Leviathan

Leviathan

I had been scrolling for what seemed like hours. Each post scanned seemed darker than the last. Reading wall-to-wall invective wasn’t good for me but I kept on anyway. Endless ignominious images. Burnt-out libraries and violent assaults in the street, fire-bombed hotels and police dogs struck by bricks. It was like being tied to a chair, eyes forced open, compelled to keep watching as a litany of brutality washed over me in a tidal wave of filth. Like a closing scene from A Clockwork Orange; a Burgess satire on the underbelly of society and its latent amorality.

It was getting late and I was feeling tired. Doom-scroll spirals are all consuming, metal shredders obliterating a sense of right and wrong as the feeder’s values are reduced to unreadable pulp and shat out of the other end. As the last auburn hue of a setting sun was replaced by the darkness of a starless night, I reached for the power button and clicked off my laptop. Silence. It was finally time for sleep.

It’s said that leaving at least an hour between powering down devices and retiring to bed allows the brain to unwind; something I am spectacularly bad at. My insomnia knows no bounds. After a restless couple of hours, I finally drifted off into an elusive slumber of sorts. Fluttering flight into subconscious comes with its own demons. With reality now a distant other realm, insidious thoughts began to infiltrate the ether. Dreams. Bad dreams.

I am in a dark forest full of misshapen trees; trees that look like they have been dragged up from Hell itself. Lifeless trees with no leaves, bleak branches that look like talons, claws sprouting from odious trunks. The light is silver-grey, dim and foreboding. I am lost here. Scanning the panorama, the forest sprawls out in all directions. The ground is charred, scarred from fire, earth scorched by inferno. Despite a sense of disorientation, it seems to make sense to try and find a way out. An image of a yellow brick road appears in my head and then a second later it is winding its way through the woodlands. I scan searching for witches with green faces hiding amongst the undergrowth.

Closing my eyes I click nervous heels together. Ruby slippers.

And the woods have gone. Instead, all around are terraced houses and blocks of flats. Graffiti is daubed on brick walls; a clandestine trail of urban subculture. It’s funny how the artists are rarely seen; like thieves in the night with spray cans scattering subversive syntax. There is a concrete shopping precinct close by, rows of glass-fronted shops punctured by boarded up abandoned variations that resemble hideous decaying teeth. I cast my mind back searching for comparable places and then it comes to me - Chelmsley Wood in Birmingham - but it’s not like that now. A sink estate from another time; a time of protest and anarchy, a time when police kettled rioters using Perspex shields and batons. History repeats.

I drift along asphalt pavements looking for signs of life. It might have been expected that dreams would be stacked with people all vying for a suitable role as though a movie playing on flickering celluloid. All I encounter is empty units, doors opening and closing, motion sensors tripped by swooping seagulls squawking in search of food. There was a time when they were only found in coastal locations but avian evolution means that they are everywhere now. Perhaps they have always been inland and only now am I noticing. Omnipresent scavengers.

I look up and see sky. It’s cobalt blue, nebulous clouds drifting inconsequentially, shadows cast by a sun high on the horizon. I estimate the time as either side of midday. Does time pass in the same way in reveries? A silhouette appears close to me. Before I can glance across to see what or who is making it, I flinch and double-take as words appear in the atmosphere. They take the form of a rolling manuscript, like the introduction to a Star Wars film.

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away…

My eyes screw in an effort to read the large floating text. It reads like a missive on social media: A tweet on X, a message on WhatsApp, a thread on Facebook, an exchange on BlueSky. Something like that. It’s confrontational, challenging the status quo; calling out the government on its approach to free speech. It’s followed by a sea of replies, most agreeing. There’s no such thing as hate speech they decry, only censorship. I am scrolling again only this time during a dream. Familiar feelings of dread increase with each note read. They are endless.

The theme changes to immigration. More vitriol. People digging trenches. There’s a simmering tone of incitement. Those posting derive their own definitions of indigenous. Religious overtones muddy arguments. It’s hard to keep reading as there’s only entrenchment.

A voice whispers beside me. It’s the owner of the silhouette. He asks if I believe in God. This is a strange question from someone I don’t know. I pan away from the invective and focus on the man standing a couple of metres away. The interloper has an air of confidence bordering on arrogance. He is wearing a casual tan-coloured jacked, blue jeans and designer sneakers. He grins, a broad smile underneath eyes that are alive with thoughts. His accent is American, his words fired off with a gentle rise and fall, almost monotone. The intonation is like a machine gun whirring: rat-a-tat-tat. Of course, I know who the man is. We all do.

I ponder an answer.

Before I can reply, he throws his arms open wide and twirls around like a nun with snow-topped mountains in the background singing the words to The Sound of Music. After a short while, he stops and smiles knowingly. He tells me he is the creator, the architect of an alternative universe where there is absolute freedom. Only in his realm can the truth truly exist. I wonder what he means by that and ask for clarity. He launches into a monologue about how all of the injustices and inequalities of the world can be corrected in this alternate reality; how a special kind of anarchy can prevail where existing societal structures and orders can be replaced with something better using the innate morality that human beings possess. In the absence of a moral compass, people will naturally distil right from wrong, good from evil.

I challenge him on this. In such a dominion who would actually be in charge and why? Again a smile although it strikes me as a little sly this time. He mutters something about the man who would be king – a Rudyard Kipling reference if I am not mistaken. He talks about being the conductor of an orchestra, a scenario where he is not in charge but indirectly is because someone needs to coordinate those playing. There’s a query posed as to where my loyalties lie. I remember that this is a dream and am grateful for that even if this entire episode is so incredibly lucid.

There’s an uncomfortable aspect to this exchange. I baulk at the notion of being indoctrinated. Money is power and power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Lord Acton’s quote still holds true today. Orwell saw the future.

Once again I close my eyes and click my heels. More ruby slippers.

I awake in my bed, dawn evident from the light appearing through curtains. The dream still lingers as I throw the bedclothes off and raise myself using elbows for purchase. My laptop and mobile phone call to me from downstairs. Neither are bound by the confines of the clock. Waiting for me is a whole new day of clicking and scrolling, dopamine ready to be pumped around neural receptors. Drawing a drape to one side, I witness the emergence of morning. Birdsong emanates from birch trees in shadow, a solitary Nissan pulls off a driveway to convey its owner to the start of an early shift.

Perhaps nature has its own message for me. For us.

I slump back in bed resolving to investigate the merits of living offline. Perhaps it will help my sleeplessness. I vow to find out.

Image free to use at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Social_media_addiction.jpg