I’m toying with changing the title of my book.
Twenty years ago I started writing a book that I saw as a diary of my descent towards death. In that twenty years I have neither died nor developed any symptoms that death might be imminent. Hence the idea of a diary seems inappropriate. The book has become my ramblings about death.
For that reason I have decided that I need to think more about the title.
Which do you prefer?
The Death Diaries
or
The Book of DEATH
62. Epitaphs
In terms of epitaphs I don’t think you can outdo Spike Milligans – ‘I told you I wasn’t well.’
I think mine will be ‘I came. I saw. I marvelled. I left.’
Failing that:
‘I’m dead!’
Or (if you’d like something longer): ‘I have not passed away. I’m not deceased, at peace, finally at rest, called home, gone but not forgotten, departed, in a better place, among the stars or with Jesus and the angels. I didn’t bravely fight or fall to a disease. I’m not with my dead relatives and friends reunited in heaven. I didn’t slip away peacefully. I didn’t cross any finish line. I don’t even know what a mortal coil is. I haven’t given up any ghost or cashed in my chips. I know I’m gone but not quite yet forgotten and it’s true I’m in no pain. My hour did not come. I am not in your hearts. I wasn’t taken. I didn’t succumb. I’m not taking the long nap. I haven’t kicked the bucket. I’m not pushing up the daisies. I’m not sleeping with the fishes, pining for the fjords or becoming worm food. I haven’t just cured myself of the oxygen habit, gone on an extreme diet or carked it. I’m not playing the great gig in the sky or biting any dust. Neither am I mortally challenged or no longer in need. I certainly am not receiving my heavenly reward. I’M FUCKING DEAD!!’
I’m busy writing my book on death – The Death Diaries. I’m enjoying it!
Death is the final frontier.
Bollocks.
Death is the end. There is no frontier. A frontier implies that there’s something on the other side.
There is nothing after death – at least nothing we can be at all certain of. That is what terrifies us. Everything we hold dear; our minds, our lives, our family, friends, possessions, likes and dislikes, and the whole damn universe blinks out of existence for ever.
That is so sinister and final that we invent religions in order to avoid having to deal with it.
We can’t bear the thought that we will cease to exist; that the universe will go on without us, that there is no plan, no purpose, no reason.
All life, the universe and everything is all an accident. Infinity gives plenty of scope for an infinite number of totally improbable accidents – given enough time, space and chemistry. That’s what I believe. I’m an accident.
I am a firm believer in accidents.
I am not a believer in gods, angels, heavens, hells, satan or fairies. I believe them to be products of fevered minds struggling to come to terms with reality.
I believe life happened by chance; it evolved.
I believe consciousness is merely a survival mechanism.
I’m not sure how the universe blinked into existence through some Big Bang but I feel no need to invent another mystery in order to explain it. If god did it then where did god come from?
I believe in science, evolution and chance.
When I read creation myths like Adam and Eve they are farcical.
When I consider the notion that there is a heaven and we will meet up with dead friends and family to live forever in some paradise, that is beyond farcical; that is absurd. They are all invented in order to deal with our neurosis about death. I don’t like pretence. I don’t like psychological games invented to fool ourselves into believing that we don’t really die. I view religions are human creations; attempts to explain the Big Bang and life and death. For me they explain nothing. They’re a sham. I prefer to marvel at the wonder of it. We are surrounded with the unknown. Religion doesn’t come near to explaining it. Science only gives us glimpses. Art and nature abound with it. I like to sit in the mystery with a sunset or fire to transport me into the contentment of wonder. Life, the universe and death are wondrous cycles to be absorbed into the psyche and relished. I reject all simple answers. We have life. We live in a spectacular universe. We die.
No, for me, death is final.
This life is all we have. I aim to live every second and make the most of it. There’s nothing more.
When my brain shuts down I will cease to exist forever.
Do I like that? No.
But I don’t want to create some ridiculous, fanciful story in order to shield me from the reality of the abyss of eternity. I can’t remember anything from before I was born. That’s because I didn’t exist.
That’s how death is.
This then is the story of my death.
How is this book going to end?
I started writing this in my mid-fifties to record my death. I imagined that at some point I would have a symptom, a warning, go in for tests, start a treatment and receive a diagnosis of a terminal condition. I envisaged recording my feelings and physical symptoms as the disease and treatment progressed. I was aware that the event could be sudden and I would have no opportunity to describe anything, in which case the entire premise of the book would be made obsolete. Ho hum. It’s only been twenty years.
At no time did I contemplate that I’d go over twenty years without a symptom or how and when I might publish this thing. That surely should have been a prime consideration! How stupid am I? (Don’t answer that – it was rhetorical!).
The book is now a hundred and twenty pages. I’ve rambled around as the mood took me. Given my views on life and death and gone into the beliefs and rituals that fascinate me. I’ve arrived at this point. The book has no coherence or structure. It’s going nowhere. How can I end it?
Did I expect the bulk of the book to be a detailed well-documented description of my illness and descent towards death? I suppose that I had imagined writing all these feelings and descriptions down until, near the end, with a feeble finger on the button and all the last dregs of energy I would press the button to publish the beast and then slip away into eternity.
All very romantic and exceedingly unlikely.
The reality would have been much different to that. As soon as I became ill I might have gone off the whole idea. I’d likely be too depressed to be bothered. There’s no telling how imminent death would affect me. Until there you can’t tell.
What is apparent is that I can’t actually record my own death.
I did think of a way round that though; I would ask my wife or a friend to write the last paragraph and then publish it…..
After a short illness, with his finger still on the keyboard, courageously typing until the very last seconds, Opher Goodwin slipped into unconsciousness never to wake again.
The end.
Well, that’s better than the miserable git buggered off and left me to deal with all the finances, books, CDs and vinyl!
Or – Towards the end he became truculent and depressed, withdrawing into an inner world of pain punctuated by the occasional moan and grunt. – Not quite so heroic.
Ends are difficult. We rarely find the perfect one.
The end.
74 – Quantum Death
Can you have a quantum death? Death in two places? Death that isn’t death?
The world of quantum is much stranger than Sci-fi. Reality is nowhere near being reality. Everything is super weird. A while back there were experiments to show that photons behave differently when being observed. Now there is serious scientific talk about all matter having consciousness, about the human brain not being the seat of consciousness (but rather an organ that tunes in to the consciousness around it, some kind of sense organ) and not only the planet but the whole universe possesses consciousness. I’m at this moment reading a scientifically based article about planets being conscious and affecting their own orbits. What the hell? Science?? They now believe that we can change reality with the power of our thoughts. It’s getting weirder by the minute. Science is outdoing religion. These theories are becoming stranger than Sci-fi.
For me these ideas resonate back to some of my youthful conversations about universal minds and being part of some great consciousness that had its basis in Eastern mysticism. I remember tuning in to Jim Morrison of the Doors with his lyrics ‘I’m doing time in the universal mind’. It sounds to me as if science is tuning in to a similar concept. All matter contains an intrinsic consciousness. Consciousness isn’t a product of the brain. It answers a lot of things, like how can organisms like flies be aware while having brains the size of pinheads? And are microorganisms aware? That’s before we get to plants! Everything is conscious and aware.
When, long ago, I decided that all religions were manmade power structures with flawed doctrines designed to promote division and tribal behaviour, doctrines that did not shed light on reality and teachings that were based on ignorance and medieval practice (that was best kept securely in the past), I also tended to put aside my views on spirituality. Frankly, I find the concept of god risible. The biblical and Koranic stories fables and the misogyny and violence repulsive. They stem from a different cultural time and place. But when it comes to internal spiritual development and understanding, as through meditation and contemplation; that I can accept. I often find myself transported by nature, a sunset or a log fire. I have an affinity for nature and oneness with the natural world. That is my spirituality.
Perhaps the universe is stranger than we think? Perhaps reality is an illusion? Perhaps consciousness is a product of matter? Perhaps the weirdness of quantum is the norm?
So where does that leave death? If the direction quantum physics seems to be heading: into a mystical connection, perhaps I have to view death a little differently? An end and a beginning. Perhaps it is the end of myself as an entity, an ego, a living organism, a man? But perhaps it is a reawakening into the universal mind of the cosmos?
Wouldn’t that be nice?
So none of your religious nonsense – no heaven, hell, paradise or Valhalla, no god presiding over everything and dispensing arbitrary rules and threats, just a cosmic universality, a consciousness into which I would dissolve! Takes me straight back to my youthful ruminations!
Isn’t life wonderful?
I await further scientific investigation on the quantum intelligence of reality, nature of spirituality and the death of tribal religions!
Until then I’ll continue to regard death as an end.
74 – How am I doing?
It’s been twenty years since I first thought about the concept of this book. I was a mere stripling of a lad in my mid-fifties. I’m now in my mid-seventies. That’s twenty years nearer death! Twenty years of ageing with all the possibilities for terminal illness! I’m still waiting!
So how am I doing? Have I made good use of my time?
Three score years and ten. Well I’m past that!
I remain relatively fit and rudely healthy. I am a bit overweight and could do with losing ten pounds but not too bad. My joints are not doing too bad. I don’t think I’m going to need surgery in that department. My memory is a bit hazy and I have the usual age-related problems of remembers facts, names and words. I do the classic thing of walking into a room and wondering what the hell I came in here to do. I am diabetic now but seem to have that relatively under control. I’ve cut out my cereal and have less sweets, chocolate, ice-cream and puddings (woe is me!). My blood pressure and cholesterol is under control.
So, at seventy-six I have to accept that I’m not going to be playing football again. Indeed, there aren’t many sports I can do. I could do swimming or cycling but I don’t fancy that (unless we move to a warm climate and I get a house with a pool). I’ve just taken up bowls! That’ll have to do.
I exercise fairly regularly – a burst of interval training and weights in the gym plus a bit of walking. I watch my diet more (though not as much as I should – I have a sweet tooth). Breakfast is not berries and yogurt, lunch is an egg and slice of sourdough toast, evening meal is vegetarian or fish. I don’t eat much meat, cakes or biscuits. I do have the occasional yum-yum, chocolate bar and ice-cream though. I want to cheat death but I also want to live life.
I take three lots of medication – amlodipine for my blood pressure, atorvastatin for my cholesterol and Orlistat to reduce fat uptake.
So far so good. No heart attacks, strokes or cancers. I can get around, walk, even jog, travel, read, write and do most things. Death is not imminent. The balance seems to be working. I’m living well!
I’m quite fascinated with the idea of life and death. I told my youngest son what I was working on and he thought it sounded macabre and morbid. I don’t agree with that. I find it interesting.
I’m not aware of having any life-threatening illness. Death does not appear close or welcome. That will change I am sure. Meanwhile I record my thoughts, feelings and investigations.
What do you think?
70. Souls, Spirits and Essence
Do we have a soul? Something separate from our corporate self? Some essence, a separate spirit?
Many religions believe we do. Somewhere within us is a separate soul, an eternal essence, our spirit. When we die it leaves our body and continues its journey to other adventures – depending on culture and beliefs!
It’s an interesting concept.
As a scientist I look for the evidence. This concept of some internal separate essence is fascinating. We do have a sense of identity, of self. Our ego. Psychologists have investigated this for centuries now. Freud and Jung are probably the most famous.
Freud did not believe in any soul. He saw the creation of our personalities as the result of internal conflict between unconscious forces – our subconscious, instincts, intrinsic psychological structures and learnt behaviours. He viewed our personality as a psychological construct. It is neither apart nor real – part genetic, part learnt – shaped by experience and genes. He divided it up into three components: our Id, which is the primitive, instinct-driven survival component. The Id demands instant gratification. Then there is our Ego. The Ego overrides the Id and moderates our desires with the needs of reality. On top of that we have the Superego. This is more learnt and provides our moral compass, shaped by our culture and upbringing.
Sigmund Freud not only pooh-poohed the concept of a soul but was scathing about all religion. He described religion as a mass illusion, a collective neurosis, based on our inability to cope with uncertainty, fear and repressed desire. He saw religion as a wish fulfilment for a deep-seated desire for a protective father as well as a tool for social cohesion and means to restrain primitive instincts through moral codes. He related it to an Oedipus complex based on a desire for an authority figure that dispensed justice in the form of rewards and punishments. Humans desired the universe to have purpose and fairness! Dealing with the capricious nature of life with its intrinsic meaninglessness was too much of a burden.
Well, wouldn’t that be nice! We all want the bad guys to meet their comeuppance and the good guys to be rewarded. We love the idea of Karma. We want to believe there is some purpose and that we go on, that’s it’s not just a fleeting flicker in the face of eternity.
We have a soul!
Well No. According to Freud that’s all bollocks.
Jung, on the other hand, had a very different view. He actually believed there was a soul and it had an essential role in mediating between the conscious and subconscious. He saw it as a bridge. He did not however, claim that the soul was immortal or separate. He saw it as intrinsic to the function of the psyche, an element of self with two aspects – a male and female component. The soul was the essence of the individual and required caring for. He advised that we nurture our souls through introspection, meditation and self-reflection. Jung was not as critical of religion though he stopped short of saying the soul was apart from our body and mind.
Jung had a more positive view of religion, believing that a spiritual life could assist people in finding meaning and wholeness. He saw it as cohesive in cultures and useful in reconciling aspects of the subconscious and conscious into a peaceful reconciliation. Through spiritual practice people could achieve resolution, become whole and more authentic. He saw religion as an innate human instinct essential for psychological well-being.
Jung did not believe in a soul as a religious entity. He saw it more as an internal aspect of the human psyche that mediated and resolved aspects of our internal psychology. He viewed religion as having some importance in promoting important cultural cohesion as well as inner spiritual/psychological contentment.
I reckon Freud would have thought that Sophie telling Ian Dury’s kids, Albert and Bill, that Ian had gone to heaven would have been harmful bollocks while Jung might have been kinder and thought it helped them through a difficult psychological period.
As for me, I take a slice from both camps. I think all religion is dangerous mass psychosis while leading a spiritual life of harmony and peace with nature can lead to purpose and contentment.
I agree with both of them – there is no separate soul!
My view that there is no soul counts for little. The debate rages. Most religions and philosophies are focussed around this concept of a soul that goes on after death. Mass delusion? Human nature? That doesn’t make it true or false.
Then we have all our near death recollections and anecdotal descriptions of past lives. We can take all that with a pinch of salt or not.
I often try to understand my own brain and its workings. How do I think? Where do thoughts originate? How do I manage to formulate the words I speak? It’s a very complex, quick and sophisticated. Can it really just be the result of these neuronal connections and electrical pathways in my brain? Seems bizarre. These thought processes of mine become fraught when confronted with public speaking. I get this inner panic as to where the words will come from. Will they arise and organise themselves when required? I have doubts so I make notes to assist the process.
So how does this complex process take place? Plato and Descartes argued that there was a separate soul that was responsible for our thoughts and consciousness. It’s an attractive idea but doesn’t really hold water. Like concepts of god it merely kicks the can further down the road.
I don’t know where or how my thoughts and words arise. I’m kind of OK with that. Not fully understanding something is better than latching on to a daft explanation that doesn’t explain anything. The idea of a soul merely creates something else that can’t be explained, much like the concept of a god.
Animals have consciousness. It appears that plants do as well. Is this consciousness/awareness a product of our brains? What about flies whose brains are the size of pin heads? Or microbes? Or plants? They have awareness. How do they manage that? Can you be conscious without a brain?
Then we come up against the murky world of quantum. Is consciousness a product of all matter?
The mind boggles. Does the universe possess an intrinsic consciousness? Does that imply a god?
Do organisms need a brain in order to be conscious? Seemingly not.
Questions. Questions. Questions. Do they demand answers? Not necessarily. I’m OK with wonder and speculation. I’m very suspicious of answers.
So does the soul exist. Not in my book. When I’m dead, I’m dead. Finito. Over. The end.
Mind you, there was that infamous experiment to try to find the weight of a soul after it leaves the dying body. That sounds fun. You have to find a willing party and place them on a very exact set of scales able to detect minute changes in weight as they die. Well they did this. In 1907 Dr Duncan MacDougall attempted to weigh patients at the moment of death. He claimed that at the moment of death there was a change of 21 grams. He interpreted that as the soul weighing 21 grams. That all sounds wonderfully interesting until you see that his experimental methods were very suspect, the samples were small and results unreliable. Nobody has proved the ‘soul’ has weight or that one actually exists.
I’ll stick with my view. Religion is bollocks. Souls don’t exist. We have one life. Make the most of it! (though I am seduced by this quantum idea and the view of all matter having consciousness – but then the idea of Karma appeals to me too! I’m just a sucker for interesting ideas or solutions that appeal to my sense of justice.)
As for 21 grams – I reckon you can stuff that!
Over a decade ago I had the idea of writing a book about death! I was in my sixties and was realising that the end was nigh! I thought I would record my thoughts and feelings as well as bringing together a bit of research and gathering some views around the thorny subject of death.
Four of my friends died last year. That focusses the mind.
Over the course of years I keep returning to the book and, as the mood takes me, adding a little bit. It’s become very rambley but I kinda like that. I’ve amassed over a hundred pages. This is chapter 68!
Egocentric Solipsism and other after death philosophies.
Death; the end or a new beginning?
So what have I got to look forward to after death? According to many different people there’s an afterlife to look forward to. Except nobody seems quite certain about what this might consist of. I wonder what they have dreamt up. There are so many different versions.
I kind of like the egocentric soliptic view of death. Solipsists believe that they are the only thing that exists. If that is true the whole universe comes out of my imagination. When I die the whole cosmos ceases to exist. Neat.
I bet this philosophy is the one Trump goes for!!
There are many other views of what our fate is after death. We, as a species, have certainly spent a lot of time and effort contemplating death and its aftermath. What is striking is that each religion and faith ardently believes that their version is the only one that is true. They’ll fight you to the death to defend it!
The Hindu’s believe that we will be reincarnated 52 million times – first as plants, then microbes, then invertebrates and work our way back up to human beings. Jains even go so far as to wear veils so they don’t inadvertently inhale living organisms and brush the ground in front of them. After all, you could be stepping on a relative. At least that gives us a good reason to look after the planet and all living creatures as well as something to do why whittling away the seconds of eternity!
The small matter of death and what happens after is very vexing. But then are we really alive at all?
This could all be one big dream. The entire universe might have slipped out of some ephemeral somnambulant whimsy as my subconscious wistfully conjures up this unlikely cosmos in some random fantasy. Or this might all be the dream of some superior being? Or are we all electrons whizzing around in some computer simulation? Are we characters in some superior version of Mario Brothers? Or some sinister version of The Matrix?
There again it could be that we are already dead. This is the afterlife!
Probably not.
Some beliefs in the afterlife are patently nutty. The Rastas have developed the strangest belief. They reckon that if you live a good Rastafarian life you are reborn in the magical land of Ethiopia. They see this as a returning to their roots. All very well but I can’t see there is a great deal to aspire to in that. If the best you can hope for is to be reborn in a Third World country ravaged by war, starvation and poverty with an infant mortality rate of 68% then you are not setting the bar very high.
I much prefer the Aztec idea. Their warriors were spurred on with the promise that if they died in battle they would be reincarnated as butterflies or hummingbirds.
The concept of an afterlife has proved very useful for chieftains, Kings, Emperors, religious leaders or generals looking to raise armies to fight wars. It’s OK. Fight for us and you won’t die; you’ll gain eternal ecstasy!
The afterlife and religion has been used by most cultures as drivers to encourage people to kill, to go into battle, to fight for an idea, a leader or some cleansing purpose. It’s usually to increase someone’s power or wealth. Warriors are encouraged to pray, dress in a certain way, paint their bodies blue or adorn them with magical symbols in order to ensure their safety. Should the wishes of their god mean that they lose their life they are assured a place in paradise and will wake up in a wondrous place with everything they could ever hope for.
Sounds like bollocks to me. Makes me smile when I note that all these religious leaders or military leaders are never to be found on the front line putting their own lives at risk. Putin is in his bunker. The Jihadists like Bin Laden are deep in their caves. They are too important to risk in battle! Or is it that they don’t believe the bollocks they are dishing out? Whatever! Needless to say, they don’t strap on the explosives or fly the planes into skyscrapers. They get their minions to do that.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t like the idea of death any more than you do. Not something I’m looking forward to. I just know that it is inevitable. I am ageing. You could say that I am already dying. Some indeterminate time in the not too distant future I will get a pain or suffer an event and I will start dying for real. That’s why I started writing this book; to record the process.
There is no way to avoid this fate. It is on my mind!
I could try a dollop of science to provide me with eternity. When I do get ill I might try a bit of cryogenics and have myself frozen and thawed out once they’ve discovered a cure for whatever illness I go down with. They might have even cracked mortality. We could live forever in our own bodies without fear of death. Not sure how I’d feel about that. After a million years it might begin to drag. Probably as bad as heaven!
No. I’m resigned to death though I’m presently thinking that I wouldn’t mind having a few more decades, or even centuries, before the inevitable. I like life.
I accept that in reality death will happen sometime during the next twenty years. I’ll die. It might be sudden or it might be a slow deterioration and something I can write about in this book. I intend to tell you about how it feels and what I think about it if I can.
Death is not something I wish to have any deeply held beliefs about. I prefer life. Death can take care of itself. I want to live my life to the full, pack it with fulfilment and do what I can to cause pleasure and contentment for myself and others. I have an affinity for nature and do what I can to further the harmony of the natural world. Our treatment of each other and the planet distresses me. That’s a modicum of altruism for you.
I’m investigating death. It intrigues me.
Anybody who assures you that they know about death and the afterlife is talking bollocks.
I kinda think that if we didn’t believe in religions and afterlives; if this life was all we thought we had, we might look after ourselves, others and nature a hell of a lot better!
I suppose, like Albert Camus, I’m a nihilist. I don’t believe there is anything after death. Like him I also believe that this brief splutter of life is utterly absurd.
Wonderful though life is I can’t help but shake my head at the sheer stupidity of mankind. The mess we have made. We have divided the world into tribal nations; spend the bulk of our ingenuity and intelligence or building weapons and carrying out acts of violence. The bulk of us live in poverty while a tiny number have hundreds of thousands of times more than they could ever need. Starvation, disease and deprivation are the lot of the majority. We destroy the natural world and pollute our own environment, periodically blowing it all up and rebuilding it. We elect fascists and highly damaged narcissistic nincompoops like Trump, Johnson and Farage; men who promote hate, division and tribal racism, who perpetuate the crooked system. And still we consider ourselves intelligent.
If we were intelligent I reckon the world would be organised a lot better than this. We wouldn’t be tribal, racist or shackled to ridiculous religious beliefs. We’d have far greater equality. Everybody would have enough, and more. Happiness and fulfilment would be the norm. We wouldn’t waste our money on destruction. The natural world would prosper alongside us and we wouldn’t be shitting in our own beds.
I blame the state of the world on this invention of an afterlife!
Give me death any day!
This novel came out of the collision of two ideas. The first challenge was to see if I could write a novel with just one character and make it compelling. The second challenge was to start at the end and then work forwards towards that end. Could I retain tension and interest if the reader already knew the outcome?
I set my character on a space station witnessing the end of the earth as it was bombarded by a huge asteroid. I then set about describing the intrigue and incompetence that led to the disaster and found a reason to give my protagonist a reason to live.
This then was God’s Bolt.
My readers seem to enjoy it!
Extract – God’s Bolt
I was seated in the viewing gantry with Mission Control plugged in. The many tridee displays showed the scenes from a variety of sources both on Earth and out in space. I found myself flicking from one to the other. People in Mission Control were talking out loud, oblivious, commentators for various channels were babbling, it was all a background cacophony to me. The heavens were lit up with trails of meteors and the explosions of surface to air missiles – I knew that all our larger missiles had been expended.
By 10.35 p.m. my hopes were on an upward trend – it was beginning to look as if we were weathering the storm. My spirits were rising. I was beginning to think High Command had pulled it off. Then it happened. A huge ball of fire arced through the sky as various explosions blossomed around it but failed to make any dent on its progress. I watched in horror as it descended and scorched its way to the ground. I swear the whole planet shuddered when it hit. The strike was just inland of Washington. Even from this distance I could see the enormity of it. A great welt of livid molten rock, expanding swiftly to become what looked to be the size of a third of the entire country, was flung into the air as a broiling front of superheated air and dust radiated out at supersonic speed. The seething gasses rushed across the ground as crimson clouds were flung up into the upper atmosphere threatening to reach out into space itself and even engulf the space station.
I watched horror-struck and numb. Though I was so very far away the speed of the expansion of that livid cloud was staggering. It was consuming the rest of the continent at an alarming rate in a glowing storm while yellow fires blossomed into a huge swirling cloud above the impact site and huge lightning bolts raged. The Earth seethed with livid orange flame.
Around me the various channels roared and went silent as they too were consumed. Mission Control was amongst the last to go; based as it was two thousand miles away in London. My mind grappled with the horror of what I was witnessing. I could not conceive that Brad Noone, Happiness Ntobe, Neil Cox and Janice Cervantes along with that whole centre at Mission Control with all those dedicated staff, were gone. It was too much to take in. I could not allow myself to even think about Jomo and the others. I could not. That just could not be. I could not allow that. No!! No!! NO!! I shook my head in disbelief. This could not be happening. I squeezed my eyes tight shut.
Over the next three hours I watched silently in some strange unreality, dissociated and analytical, as the rest of the planet was consumed by the boiling sea of fire. Through the thick fiery skies I counted four further enormous impacts further north in what must have been the States, Canada and Siberia. It confirmed everything of my worst fears for me. The last of the stations from the other side of the planet went down. The whole world was silent now and gripped in that raging torrent of fire. From where I sat it looked as if the whole world had become a ball of molten rock, a superheated furnace.
The worst had happened.
All night I sat there watching the scene below waiting for it to sink in. Things had settled somewhat. The whole planet was now a glowing writhing ball of crimson and orange cotton wool. It now looked almost serene from up here but I could well imagine what it was like down there – the force of that blast and the heat of those winds. No matter how deep underground anyone had gone I knew there was no safety to be had. Nobody was surviving this event. This was every bit the extinction event the media had predicted. I kept telling myself that it had not really happened. This was one of those media simulations.
Somewhere down there my family and friends, the colleagues I had said goodbye to just days before, my lovers, they were all gone. Nobody could have survived. They were gone. I had watched the solid rock of the Earth’s crust ripple, fold and rupture releasing torrents of fermenting magma. That can’t have been real can it? It was a tridee. It was special effects. It could not possibly be real – could it? I could not imagine it so it couldn’t have happened. It was too enormous.
Strangely I felt like laughing. It was absurd. All that huge effort that had gone into conservation was wasted. All those precious plants and animals were gone. The ironic thought came into my mind that we had been killed by a surfeit of peace. If only we had not disarmed and done away with all those nuclear weapons. If only we had kept the missiles. We’d fallen victim to our own desire to become civilised. If this had happened a hundred years earlier we would have blown that huge chunk of metal into dust.
That was the ultimate irony.
I still could not really accept it. I did not believe what my eyes were telling me. It was not happening. I was not really watching it for real. This was nothing more than a sensational tridee programme.
It occurred to me that I was on my own. That was when it hit home. I was on my own. I would never see them again. I would never see anyone again. I was completely on my own.