On the bright side, one day all this will be nothing but a list of facts to bore distracted schoolkids, for whom Covid-19 and COP26 may as well be S Club 7, and who will have to write on the backs of their hands which was death, which was destruction, and which was Dance Dance Dance. Twice a week, a friend sends emails from a war zone, detailing devastation wreaked by the same tech that lights up Disneyland Paris with the Electric Sky Parade, yet already I’d be hard pressed to say precisely why any of it’s happening. So, instead, I ask a chatbot to tell me a tale of the recent pandemic and the piles of bleached bones cracking in unforgiving sun. I prompt it to make the story simple for our children’s children, with smooth delineation of cause and effect, and ideally in words of one or two syllables. Make it so simple they’ll never forget, I suggest. Make it so clear that it’ll never happen again. Make it brighter than a sky full of blazing drones. Make it something they can sing and dance to.
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Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor
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