The National Normal

It’s one more song until midnight, and the end of the world. The guy on TV said so. He’s waddling backwards, slurring his words as he introduces this final act, some classy-looking girl singer with a shiny gold dress and a brass band behind her. This girl is the last girl all of us watching will ever see. It was decided a while ago, and ever since, we’ve lived our lives in the shadow of this moment. The most significant night in human history is what the continuity announcer called it. Not many people know that’s what that person is called, the one who speaks over the pictures of flying hay bails and happy, interesting people playing wheelchair basketball together, but I do, because I work in television. Or, worked, as of today.

Runner. That’s what they called my job, because they expected you to run like those kids at Wimbledon. All shiny and excitable, ready to deal with any demand at a moment’s notice. And obedient, always obedient. Luckily, they teach you that bit in school. But the kids at Wimbledon only have to deal with fetching balls and occasionally towels, to be smashed and sweated on respectively. That’s just about it. But when you’re a runner, you never know what you’re about to get yourself into. They could make you do literally anything, for any reason, whether or not it even appeared to be aiding the production in any way. Whether or not it would be demeaning for you. If you refused to do whatever it was, there was always someone else who would apparently be glad to do it, and that someone could take your place just like that. And then they would click their fingers.

The thing that made me say that the next thing like that would be the straw that breaks the camel’s back was when they made me be the vox pop dissenter. That means the guy who says the controversial opinion in those news items where they interview people in the street. One thing about my company is that whenever they needed to interview people in the street, they just grabbed production workers and pretended they were people in the street. Apparently saves time filling out forms. So the bald sound guy becomes the bald financial advisor. The fusilli-haired AD becomes the fusilli-haired solicitor. And the runner who’s still got spots becomes the midweight marketing consultant who’s still got spots. Another thing about my company is that they never gave anyone shit jobs to pretend they had. It was decided a while ago that it would hurt national morale if anyone below a certain tax bracket was shown on the channel we work for. It was decided a while ago, but it was definitely decided before The Bomb. Don’t let them use that as an excuse.

They made me say that we never should have voted for The Bomb. That we were throwing lives away recklessly. That this wasn’t what humanity was supposed to do. They made me say this to make me look stupid. They made me say this to make sure that the item met broadcasting regulations regarding fairness and balance. It was decided a while ago that it was very important to let people’s voices be heard. But it was also decided a while ago that we were detonating The Bomb, and there was no going back. Retreat would be seen as a sign of weakness.

That brass band has just started up, upbeat but dignified, and if I were some music blogger trying to sound impressive, I’d say it was a beautifully textured, layered tribute to the spirit of humanity. Music stopped being my thing a while ago though. I gave up the bassoon when I fucked up during the school band’s recital at the massive concert hall with the pointy walls and ceiling. Pure panic attack stuff. No bodily fluids got involved at least. But that was all a while ago, and it’s not really the point. None of that is relevant anymore, not in the new world, post-referendum.

If anything does exist after The Bomb goes off at midnight, if aliens discover and study the smoking detritus our civilisation leaves behind, for instance, and my life somehow becomes the subject of major academic research and debate, it will probably end up being split into pre-referendum and post-referendum chapters. That was when everything changed, after all. Post-referendum, my future became finite. At least beforehand, there was this nebulous idea that everything would be around forever, that some sort of career ladder would reveal itself to me and allow me to climb up its rungs, that options would open out and I could take my time to pick my way through them. Post-referendum, the nature of my conversations changed.

It was decided a while ago that’s how people should think. And because of that, our remains will tell a certain story to whoever digs us up in the non-existent future. But obviously, logically, it can’t have been that way. We wouldn’t have voted for The Bomb if everything was so great pre-referendum. We wouldn’t have decided that this world wasn’t worth saving. We wouldn’t have decided to blow it all up, before it got any worse. It was decided a while ago, must have been around about when the fourth wave happened, that we should get a say, a proper public vote on our future. And even though it didn’t go the way I wanted it to, two choruses from midnight, I just have to accept the outcome.

The singer is warbling away now, doing that thing where she’s putting on a voice and pronouncing all the vowels weird, which is what’s popular, post-referendum. I wonder how many things she didn’t want to do she did to get to where she is now, singing on national television, the last song before The Bomb. She must have really wanted it. She must have wanted it more than anyone else who ever wanted to be the final act. That’s what they keep telling me, on lunch breaks, in the studio while we set up the cameras, in the office while they drink the coffee that someone brought them. If you really wanted something, you would be willing to do anything to get it. And if you don’t get it, you must not have wanted it enough. Someone else must have wanted it more. Every person who works at my company says words to that effect, every single one. My parents never said it. My girlfriend from sixth form never said it. But everyone in the media says that. I’m not sure when it was decided that they should all say that. It must have been a while ago.

Looking at the singer, she must be younger than me. Yeah, that’s pretty clear now. I never thought anyone on TV was younger than me pre-referendum. But post-referendum, age really is just a number, because all of our deaths suddenly got booked in for the same appointment, so younger or older, it doesn’t actually matter, other than how bad it makes you feel. She must have wanted it more than me, to get on TV while all I ever did was run to get people like her coffee. She wanted it more, so that just makes sense. But looking at her, it makes me remember the truth of what’s going on. What they don’t want you to think about. That this is the final day. The final act. There’s nothing after this. Not even Ceefax.

My final day was spent chasing The Cat. It’s not her fault. It’s mine, and all the others. The moth may be naturally attracted to the light, but it still has no excuse if it ends up electrocuting itself. My whole life, pre-referendum, I never knew what was really going on behind that closed door at parties, always leaving before the after-after-party where everything truly intoxicating went down. Pre-referendum, there was always time to back out of it all. Multiple opportunities to make my excuses, and run back home tail between my legs, with plenty of evening still left to waste away on the Playstation, without even a passing thought of her. But post-referendum, the need to see how deep the rabbit hole goes grew and grew, until I jumped.

It was wild days, those first few weeks post-referendum. People were partying one moment, rioting the next, reenacting that photo of the sailor kissing the girl in Times Square or somewhere. I got in on all of that, boots on the ground and all. One thing about my company is you get invited to a lot of parties. Important media people standing in well-lit apartments with expensive art installations. That whole scene. As a runner, you may not be high up on the ladder, but you are on it, and better yet, you’re behind the closed door. You’re staying after hours. When everyone’s taken their lanyards off, suddenly the playing field is a bit more level. And it was in this scene that I met The Cat. Actually re-met her. But I don’t think she remembered me from uni, and I didn’t want to hurt my chances by coming across as some weirdo who remembers things from before a while ago, so I never brought it up.

The Cat would always lavish you, but only when it was your turn. There was this whole cabal of us, running around, placing ourselves wherever she needed us. A gender-swapped Caliph and her harem, it was all very London. The Cat liked me because I looked weak in that news report, when they made me say The Bomb was a bad idea. The Cat always said she liked the combination of weakness and exposure. That meant The Cat liked me, at certain points in time, at certain locations in the city.

Those days went by in a dark, hazy mess of a memory, and most of them were spent naked or reciting poetry. That was my depraved period. That was my life when it was neither pre-referendum or truly post-referendum. That was, as dim memory serves, my real life. Then it was decided it was over.

I never really talked to any of my harem-mates, only running into them when it was time for one of us to go, and another to come in. They’re all going to die when this final song ends, just like me.

It all ended because The Cat was very worried about this new thing coming in. The National Normal. Our government was going to review the referendum decision. They said they were going to give things one more go. If the public, that’s us, lived our lives as if we were still pre-referendum, and acted as normal, as though nothing had ever happened, then it was still possible that The Bomb would not go off, and everything would be fine. It was decided, pretty much overnight, that to meet the requirements of The National Normal, all of that debauchery and rioting and excitement had to end. The Cat’s harem disbanded. We lost contact and everything went back to normal. I haven’t had sex since. That was a while ago.

There’s all sorts of people in the studio, encircling the singer as she belts out her chorus. They’re all sitting around fancy tables, watching the final act with the kind of reverence you can only achieve if you’re getting paid. They’re all celebrities, many of them on the books of this particular channel.Some of them would have been on the same sets as me, delivering pieces to camera about terrorist cells and bunnies finding a new home, bumbling through stilted banter on curved sofas, demanding a coffee that’s a higher temperature to the last one the runner got for them. That runner may have been me, or it may have been one of the other ones. It didn’t really matter. We congealed into one mass in the eyes of the talent.

The thing that made me say that was the straw that broke the camel’s back happened today, and it was all because of The National Normal. It was decided that a strong social hierarchy would enable the public, that’s us, to behave as though nothing had ever happened, and very quickly, kindness and understanding became dissident behaviours. The memories of those days in the aftermath of the referendum, when society crumbled for one moment underneath an endless sun, were scrubbed out by The National Normal. Life would only be worth saving if we all acted properly, in accordance with what our social betters wished for us. Any eccentric behaviour could doom us all to The Bomb. Even up until today, they hoped that the public, that’s us, would behave ourselves, and that everything would be fine.

They’ve stuck a golden clock in the bottom left hand corner of the TV screen. It’s counting down to midnight, and its presence means that there’s not long left. The girl’s just finished singing her chorus for a second time, and now it’s the bridge. The bit of the song that’s different from the rest of it. The bit you don’t remember.

The guy on TV was the one who ruined it, not me. If the aliens come and dig up my story, and that’s all the hope we have now, they need to know that, at least. There was never anything wrong with me. There was never anything wrong with the coffee either. The coffee was more than hot enough. It was in the guy on TV’s hands with plenty of time to spare before his next link to camera. But, in accordance with The National Normal, the guy on TV had to make sure I knew my place. In accordance with The National Normal, he had to demand better of me. He had to test me, to make sure I wanted it enough. If I didn’t want it, there would always be someone else out there, ready to take my place. There would be someone else out there who could fetch the coffee faster, brew it better, keep it hotter.

Well, there’s nobody else out there who was running to the cloakroom today, shoving their head underneath the sink, face up, spinning the tap around all desperate, screaming up towards the ceiling as the water surged onto his face, stinging the raw skin across his cheek, rushing into that crevice between your nose and eyes, heat searing through his body, lighting up every pain receptor, hoping beyond hope that this bullshit water was even doing anything to cool the scalded skin. Nobody else today was questioning why he was even trying to save his precious face, when today would be the final day, and the end of the world, no matter how much anyone else tried to delude themselves into thinking normality would save them now.

Staring right at my new face, a red lightning bolt scorched across one side, agonising over myself in that cloakroom mirror, that was where I said that this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. But now, as the big hand of the golden clock points directly down to a hell as hot as the coffee that incinerated my face today, it’s pretty obvious that the camel’s back got broken a while ago. It’s quite clear that, despite all my efforts to create some sort of happy memory of life to take to my explosive end, it was decided a while ago that we were all gonna go quietly.

Scalded face or not, I had to meet The Cat today. I had to tell her how I really felt. We had to share a special moment. Dredge up a vague memory of better days, one last time, before The Bomb went off. If we couldn’t do that, then I don’t know. I really don’t know. But there had to be some goal to cling onto today.

Messaging The Cat proved fruitless. She was busy at work. She had an important job. She was a journalist for a rival TV channel to the one I worked for. She was working on a story about some place on the South Bank’s preparations for their End of the World Party tonight. After typing out a message, saying it was important to see her and there was something big to say to her, all The Cat could reply with was about how she needed to stay late tonight. She needed to prove she wanted some promotion coming up, that I should understand because we would both do anything to get to where we wanted to be.

So there was nothing else to do but make a climactic romantic gesture. A cynic might look at me buying a bundle of flowers the size of my head, jumping aboard a rush hour tube train, packed as tight as sardines, with all the commuters adhering to The National Normal and making no fuss at all, then marching over to my former rival TV channel’s offices and asking at reception for The Cat, using her real surname and everything, and they might say that I had jeopardised The National Normal. That I was dooming my fellow man to The Bomb with all this dissident behaviour. Well, this cynic isn’t going to be happy about what happened next.

The receptionist hid her dismay at my face really well. It must have looked proper bad, worse than when I was staring at it in the cloakroom. All the dirt and normality of my tube ride must have made it flare up, setting fire to half my face in the most boring way possible. The receptionist smiled at me and ushered me towards a man in a lanyard. This man said it was good to see me, and led me into a lift at the back of the reception area. We went up, and all the while he was saying to me about how they weren’t going to put make-up on me, they didn’t want to take anything away from my disfigurement, that this would make some great content. When we heard the ding and the doors opened, the lanyard man marched me straight from the lift and into this studio, packed with an audience on tiered seating, all commanded to applaud by one of the assistant producers, as soon as he saw me walk in.

One thing about my company was that you always left work feeling ugly, so it was really easy to play the role assigned to me, up there under the bright lights, on that hot pink circular sofa, with the lady on TV being earnest at me, looking me in the eyes and saying it’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. Over and over. The studio audience joined in too, like some cult chanting their holy mantra. It’s not my fault, they were saying. It’s not my fault. The whole place was reciting the words, even the producers in their flannel shirts and puffy gilets, even the techies with their arses hanging out of their jeans. It’s not my fault. Every pair of eyes locked on the scalded side of my face. It’s not my fault, they all said, looking at the burn splayed out across my cheek. It’s not my fault, they all said, their words getting right inside the crevice between my nose and eye, splitting the skin, making me cry red tears. It’s not my fault, each one of them said, looking right at me, as if I wasn’t there.

When the aliens dig us up, they will create a narrative of events based on what they find, so it’s important to help them get it right as much as possible. They already have video evidence of me sharing a dissenting opinion, even if they forced me to say those words, so with the platform afforded to me, right there on national television, I had to reinforce my stance. Let the aliens be absolutely clear that it wasn’t my fault.

So from my perch on this circular sofa, with everyone chanting it’s not my fault, it’s not my fault, I said what I had to say. I said that The National Normal was only proving why we voted for The Bomb in the first place. That this world throws away lives recklessly. That we had become what humanity wasn’t supposed to be. I said this to make sure the aliens knew where I stood. It was decided a while ago that it was very important to let people’s voices be heard. But it was also decided a while ago that we were detonating The Bomb, and there was no going back.

The TV audience didn’t hear much of my rant. The chanting never stopped. The lady on TV had a louder voice than me, and the studio audience formed a mass chorus that drowned out any dissenting opinion. But, naturally, the men still came for me, and dragged me away. The heavenly lights of the studio dimmed, and my world became black.

The Cat came to visit me in the cell, once her shift was over. Socials are lighting up about you, she said. You’re the reason The Bomb is going off tonight, she said. She pointed her phone at me. My face was on it, against a neon green background with several large words in block capitals and also an image of an explosion. Then The Cat hit play. It was a clip from her company’s youtube page, showing me on this TV show. There were a bunch of captions that kept popping up throughout. This Mediocre Man has been Cancelled, and Here’s How. The Bomb is Going Off Tonight and it’s a Mood. The National Normal was Squad Goals but it’s Over. Then there was a picture of a big cartoon face crying.

The Cat had made the video herself, she said. That’s why it took so long to get here, she said. I asked her why she made me look like such a dick. It’s what they wanted, she said. She had to think about her career, she said. There was a promotion to senior content editor coming up soon, she said.

The men had wheeled out this gigantic old CRT TV for us prisoners to watch the End of the World Programme my former employer was showing on their channel. The guy who kept listing the names of African countries over and over, the guy ripping out clumps of his own hair, the girl who hadn’t moved from her bench the entire time I’d been in my cell, then me, the guy with the burned face, and The Cat. We were all bathed in the end, a once in a lifetime moment, the most significant night in human history, coming to us live.

I reached my hand out to The Cat. Let’s just do it, right here, right now, I said. It’s the end, Kitty. Let’s go out with a bang.

The Cat was reluctant, kind of recoiling away without stepping backwards. What would her boss think, she said. She couldn’t risk it, she said, not with this promotion coming up. I extended my arm further and further. Let’s face it, I was trying to grope her boob. I was pretty fucking desperate for something, literally just one thing, to take from the end of the world. For one act of humanity, of human emotion, of raw animal energy to seep into my fingertips and let me feel what it must have been like to live a real life, at some point in time, a while ago. But I couldn’t reach. I obviously didn’t want it enough. Even at the end of the world, I didn’t want Kitty enough. She’d see me again soon, she said. She hoped everything worked out here, she said.

At least The Cat didn’t turn me down because of the lightning bolt across my face. She’s not that shallow. She never even noticed it, because she never looked at me when she talked. She looked at her phone, but never at me.

And that brings us up to now. All the celebrities in the studio on TV are counting down from ten, and the classy-looking girl singer is hitting her final note. The final warble committed to human history. And now the guy on TV, the guy who scorched my face, he’s waddling back onto camera and he’s saying something. Yeah, he’s saying that despite today’s dissident behaviour, he’s proud of every single other person who committed to The National Normal. And now he’s saying, let us all ring in the end together. And the countdown has reached two, and one, and.

Bright hot white light, scalding my everything just like the coffee got my face, only a thousand times worse. It’s what they always wanted. I had decided a while ago I wasn’t going to let this happen to us. But one person alone can’t change fate.