In Memoriam (Penge)

Man walks along a train platform, (this is not a joke), carries a red top tabloid, kicks a pigeon out the way, dumps an empty plastic bottle in a general waste bin, moans the train's six minutes late in spite of there being a landslip.
Man walks into cheap chicken shop on identikit high street, orders meat (treatment unconfirmed), orders from minimum wage staff of a different body complexion, doesn't think twice, pops next door to sling some money in a betting shop, chucks something recyclable in a general waste bin, takes his cheap food to his car on credit, drops a cigarette butt, some chewing gum, bemoans the headline in his tabloid newspaper, certain he knows everything, revs up like a man, expels unstudied fumes across the pavement at child height, drives five minutes down the street to his house he could afford to buy through charging extra on jobs.
Man votes to leave well-established, fair-minded, historically significant, generally progressive union, hates foreigners, doesn't know his history, thinks he might end up in another country, doesn't know what's the other end of his street, wants a house extension as cheap as he can get it, his cheap food, anywhere, anytime, cheap flights, cheap fuel, his rubbish collected and taken somewhere he doesn't have to think about it, his inefficient car washed efficiently and cheaply, his trains to run on time regardless of context, circumstance, or historical factors, his money back when they don't, he wants to be able to sue someone when he feels wronged, wants to make money by squeezing every last penny, that's his God-given right. Doesn't do anything for charity or society because it's corrupt. Wants free water free flowing from the tap. All politicians are evil. Job done. Not that they're dealing with intractable problems and are human like anyone else. Man down the pub is another human. So is the checkout assistant lobbing items down the conveyor moaning to him about her shift while ignoring the customer she's serving, she's human and he can sympathise on that level. Doesn't vote. But did once recently when he was absolutely sure what he believed in.
Have you seen this man? Do you recognise this country? These unimaginative choices are a scourge and increasingly far-reaching, gradually and immeasureably being taken up by everyone, causing everyone to eat the same (but not in a good way), breathe the same (again, not in a good way), listen the same (not...), drive the same (enacting rage), observe the same (or not observe), play the same, do the job the same, moan the same, shirk the same (responsibility), unsocial me-dia the same, buy the same, shop the same, cause everything to look the same. Have you seen someone behaving in a such a way? Call time on this monstrousness now. Save this country and the planet before it's too late.

A letter to the Council on waste (form of address: electronic mail)

Dear Ms A.,

Thank you for your email.

We lost another bin this morning. Amid the hail of rain and what, for a minute, looked like snow; amid the blast of tooting horns from private vehicles, another of our treasured containers has fallen.

It's been especially difficult recently.

What with the dire predictions of impending climate catastrophe and the increasing mountains of refuse disposed at the roadside in the latest scourge.

People don't seem to care anymore; or at least they're too ignorant to understand. They walk along the streets heads down, looks of defeat and desperation strewn across their faces, resigned to the inevitable, it would seem.

Yet still the rubbish cometh. As if amid bleak suggestions of alien invasion or attack by another countrydom, we aren't hell-bent on our own self-destruction by refusing to see the plain obvious.

I ask you: Is there anything more important than the planet we depend on? Do people not realise this, or have we all been clouded in ignorance and blinded by our own pretensions to superiority, not yet emerging from the blur?

I know this sh*t of a man called Brexit. He always rejects my recycling advances and I keep becoming distracted by him.

Still I fear it is all too late. What do you think? For the common man or woman, the Council, anyone. The rubbish will keep coming, drowning us in the stink of our own effluent. Yet we continue to bluster and brag and sing and shout as if it's all able to be remedied at the flick of a switch.

I like to end on a positive. Because after all that's what makes us human, isn't it? So here goes. At least there'll be plenty of CCTV footage to watch in our remaining moments... For lack of human moments, I fear this is probably our only hope of distraction. Before the inevitable prospect of crushing extinction I mean.

Thank you for your attention to this most serious of matters. If I do not hear back, I won't hold it against you. I myself frequently refrain from too much social interaction these days, a result of ever-creeping nervous breakdown.

I wish you the best in your journey, for now adieu.

BR