Bad Seeds.

I’ve seen Inception and it’s true. Not the part where Leonardo Di Caprio enters people’s dreams and larks about with Marion Cotillard jumping out of windows and playing chicken with freight trains; just the concept that a simple idea can be planted into the subconscious where it will take root and, nourished by the spongy, metaphorically-mineral-rich brain tissue, rapidly grow into something more sinister. Innocent, innocuous phrases can germinate in the recesses of the mind like cress on damp Bounty until they become all-consuming obsessions. And there is nothing more fertile than a mind that is already rich in doubt. A doubtful mind, if I am to milk this metaphor properly as I intend to, is more conducive to the growth of such ‘bad seeds’ than a bag of B&Q compost. Careless assertions like “There is no God” or “They’re taking our Jobs”; self-reached conclusions like “The world would be better off without me”; well-intentioned platitudes like “You deserve better”. Each one a mere sentence, yet each one possessing the power to infiltrate and infect the minds of the individual or of society, for better or worse. Revolution or annihilation.

And in this modern age, conversation has been reduced to faceless voices microwaved through thin air and pixelated letters on screens. We are a generation of lost souls adrift in a sea of social networking. Such ideas have become viral; transmitted with debilitating frequency to fill the minds of the masses.

I like to think I am a person of moderate sanity and intelligence, although I imagine this is something which could be said of the majority of the populous and which, in reality, has little reflection on the truth. 

Nonetheless, I pride myself on being sound of mind. And yet I am by no means immune to these corrupting little seedlings. This very morning, I am sorry to admit, I succumbed to such an idea and it spread through me like poison.

I’d like to say it took the form of some sort of cleverly engineered propaganda but this would be a fallacious invention. It was a text message. (Oh, text-speak! Foul scourge of the nation, befouling our rich literary heritage!) And it wasn’t even what it said. It was what it didn’t say. How fraught, you say, to fall victim of such irrationality! But the seed was planted, and as left my dingy bedsit, laundry in hand, and bustled down  to the street, I was already seething with its venom, for the toxic idea had pushed its tap roots into my very soul. In the spitting rain I dodged through black volcanic streets, fuming as I skirted round an old woman with a violet scarf and an indigo coat and narrowly avoided piles of dog shit. It had taken over, this idea, and my emotions were now at its mercy. When I reached the laverie the plant’s shoots had pushed through my skull and dribbles of brain fluid were seeping down my brow (though it could have been sweat). I was soaked with a quiet rage which culminated into an explosive zenith when I realised that, having taking my one Euro (foul, useless currency!) the machine was now refusing to cough up any washing powder.

I kicked the washing machine in its smug stainless steel face.