Sci-Fi

It was about how each time we turned
the aircon on, or drank soda cold
from the ref to quench this heat
or, prepping up for a party in the ‘80s,
sprayed our hair stiff, we punched
holes through the ozone and let a bit
more sunshine in. Just how much
Robert Smith contributed to this
I don’t know. Luckily, the scientists,
saviors of the day, found out before
we turned toast. They banned CFCs.
I remember how as I kid I almost
flunked a final because I couldn’t
spell Chloro Flouro Carbons. It also
showed people being sorry in the whole
wide First World. They took the invention
back, siphoned it from car engines
and other machines using these metal
digital leaches, safely stored it somewhere
else, the postmodern shamans, sucking
the poisonous substance from this
throbbing urban heart. I remember God,
the universe and here we are at its center
warring with ourselves, both the virus
and the cure. I was counting
on shamans and their newfound magic,
science before we all self-combusted
but who was I kidding – who prepared
the potion in the first place? I fetched
another plastic bottle of iced cola,
flicked a burnt cigarette butt out the
apartment window, flipped channels
and, knowing exactly what I was,
raised my arms up high like an antenna
calling for aliens to blast me quick,
welcoming the heat.