I explain the plot to her, trying to keep it brief but compelling. A future dystopia brilliantly depicted: a fascist government and a self-serving resistance group. No children born for eighteen years and then suddenly a miracle. A struggle to ensure that good prevails. Gripping and bleak, but ultimately full of hope.
She shows signs of interest, but the action on the screen looks distinctly unfuturistic. It occurs to me to put it into some kind of context for her. I explain that although this is 2027, little has changed because people have nothing to live for any more. I point out that if this actually came to pass, she would be in her mid-thirties.
Her eyes widen, reminding me that however grown-up she appears at times, she's still a kid.
"Is this really gonna happen?"
No, I explain, it's just a story. I wonder whether I've done the right thing in getting her interested. We've already had a compare-and-contrast discussion about Ian Curtis and Kurt Cobain only a few minutes previously ("Joy Division make Nirvana sound like the Beach Boys..."). Are things becoming a little too dark this evening? Am I going to give her nightmares?
"Naah, it's alright. I don't worry much about the future."
Good. When I was your age, I think, I worried all the time. We were all going to die. We had endless discussions about it at school. Our drama teacher acted out the ferocity of a nuclear blast by sitting us under a big pile of tables and chairs and pushing the whole lot over. Farcical, but the bruises it left were more than physical.
I asked my mum what we would do if the bomb dropped. Get in the car and drive straight towards it, she answered. Not in the opposite direction, I wondered aloud, nervously? No point, she said. Whatever kind of shattered world would emerge from the aftermath, it wasn't any place in which she wanted her family to live.
Then, miraculously, the cold got warmer. The wall fell. Mutual destruction was no longer quite so assured. The world did not end, but neither did the fear. That early reflex - the hesitant look over the shoulder, the facile but seductive instinct to duck and cover - has never gone away. The older I get, the more angry I am about that.
Not with the drama teacher for projecting his own anxieties onto a group of impressionable young pupils, nor with my mum for her typically pragmatic approach to the potential eradication of her past, present and future. My vitriol is reserved for those who led without compassion and for those who followed without question.
I am going to Berlin to look at the place where the wall used to stand. I am going to gaze at the void, while holding the hand of the woman I love. I am going to cry with sorrow for the future that was taken from me and with joy for the future that never happened. I hope that somewhere deep within me, another barrier might fall.
Posted by Hg on Sunday 16 September 2007 at 13:18.
Received 10 comments so far.
I often wonder what it's been like for younger people, growing up without that fear. It's part & parcel of what we are -- the last people, the people on the brink. What is it like growing up *expecting* to have a future?
Great post. Touch the wall for me.
Great entry - reminded me of my mother's sadness as we moved out of our nice detached house in Oxfordshire in the early 80s; not grief at her divorce and the break-up of her family, but that she was leaving behind her the sizeable cupboard under the stairs, which she had planned as our bunker in case of nuclear doom. It's amazing how real the threat seemed to we kids back then.
Enjoy Berlin.
Comment by Vicky on Sunday 16 September 2007 at 22:25.
I remember this too, the fear. It was renewed for me after the insanity of September 11 2001 and suddenly there were flags everywhere, flags of people howling for blood, howling for use of the forbidden weapon. It seemed possible. It still does. We are still only a loony's finger away from it all...
Vicky - before I got my mum's view on the subject, I remember trying to work out whether our kitchen table was big enough for the four of us to shelter under.
Pica - true, there are similarities. It doesn't feel quite the same for me though. Less inevitable. Random terrorism doesn't scare me quite as much as the squaring off of two ideologically opposed superpowers.
Congratulations on winning Post of the Week! Well done.
Thanks Bob. I was pleased with this one, so it's nice that it's getting a little attention outside of my usual circle of readers.
(From POTW) Nice post. Glad you're happy. For me, it never went though, just changed skin colour and religion.
Wars, cold wars, and fear of wars sell armaments. And the market is the whole of the law.
Peter - yeah, I suppose that's why I've become more, erm, at peace with the concept of random obliteration over the years. As I've become older, I have a better grasp of the realities of conflict and warfare. It feels less apocalyptic and more mundane with each passing year.
Also, there's nothing like spending the best part of your twenties tiptoeing past rubbish bins and parked cars, wondering if they're going to explode any minute, to make the concept of nuclear holocaust seem a little theoretical and remote. I guess I have something to thank the IRA for after all.
That's one of the faults that I see in this piece of writing in retrospect. Have I made it clear enough that this enduring fear is non-specific? It's no longer about the bomb. It's more of a generalised, knee-jerk uncertainty about the future, which continually erodes my self-confidence.
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