Kill them with Kindness

HAIRDRESSERS IN IPSWICH

They're lining up around the block to collect their dignity pills. A mixture of diazepam, morphine and phenobarbital will eliminate any pain and cause a sleep that eventually falls into a deep coma. The digoxin and amitriptyline will induce cardiac arrest within that coma condition so that death is comfortable.

That's the best way to go.

Better than any war in the Middle East.

Better than any famine in Africa.

Better than any plague made in China.

The government has allocated sixty-seven million of these pills, for free. One for every person in the country. Old. Young. Sick. Healthy. They have been distributed to every doctors' surgery in the land. People are queueing in the streets for their own death.

Waiting for their one pill. Their ticket away from this hellish mortal coil. It's the same pill for women as it is for children, which is the same as it is for men.

It'll work.

It will be more dignified than the bleeding and blisters and gagging and choking that has been shown on the TV screens and shared across social-media channels. China no longer has the largest population on the planet, they say.

This is the end. Every country with nuclear weapons could wipe themselves out, but that's not as kind as the dignity pill. Some arsehole marketing guru gave up that gem of a name to take some of the edge off global euthanasia.

It's not the suicide pill, it's the comfort pill.

Nobody wants to give their kid a 'top-yourself tablet' or a 'coma capsule'. Much better that they take their 'composure pastille' or their 'integrity lozenge'. Pepsi are running a campaign getting people to swallow it down with their drink. Still making millions as the world implodes.

There's a pill set aside for the prime minister and one for Doris who works at the Job Centre in Macclesfield. The queen has one if she doesn't think the bunker will hold. Librarians in Telford don't have a bunker. Neither do teachers in Yeovil or hairdressers in Ipswich.

The government suddenly seems to care about the homeless situation and has called on volunteers to deliver blister packs to as many cardboard jungles as possible.

Every class, race and sexual orientation has an equal right to end their own life before the plague sweeps in from across the ocean. Nobody should suffer. It may be the end of the world, but that doesn't mean it can't be a pleasant experience.

This world. Where countries face growing health issues because they are eating too much while others die of starvation. Where man thought the best way to stop all wars was to build the biggest bomb. Where every one of the seven hundred gods is unresponsive to the prayers of their worshippers. Where religious disagreements go back so far that nobody knows what they're fighting for now. Where restaurants deplete the seas to feed people who no longer talk to one another at dinner.

The pill is the only answer.

It is too late to fight. To save.

The horsemen have arrived.

War. Famine. Pestilence. Death.

The only thing left is to give up.

And all people had to do was find some genuine compassion. All they had to do was be kind. And mean it. And maintain it.

STAY AT HOME

It was only a month ago that the first test was carried out. It was a Sunday night, around the time when most people are starting to dread the fact that their weekend is over and they have to go into the office the next day. The same time that many people are flicking through the channels on their televisions, frustrated that there's nothing on, and finding themselves watching Antiques Roadshow for the twentieth week in a row.

If ever there was a litmus test for the kindness of humanity, it is Antiques Roadshow. You can judge the mental state of the collective consciousness by comparing the percentage of people who want an item to be worth a lot of money against those who hope dear old Gladys from Wolverhampton hasn't noticed that the R on the Rolex watch passed down through generations is, actually, a B. And it's worth nothing.

But you also can't blame people for being a little cantankerous on a Sunday evening, when there's nothing else on TV and they have to return to the call centre in twelve hours.

It was one of those nights. Kenneth Hargreaves, a war veteran, had brought in a jewel flower to be appraised. The expert was examining the piece, floating the possibility that it was a botanical study by Fabergé. If so, it might be worth seven figures.

That's when the alarm sounded.

The first test.

Millions of mobile phones across the country suddenly started blaring a siren noise. Some people were waiting eagerly by their phones to see what would happen, others were startled, having forgotten it was scheduled. Many missed the expert's final appraisal as they waited for the piercing tone to desist.

The idea behind the test is that the government has the ability to warn people en masse about dangerous incidents. Local flooding, for example. But also things like terrorist attacks. When an unexplained World War II bomb was discovered in a garden in Plymouth, the alert was used to inform local people to evacuate the area until the possible threat had been neutralised.

If an enemy state launches a nuclear bomb at the UK, the alert will tell people to flee the target area or say goodbye to their loved ones. If Mother Nature decides she has had enough of us polluting the planet and sends a five-hundred-foot tsunami, the alarm will sound, telling coastal townsfolk to seek higher ground.

Of course, there are so many things to think about with blanket campaigns like this. What about people in abusive relationships who hide secret phones that they don't want their partners to see? What if they start sounding and are discovered? What level of abuse could follow such a revelation?

So the government had to release instructions on how to disarm the warning:

Go to 'Settings'. Find 'Emergency Alerts'. Turn off 'Severe Alerts' and 'Extreme Alerts'.

Everyone in the country needs to have the alert on because they are days away from the arrival of this biohazard. This gas. These insects. Whatever it is that is ravaging its way across the sea to wipe out civilisation. If the wind doesn't take it in a different direction, if the military don't find a way to stop it, the people need to know when to take their pills.

Of course, there will always be a small percentage of people who don't like to do as they are told, who are happy to take their chances at surviving. And there are some who simply choose not to believe.

They've been lied to before.

They were told to keep their distance.

They were told to stay at home.

They were told to get vaccinated.

And they don't want to be told when to kill themselves.

So they turn off the alert and they don't collect their pill and they know just how much that Fabergé flower is worth.

THE LIFEJACKET PROTOCOL

It's Wednesday. The world ends tomorrow.

On a Thursday.

Who thought that was a good idea?

The weather guy on the BBC points at part of the country and tells everyone that it's raining there. It's raining everywhere. That it's colder up north. He waves an arm and says something about a cold front and pollen levels and pollution around the bigger cities. And then he points at some yellow, blurred blob below Svalbard, over the Barents Sea, and says that it's moving towards us. That it should arrive by dinnertime tomorrow.

It's all very British.

He doesn't say that everyone will be dead, he just lets people know that there is an opportunity for a last supper. Maybe the kids can have dessert first. Maybe the vegans can gorge on foie gras. Maybe forget the food, and drink so much champagne that you won't need the dignity pill.

There is no mention that it will be his last weather broadcast, but it is. He had been working in Acton for years until the studio relocated to Salford. His mother, sister and two nephews live in Dorset. They are planning to spend the day together. They're not doing anything in particular, just staying in the house. Talking. Cooking. Letting the kids play in the garden.

Maybe they will stay up all night and reminisce. Maybe they will imagine what the world could have been if they had believed the scientists or tried harder to listen or been more present for other people.

The plan is to live, love, possibly even laugh. Just like the canvas on the hallway wall says to do.

Others will choose to loot. The entitlement that got us here in the first place will remain until the bitter end. They will steal cars they could never have afforded and drive them at speeds that will no longer get them arrested because the...