An end of the world black comedy
by William M Johnson

QUOTES & HIGHLIGHTS

On going out with a whimper instead of a bang...

As he drove along, Balding’s parting comments echoed through his mind: "The planet will go out with a whimper, not a bang, Henstein. Hardly much appeal on the bumper-sticker level, you must admit. Nations won’t give up one atom of sovereignty unless confronted by catastrophe. That’s why the ozone hole is so opportune, threatening millions with cancer; or the sea-level rise, confronting millions with dispossession. No one gives a damn about the hundred species of animals or plants becoming extinct every day. They are simply irrelevant in the scheme of things – even though it might well be true that their disappearance will affect the biotic regulation of the planet. Don’t you understand? Without a perceived economic value, they are quite literally worthless in every sense, expendable, fit for nothing. This is reality. And it would be a foolhardy man indeed to challenge reality to a duel. Only a Don Quixote perhaps, forever tilting at his windmills in futile defiance of futility itself."

As much as he hated to admit it, Henstein recognised some measure of truth in Balding’s pompous oratory. Humans measured time by the withering of their bodies and the quick buck. There were trees in this rainforest that had been vigorous saplings at the birth of Christ, yet even this incredible lifespan was little more than a blink of the eye to Earth, whose years were measured by drifting continents. To humans, the destruction of the planet was not apocalyptic but so painfully slow that it could almost go unnoticed. This was the dying whimper in lieu of the bang, the Earth turning greyer and greyer with each extinction. It was a devastating irony, but the planet’s premier primate was being aided and abetted in this suicidal blindness by its own talents for survival. The same renowned capacity for adaptation that saw humans adjust to war, murder and megacities, was now ushering in the death of the Earth itself. It was as though any horror could be cemented into the fabric of reality, whose jealous godlike power was guarded by its human devotees and their devout, unquestioning belief in its inevitability.

Suddenly struck by this terrible revelation, Henstein swerved violently, almost sending the Jeep careering into a ditch. People were actually becoming assimilated to the destruction of the planet.