What I didn't see coming about the end of the world
I’ve been reading apocalyptic fiction since my teens when it was a very big deal in the evangelical circles I was brought up in. The Left Behind series (later made into a movie with Nic Cage) were probably my gateway. Although, ironically, maybe the Bible was the original trigger? A lot of end of days, almighty reckoning overtures. Going to have an impact.
My psychopathology aside, I have always maintained the idea that our obsession with dystopias and end of days narratives are about unpicking what makes society hang together (or not). As Margaret Atwood says about Handmaid’s Tale there is “nothing in the book that didn’t happen, somewhere”. So we live with dystopias - documentaries like the award winning “For Sama” take us right into the heart of them. But for the readers of this blog, definitely the writer of it, life has been typified by relative comfort.
Until March 2020 when the whole world was impacted by a deadly, communicable virus.
Suddenly our trivial end of the world stories didn’t measure up to the reality of living through it. But also, the apocalypse looked very different to the one we’d consumed. Our leading man (so often a man) put in situations where he must be brave but ultimately show off his machismo, is replaced by the carer, the supermarket employee, the health care practitioner. All being braver than this braun-characterised stereotype, by turning up and continuing to do their jobs. Although, this idea of the front-line hero when unpacked is also innately dystopian. If you didn’t show up, you wouldn’t be paid, and if you quit then no furlough for you. So. Yes.
The wheels kept turning, though. And the comment that we are only ever nine meals away from total anarchy didn’t need testing. We kept going.
Another thing we didn’t see coming was our under-estimation of people’s general selflessness.
I don’t cover movies on this site, but for the purposes of this piece I will remind you of the scene in Spielberg’s 2005 War of The World’s where Tom Cruise (see previously mentioned leading man showing-off) must save his family but is the only person around with a vehicle. At a critical juncture this causes a horde of people to commit a gang-carjack. They must have this resource at any cost and they will commit violence to have it. Besides the odd toilet paper skirmish, we didn’t see displays of self-preservation unravelling our fragile social fabric.
Autoglass repair might not fix that one.
What we did see was a general agreement to participate in social distancing, lockdown and mask wearing showed that, in a pinch, we were a much more community conscious society than Stephen Spielberg imagined. Mask wearing in particular was (perhaps naively) overtly encouraged as something you do for other people, not yourself. And yet the vast majority do it. Yes, I am comparing those who don’t to a senseless mob. Sue me!
If the average Joe turned action hero in our apocalypse narratives (and yes it pervades novels as much as it does movies) is ultimately wish fulfilment, maybe the virus will change our collective view of what we are hoping for. And what we might wish for in our heroes.
Not, as Bonnie Tyler puts it, someone strong, soon and larger than life. Maybe more someone who fights in stoic but small ways to keep our, actually, endlessly comfortable lives (historically speaking) exactly as they are.
