INQUISITION

     Here comes Y2K. Here comes the fire and brimstone. Here comes the end. So they say. Here comes the avalanche of media hysteria; hype perfectly packaged. I write this less than a few days away from the feared, ultimate deadline of midnight, December 31st 1999, 11:59:59 PM. And after that nanosecond ticks into oblivion: What waits for us on the other side? Momentary darkness? Maddening chaos? Sudden Oblivion? Fateful Glory? Just another minute? And then another? And then another, as nothing seems to happen and all we hear beyond the sound of our cheering is the night singing?

     Who's to know? Not me. But if all were to go to hell with the speed of a catastrophic deathfall: Could you imagine it?

     A few weeks ago I came home and the entire neighborhood was under a total blackout. For a few minutes, I thought it would all pass and electricity would be back in a matter of minutes, bringing back all its miracles: Soothing TV; Speedy Microwave oven; Trusty computer. But the minutes dragged on, the darkness blotted every feature of my apartment away and my mind started to wander. I thought: What if the lights never come on? That thought may not have seen scary at first but as the subterraneous sounds of a blacked-out land came into my lightless room from the outside world, its long term consequences became bone-chilling.

     Think about it. To be plunged into a newborn Dark Age. We live in a society just minutes away from bursting decomposition and raging anarchy: Hours with the lights turned off. Dead-silent cellulars. Snuffed ATM machines. Ghost telephones ringing so far away. All these things together can mark our demise. The desperation of a civilization hides deep beneath its soul, or lack thereof--like an irrational madman sleeping on a shallow grave. We think of ourselves as more than self-sufficient yet think of how easily can your house be burned down or your family murdered in the middle of an anarchic spasm just a couple of hours after all the powerhouses and computers of the world died.

     Here goes mankind. Here goes mankind. Over the cliff. Over the cliff. Here goes mankind. Here goes mankind. To the Bottom. To the very bottom.

     Most people would keep their composure. But for how long? When the last can of Beef Stew runs out and everyone's money poofs away in electronic Armageddon, how civilized will we be? Guns will suddenly become very handy. Those that stashed the ammo away will feel like they were right since the beginning of time. Gas stations will be besieged like money vaults chock-full of gold. Stocked Malls will become self-sufficient Commune fortresses. Neighborhoods will be like feudal kingdoms with their newly appointed Lords and peasants.

     The Human would then rediscover what they forgot after eons of domestication and socialization--at the end of the line we're the Animal. Civilization has blissfully re-programmed us into the sanitized miracles we currently are. We've been so conceited, living our shrink-wrapped lives, following all our rigid, Mondrian-like traditions, thinking ourselves separate creations from the world around us and its basic premise. When the lights go permanently out, all the pretense flies out the window, for as short a time as there would be windows. Primal tendencies will set our accesorized, materialistic shit on fire. That fire will burn for years.

     We should consider ourselves so lucky. Perhaps sadly so. Because come one second after midnight New Year's Day 2000 the lights will still be on, the ATMs will still spit out green-live-money, and the computers will continue to grind zeroes and ones to do any whim we order them to do. We will laugh at our fears and act as our best sarcastic selves when we tell each other how silly we were to fret over Y2K for as long as we did. Secretly I wish something harsh would happen--as a society we need a kick in the ass to be reminded of how spoiled we've became; we've taken our accomplished lives for granted.

     But what if it all came to pass? And the lights went forever out. And the computers fizzled their last byte goodnight. And the monitoring satellites fell from the sky on curious flames. And all the fancyful kingdoms built on the metaphysical real state of cyberspace collapsed into the void. The very words you're now reading will be nothing then. These thoughts might as well never been thought. And the bonfires of our civilization would burn for years.