Have they started jumping yet?
It can’t be too much longer. The signs are in meltdown, hoardings flashing in noxious neon, turning on their owners. In some ways I even feel a little sorry for the bastards - what a feeling of sheer terror they must be experiencing! Realising that the huge beast they have been feeding is opening its fangs to bite them. What lovely teeth it has! Razor sharp, strong enough to slice through societies, raze communities, chew up lives and spit them out. What a mouth! Such a tongue! Butter would not melt, it is so nimble and slick, jargon flows like saliva as soon as the beast catches a whiff of a hot opportunity, the delicious smell of a deal on the boil. They are all on the run now, frantically chattering and tapping away, mixing this with that, alchemists performing balancing acts the likes of which you could not imagine.
This has all happened before, of course; it’s a cycle, a vicious circle, a big, fat nought. Our new gods rise like Icarus on gilded wings, ever higher, leaving us mere mortals in awe of their acrobatics. They do loop-the-loops and spinning barrel rolls, twisting and turning so far above our heads that, if you were to stand on a billion barrels of oil, you still could not tickle the soles of their feet. We wish them higher with every breath, for the height of their success determines our own; our fate is bonded to theirs. They are so far away now that we do not see the heat of the sun beginning to melt the wax of their golden wings, the paths of flight faltering, skin searing under the very sky they had intended to touch.
Down they will go, plummeting from a hundred storeys, wind punching the anguished faces with all the gusto of a jilted investor. All the way down, turning end-over-end, Armani suits buffeted by the turmoil outside. They plunge like stock-prices, compelled by gravity to terminal velocity, to rest at that unholy number; zero. Nothing. Nada. As strange as it seems, their screams will not be heard. The panic has set in, around the globe, and their colleagues are too busy yelling into cell phones and issuing cryptic hand-signals to whomever will pay attention. Sirens are wailing and front pages baying for blood, fingers pass blame on like sub-prime loans, hot potato, hot potato. What a scene!
When the fog has cleared, when the damage has been assessed, when the world is ready to jump back on the rollercoaster; we will do it all over again. We will blood new gods, build them new wings, and wish them luck. They will take our wishes, take our hopes and dreams under their arms, and, sprinting towards take-off, they will leap from the crumpled bodies of the gods who perished before them.
