RAIN AT 2AM

I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of rain bulleting the window. It’s been so stormy. In the dark I just lay there, listening, convincing myself that the house wasn’t shaking, when two utterly disconnected thoughts happened.

I get random thoughts, but two at once is a new thing. It was as though my brain woke up suddenly and just couldn’t be bothered to gatekeep them. In you come, lads. All I’ve got is the rain pounding and the ceiling.

First off: how come in Star Trek, when the ship gets hit, the consoles on the bridge explode? Photon torpedo incoming, impact with the hull, immediate sparks in front of Chekov and Sulu and then smoke and stunt people leaping from smoke and blast and fire? It just wouldn’t happen would it? I mean if a tire pops on the motorway, the glovebox doesn’t blow up.

Second. What would actually happen if the leader of Political Party A just said, hey, do you know what, Political Party B’s idea is pretty good? Imagine that in America, where the ballooning face of the candidate publicly praises the incumbent president and then the president says thank you; your ideas are good too, even though on the whole, we disagree about how the country should be run. Maybe we ought to work together a bit more for the sake of the country?

The ceiling had no answers. It’s naive isn’t it, to expect a world like that, and I wouldn’t blame anybody laughing at the idea that we might wonder it. Perhaps I ought to study politics to understand why it’s necessary to be so oppositional. Perhaps I should study Star Trek to find out why the set wobbles.

And why did these two unconnected thoughts appear together? Or are they connected? Is it really the same question? A thing that doesn’t make sense on the telly? A thing that should be better.

Gosh I don’t know. I can’t change either. I just listened to the rain and went to sleep.