Hope

 I fucking hate pigeons.

I forgot to shut my bedroom window completely only to come back to three of these cunts hovering, panicking and flapping their wings at my sight. They could neither sit in patience nor let me help them get out. 

I’ve had quite an eventful past few weeks. I’ve gone from feeling incredibly terrible in every waking moment to realise that I can’t do anything about things I have no control over - to just trying to breathe in my reality without having a breakdown every day - to feeling my breath ease with each passing night.

The Sandman on Netflix is brilliant. I cannot get out of awe of Neil Gaiman. Motherfucker put the comic out in 1989 and it’s every bit relevant, 33 years later. And for those of you who’ve watched other shows based on Gaiman’s books [Nirvana, are you here?] you think you know what to expect, only you don’t. 

The story depicts a wannabe, emo, [initially] weak-ass bitch with punk hair as ‘Dream’, one of the four siblings [besides Despair, Desire, and my favourite, Death] created by whoever to exist alongside humanity. The show revolves around the tenet that dreams aren’t just something produced by your subconscious mind, but that they’re every bit important as your wakeful life. 

Because Gaiman plays around with a lot of epic, religion-based entities and their stories, he always makes sure to do justice to their stories - to give them a beginning, a progression in the beginning, and an end. 

In American Gods, it was a variety of things - the change in modes of worship of gods, the perpetual exploitation of Black people in America, and the personal journey of the Queen of Sheba.

Bilquis, Queen of Sheba over the years

In Good Omens, it was a beautiful time-lapse depicting the change in the dynamic of Aziraphale, the angel and Crowley, the ruler of hell. 

C & A watching Jesus's crucifixion. "What did he do?" C asks. "He asked people to love each other" A answers. "That'll do it" C laments.

C&A watch the first ever screening of Shakespeare's Hamlet. C gives Shakespeare some very good lines to use [allegedly]

A present-day C&A enjoy breakfast 

In The Sandman, it is episode 6, ‘The Sound of Her Wings’, titled after Dream’s sister Death, the episode entailing Death visiting humans who’re scheduled to die. Yet another uncanny reminder of death.

"For some, death is a release. For others, it's an abomination. But in the end, I'm there for all of them."

I’ve spoken about writers personifying Death in Chateau/Memento Mori and it continues to fascinate me how people play around with a character carrying the burden of relieving people from their lives. 

Today also marks the airing of Westworld’s Season 4 finale. And I am once again thrown into the deep despair of people predicting the end of human civilisation. No matter what the characters of any show/movie be, the end is always the same - a tragic demise brought by humans on themselves. An incredibly ‘abandon all hope’ vibe that is impossible to shake off and that scares the shit out of me because of how absolutely reflecting it is of our present.

And yet, despite the apocalyptic undertones and cold cinematography themes, the shows always end on a similar note - one of hope. A theme present in both, The Sandman and Westworld. While the lord of Dreams uses it as a weapon to win a duel against Lucifer Morningstar, our western heroine Dolores ends the fourth season quoting herself from the first season - 

“Some people choose to see the ugliness in the world. The disarray. I choose to see the beauty.”

I do not know what tomorrow has in store for me. I don’t know where to go and how to get where I want to go. But I’m finally at peace with my being again. I used to hate it when it rains on the account of how gloomy and sad it made me… but now, I notice how the sky clears up after every rain. I’ve been a lot of things lately, but hopelessness was never one of them. And I’m sure as shit excited about each and every day, no matter how unpredictable they are or no matter whatever they bring.

It hurts to hope, sometimes. But I've done far worse things to myself than that. I think I'll be fine.