The Kids are No Longer Alright

 

The headlines bellow my hometown, skin stripped to its raw nerves, draped in signs separated from all familiar contexts. I remember red, white and blue, rippling from sandcastles in endless summer, fluttering on strings at church bazaars; The Who draped in pop art adrenalin, smashing sleep into so many pieces it would never be the same again; Scouts and Guides saluting the sunset in serious rows, and colours cutting through the black and white TV before nights of perfect silence. I recall that the broader diagonal band of white is uppermost in the hoist, the narrower in the fly, and I know that, although vexillologists assert the validity of both Union Flag and Union Jack as appropriate designations, some old sailors still experience the proprietary urge concerning the latter, the legacy of its naval coinage in the late seventeenth century. My dad told me this, as he patted down golden battlements on a coastline that stretched for miles and miles. And aftewards, he fell asleep with a newspaper covering his face, perhaps dreaming how, once upon a lifetime ago, he had flown that flag across fearful waves to beat the Fascists from the door. But now this stolen sign signals nothing but Us and Them, shorn of inconvenient specifics, and I’m glad he’s spared these poorly daubed flags on angry faces. I’m glad he’s sleeping beneath miles and miles of sand, and not here to read these headlines.

 

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Oz Hardwick
Picture Rupert Mallin

 

 

 

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