Consequences
So, I was sat in the car this morning thinking about consequences, and a terrible old song came on the radio.
Firstly I should perhaps make it clear that I take no responsibility for this particular song turning up on Radio 2 at that point in the morning. I am pretty certain that it had nothing to do with my thoughts at the time. Even if Chris Evans does have a mind reading device implanted in my car simply for the purposes of occasionally amazing me with apparent synchronicity, it would not have been a factor this morning, as his stand-in Richard Madeley is unlikely to have been given the password.
I was thinking about consequences because I had risen late and was therefore doomed to be late arriving at the office unless I found a method by which a sixty minute journey may be compressed into thirty minutes. I have not managed this feat as yet, but hope springs eternal. As I was running very late, I was not in the least surprised to find that my journey also involved encounters with a large lorry removing wind blown tree-wreckage from the side of the road, and a broken down bus. I am relatively certain that the bus was stationary as a result of some sort of mechanical failure rather than just the whim of the driver, because it was some considerable distance from the nearest bus stop, and positioned such that only the most determined and athletic traveller would have been able to alight.
But I digress. (Hmm. actor/actress, ogre/ogress digre/digress?) Consequences. It became apparent to me that whoever had written the words to the song in question had not considered the consequences of the situation described therin. Any of them. The jovial ditty is called ”It’s Raining Men” (Weather Girls, 1982), and the lyrics speak cheerily, and in a positive manner, about the benefits of having tall, dark, lean, rough and mean males falling from the sky in the late evening.
And so I sat there in my queue, watching the bus’ hazard lights winking away, slowing imperceptively as the battery died, and I considered the consequences. The news coverage: newspaper headlines like “Death from Above” and “If Man was Meant to Fly…”. Youtube would be inundated with badly focused video of bodies slamming into tarmac, whilst authorities would attempt to remove said videos just as quickly. A helpline would be set-up for the emotionally scarred few who had witnessed the fall. Whole areas would be cordoned off by police, as ambulance crews and firemen rushed to the scene to remove bodies impaled on roadsigns, stuck up trees, or to cut people out of vehicles flattened by the force of falling flesh. Roads would be closed.
Bystanders, medics, firemen, police, coroners, media: the first line of impact. Then step in the politicians wanting to know why and how the tragedy occurred, voicing the thoughts of the common man. Scientists, labcoats, investigation. Where had the men come from? Why was it only males? Had a plane exploded? Had a freak tornado occurred leaving a fishing vessel bobbing in the north sea like the Mary Celeste whilst its crew were dragged skywards to a cloudy demise (and if so, what happened to the fish?). Genetic testing, reviews of missing persons, followed by failure, confusion and disquiet.
After a while the theories would emerge: angels who have lost their wings, the fallen from a heavenly war; genetically altered abductees returned by space-faring greys; an unfortunate incident with a goat, a member of parliament, 3 bags of cocaine, a minor Columbian football team, and a military aircraft at 35,000 feet?
Last of all, a plethora of books would appear written by people who weren’t there at the time, along with a movie called “The Fall of Man” starring Ray Stevenson sporting 48 hour’s worth of stubble.
The real consequence was of course that the rest of the journey was far more entertaining. I shall make a point of waving to the bus on the way home whilst considering how to obtain the movie rights…