On Coping with the End of Times
In January, I had some trouble writing.
Though I sat at my desk a lot and stared at a computer screen, it was difficult to find words to describe the world turning upside-down and eating itself from the inside out.
When I went for coffee I listened in awe to the strangest conversations. People talked about punching Nazis and very long handshakes. They laughed about small hands and the creation of shiny new facts to replace the old true ones.
People openly asked if we really needed things like education and the environment, as though they were old sweaters tucked away in the back of a cupboard and heck, when was the last time you wore one anyway?
Everyone around me agreed that 2016 was horrible, and things were getting worse. This was awkward for me because I was unfortunate enough to have a really fantastic 2016. But you can’t really laugh about how good you had it when you’re on the same sinking ship as everyone else and you just happened to not get wet.
At parties I felt like the only person at an amputee meeting with all my limbs. The only one saying, “Guys, yeah, okay, so we lose some things, but we gain so many others!”
Nobody likes that guy this year.
So I took to wandering the city and waiting for the apocalypse. I don’t think it’s here yet, but really that’s a matter of where you get your news and how you choose to take it. Sometimes it feels less about the truth and more about choosing the narrative you like most.
I went through a few days of being very angry at alternative facts, because I felt like people were stealing my thing. I wanted to shake people and shout at them, “Creating new and alternate realities is mine. It’s mine, and I love it, and now you’re taking it and giving it a really bad name.”
When I did start writing again, it was because I didn’t want to read the news anymore. Checking my phone in the morning was like mom coming to wake me with a whisper: “The world just got worse. It’s not getting better. You can’t do anything. Here’s a picture of a cat and a joke about the president. Make your own breakfast.”
So I stopped checking twitter in the morning, and I have to admit, I do feel better getting my daily dose of ‘everything’s going to hell’ in the afternoon and evening.
And I know we need the news. I know that. But sometimes the news feels like a wet patchwork quilt with various shades of the truth sewn all over it, and nobody wants to snuggle up with that.
Nobody should.
I realized recently that stories are like blankets. We wrap ourselves up in them to feel a special kind of warmth. We get cozy with them to escape into new worlds and experience new shades of emotion. We use them to enrich our own lives with the ups, downs, highs, and lows of imaginary lives, because sometimes they can teach us more.
And sometimes they’re just more fun and more interesting.
So I decided that’s what I can do. I can stand on a metaphorical street corner of the internet handing out blankets, and hoping people might use them to get a little sleep. I can give people space to leave their patchwork quilts to dry somewhere and come back to them when they’re ready.
So please bear with me; I’ll have a new short story out soon.
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Thanks for reading!
— Hengtee
