hellenic cyber punk - a larger contagion?

(video still: Barry Lyndon, Stanley Kubrick, 1975)

Dark central streets, absurd christmas decorations dangling over derelict bus stops, shattered window panes, smouldering heaps of trash, ghostly shadows lingering at street corners, laughing teenagers, dark figures gathered around makeshift hearths at the entrance of neoclassical buildings housing universities. They look like provisional camps for an improvised guerrilla army. Police special units that emanate a dry state of mind, as if the pressure had sucked their humanity and turned them into robo cops. Helmet off, one sergeant is sweating, looks very handsome and stressed like some Achilles who lost the battle. Kids are wandering, very young kids. Pakistanis and Africans seem to have seen this before, they are not shocked. A strong wind is stirring the white ash that forms a layer on streets and dustbins. Minor explosions are intermittently heard.

The prime minister is talking at a press conference abroad; his talking head rants about macroeconomics on some TV screen over roasting meat skewers; the smoke is rising in front of the TV as if it were an altar -it is a live transmission from a quiet planet at the stable centre of a galactic empire.

The air becomes thick with teargas. I inhale unwillingly but end up feeling rather high; I start to improvise, reciting satiric poetry. Young girls are laughing. A black man says "hello sister". I feel sick. I am queen Lear. I need to speak on TV. I must assume the role of prime minister. I must address the nation. But noone knows I can do that, noone will invite me or trust me with that function.

A young man, looking so much like a medieval knight, is reciting poetry too. We are walking together, he is so tender. His green eyes are sparkling. He is so inspiring. He is accompanying me. I walk him home, he invites me upstairs for wine. I refuse as if I didn't have time for the best things in life. I want to walk alone. On my left, an old man and a young man are talking near some bushes. What about? Am I desperate or happy? I feel safe but can't be sure to have a penny in my pocket tomorrow. Will I be able to withdraw money from the bank? I had my purse stolen last week and can't get to the police station to declare my papers missing. Will there be buses tomorrow?

I can't sleep before dawn. I can't sleep after dawn. I can't work. I can only write. I think intensely.
I am hating the government. I hate the way they talk. I hate the way they are. I hate their money, their preppy manners, their economic jargon.
Where is the world now? Could there be a contagion, or are they going to continue on track? Are we the only ones to feel sick? Are we going through a phase of spiritual plague, or is it a revolutionary flight that I cannot recognize because I have never lived this before?

I have been hating the world for so long, because it totally ignored me.