Night Sky Invaders

Stopping off on my way back from the Styx, it was a cold, dark night atop the downs. Droll, I know but it was, all right? If I’d started this any other way it would have been a lie – and that is no way to begin. There was no moon bearing over the night sky on my way back into the city but it was clear enough to see galaxies, constellations and the regularly revolving orbitals that supposedly make my life easier. Gazing beyond the shadowed forests and rolling downs, only the amber haze of civilisation behind me and the blinking drones of civil aviation above blotted my gaze into the black with shining dots. But drone they do, those beasts in the sky - all day and all night blinking and buzzing above us. They cut a swathe through the relative silence offered by the gentle breeze, ever accompanied by the distant groan of carriageway and punctuated by the nearby bark of domestic dog or engine. Even in winter countryside at the dead of night, this land bears the scars of it’s dominant species. I had walked through forest and meadow and stood at the highest point within easy reach of my dwelling but there is no escape from humanity on this planet anymore.
Turning my back to the darkness I descended into the centre of town at 11pm on a December Tuesday night. I had seen the strips of neon along an evening spot from the heights of my travels, they were a pointless effigy to a culture intent on destroying it’s host. Or rather that’s how you think after ten minutes of staring into the relatively untouched night sky. Worse I knew that I had to pass the neon encrusted building and it’s booze-leavened clientele on my way home, which meant a whole different type of civil interaction. It is strange to my evolutionary makeup that I should be more at risk walking through the confines of my own locality than through the damp dark forest I had traversed some fifteen minutes previously with my prime evil senses on constant alert. Really the only predator left in our countryside worth any fear is the same as that leaning against the neon lit bar and writing this. I’m right to be scared, but they should be too; as I walk through the city I can be fairly sure I am the least likely and last thing that anyone would want to encounter. Especially when I’m in the kind of condition to come home and write this even before taking off my coat or either of my two jumpers.


But like I say, it was a droll cold dark night to be walking home. I’m there now but the skies are still buzzing, burnt by city lights and combusting transportation deadens the air that we can’t hear or breathe. Even if there is someone who dares to care and wants to listen, she is not at home to tell, so I wrote it down. Sorry you had to hear the truth from me but…

Only drive to work in a car by yourself if you have to.

It was cheap, fun and easy to ruin the planet; it’s going to be hard and expensive work to put it right. But forget the usual derogatory feelings towards ‘expensive’, ‘hard’ and ‘work’ – this isn’t a case of doing your bit, we all have to change the environmental course of the planet. If it sounds impossible, know that where ever, whenever and by whom ever these words are read – the planet will have changed because of it, along with an infinite amount of other choices we all make in each moment. Every blink and breath co exists with this planet, use your existence here to improve it for the future whilst giving present life more meaning and hope. We are all we have and time is short.

Thank you for reading.
Marcus