themselves of the strength of their barricades and that, while the coin still flowed (even at a trickle) they would still remain to tap it. Casualties were many and missed. Students and academics tried to continue their activities as best they could.

One particularly striking set of lightprints that made the papers was of an assault on the eastern wing. A large lizard, one eye encircled by a monacle imprinted with targeting marks and with ragged filigree extending from its brain to a repeating rifle embedded in its back, scales a tower and makes a furtive entrance. A student can be seen struggling with the creature, eventually wresting back the tome it sought to steal and pawn for a few coppers, and next he is seen putting a deftly-aimed round through it’s unnaturally augmented head. In the final picture we see a sullen administrator demanding the hard-won book, presumably to line his own pockets or to fund the School of Mercantile Enterprise, one of the few faculties that the higher-ups deemed consequential and, of course, profitable.”

Harsh times indeed.