Rapid Response

  It's been quite the week for marking your own homework My brother was easily caught turned his pockets out for the store detective no-one looked at me playing the tape I'd wanted later, I investigated my actions I found I'd done nothing wrong that boy I fought the one that called me a faggot and I opened his face up I found there was no case to  answer, my actions were proportionate and unavoidable the casual use of others, my carelessness with their hearts was, I concluded, not my fault, there were mitigating factors everyone was like that then I didn't know better later, my parents were to blame and when I was finally caught I forgave myself easily I was just going through some things I'd like to say I've learned truth is we'll have to see

monetising safe and legal routes it's the profit motive applied to  fair systems clean energy greed is good  the years of  backlogs we only make things  to sell them  monetise the volunteers monetise your parents they grew you raised you for parts the cruelty is the point this is community in the raw each overladen  boat an asset to be stripped and resold boundless political capital an endless appetite for misery hook it directly into every feed oh god send in the marines, the SAS send in the air force endlessly strafing the choked channel the applause rising the baying approbation this is what you were born into  they counted the cost as they raised you learning and re-learning that contempt breeds intimacy intimacy is contempt it's not what we've done, it's that we've done it together under one flag complicity is real community world-beating deaths world- beating profit motive sell more kill more these are our values and they're what made us great

I went searching the beaches at night for phials of vaccine dropped tauntingly overboard just outside the territorial limit washing up in an arc from Lowestoft to Margate bobbing into harbour tangled in kelp a text alert and we'd gather convoys at night a thin line of belief refracted headlight rain we burned flags for warmth sang the old songs I met a silent protestor he said he was a work of art we salvaged national pride in oily lumps at the tideline you can't let your dog eat it it'll make them French faithless migrating birds bombing into tight balls of loyal fish you just can't look I accused the others of just not believing enough for those who can see the future's right there

"What are you doing?" I asked Cornelius. He was staring at a wall with a fixed air, as though concentrating. "I am protesting" he replied. I took a while to think about this, it wasn't like I had a great deal else to do, so I might as well give this some consideration. Cells died, an early bee whirred helplessly against the window, Empires rose and fell, my breakfast digested a trifle further. Eventually, I asked "Why?" His expression didn't alter. "I am taking a stand for free speech." I gave this a bit more thought, it passed the time. Being pro free-speech is, I tend to assume, one of those things one simply is, it's not like its a position which needs airing. It's like being pro blood circulation. "How, exactly?" Cornelius turned briefly to look at me, he looked tired. Clearly protesting was taking it out of him. "I am not watching Good Morning Britain" "Do you normally watch Good Morning Britain?...

So here they come then, the kids, inching back in for tests at first and then, swabbed and approved to their seats and lives and just picking them back up it's been a lifetime, six lifetimes, eons, aeons the width of history, the depth of the world and yet here they are again living proof of our huge success helping us to believe in normality votive learners the Spanish lesson as religious ecstasy  scrambling the verbs in glossolalia every geography project the milk of amnesia, death tolls soothed by ox-bow lakes, periglaciation primary, secondary, tertiary succession and we'll tell ourselves it's normal for them, for us, and act surprised at the failures and the tears, the friendships that didn't survive Microsoft Teams every verb forgotten, or equation misunderstood, every yard of pace lost overlooked, because despite the masks and the fear: this is normal, it has to be because if you can't believe in the kids, then you can't believe in anything, so wish them ...