The oven was open and we were invited in. The herons had forgotten their knives. Rainbows were out of the question.
Inside it was red and black and red again. Abandon all hope, etc. The ghost of Nigel Farage sang patriotic songs to the broken weasels.
I tried to ask what time it was but the men in Christmas jumpers ignored me. There was some anxiety over Star Wars spoilers.
When you appeared on the scene you gave everyone a load of sass. We were hasgtag and awks. Piglets and piffle baked in a pie.
The cool people were the worst. They paraded their hideous oiled beards throughout the catacombs. Light and badgers fell from my ears.
Facebook frowned and its pages burned. Some considered this a good sign. Hands up, baby, hands up. Give me your love, give me give me…
So we toured Syria and Palestine and Snapchat and Bake Off. It was very entertaining. We all had theories. I piled mine around me.
We disagreed on most things but agreed on building walls. Those fuckers were wrong about everything and my testicles were bigger than theirs.
I updated my profile so they’d cower in the shadow of my gargantuan testicles. Other hairy apes yelled Make America Great Again.
It was still red and black and red again inside the oven. I checked my timeline. Funnies were happening all over the world. Tweet tweet.
The brighter, better selves we had so carefully constructed on social media turned on us, cut our throats, exposed our ugly meat.
Days lasted seconds. World-changing events came in salvos. I washed my corpse in brine and set it on a beach, so it could look at the sea.
Others arrived, albinos born in the ovens, chattering and squeaking, trying to persuade my corpse to leave. I ate a banana.
Sex was sold thinly sliced. We applied it to our ears, mouths and (most of all) eyes. It made our brains misfire but we were addicted.
Other narcotic commodities included reality TV, salt, sarcasm, death metal, current affairs, Happy Meals and empathy. Traders made a killing.
Celebrities lined up to be seen while you flooded the slums with blood. Dip a finger, make a wish. Monochrome poverty in glossy magazines.
Katie Hopkins tried to trigger Armageddon by writing aggressively about her dislike of tomatoes. Clouds shrugged and drifted on.
These were the worst of times, or so we liked to believe. We wrote emails to our past selves, warning them.
The sea stole up on my corpse when I wasn’t looking and turned it to stone. Waves hissed derisively when I realised what had happened.
The oven was red and black and red again. Did I mention that, or was it you? Your iPhone won’t save you. Selfies erode your face.
Warning: Your dreams save automatically to the cloud. This can cause embarrassment or death when they appear on other devices you own.
