Alternative truth

IT started with odd exchanges, pronouncements that caused me to pause. ‘Chem trails? What are they again?’ ‘Up in the sky, every day almost, you can see them.’ ‘What do they look like?’ ‘Stripes of white across the sky, you probably see them, but don’t notice.’

‘What are they?’

‘Chem trails, the Government is releasing a trail of chemicals in the sky to keep us under control.’

Now I know where we are going, for the sake of civility I ask, ‘are they up there now?’

Of course it’s impossible to tell from Bob’s apartment, the sky has been negated from view for as long as I remember. The two North-facing windows of his tiny apartment on East 3rd Street are decked with an array of valueless paraphernalia that vaguely suggest a social message, possible protests, or appreciation of a by-gone aesthetic.

Wooden shelves, adorned with coloured glass objects and smallhinged tins with colourful American graphics, reach up to the low ceiling. The larger objects range from thick manuals to antique electric guitars, chaos overall, yet somehow Bob’s artistic eye has managed to find the most suitable place for each thing, making it pleasantly disordered.

The whole apartment feels like this, lot’s of things that don’t work any more. Large disconnected stereo speakers, with a silver-faced receiver. A toy electric train, long since stopped; a self-made 3D printing machine, not quite finished; a half-made guitar, it has been on hold for a couple of years, while Bob does an online course.

Overall the tiny room feels like a science fiction version of the past, lots of useless possessions that appear to fit a puzzle in their dormancy. Because the windows blocked off, the room is illuminated by artificial light all day long, so Bob won’t be able to show the Chem trails in the sky.

‘OK,’ said I, and respectfully pursued this bewildering thought. ‘The next time you see them in the sky, call me up so that I can look.’

The very next day my phone rang. ‘Look up in the sky now and see the Chem trails.’ I rush to the front windows overlooking First Avenue, I see a bright clear sky with white tracks running over the blue. ‘Do you see them?’ ‘No! I see jet trails.’

‘They’re not jet trails, they are Chem trails.’ Of course I vehemently disagreed, but it didn’t matter.

Bob lives in a different world than me. He gets his news from a conspiracy channel, facts do not have to be proven in that world, but disagreements do, and if you get your news from anywhere else, it is ‘fake news’.

This leaves you with nowhere to turn, even the Holocaust is denied. Film and photos coupled with live witnesses, will amount to fakery, yet everything that is pronounced by Donald Trump, is truth, even with video evidence to the contrary. I used to laugh, but I can’t any more.

Bob is my friend and I enjoy his company, but his blind faith in right wing propaganda is unfathomable, Putin must be laughing his arse off.

Disenfranchised loners, who are incapable of normal life, have been given a loud voice by a spoiled rich kid called Donald, who’s vision goes no further than the mirror.

Bob always had this in him, but it lay dormant, or he fought it off, now someone malicious is in power, and knows how to play him. When Bob’s awake at five in the morning and on his own, he finds comfort with this delusional fraternity, railing against a world that lives in a place where he can’t.

Disenfranchised loners, who are incapable of normal life, have been given a loud voice by a spoiled rich kid called Donald, who’s vision goes no further than the mirror