The day is white hot. The temperature, the sky, inflation. Thoughts turn to the apocalypse.
After teaching refugees from Iraq and Sudan, I attend a talk in a big tent about Climate Change. The grass has died in the gardens outside the marquee. A wealthy man speaks about the benefits of having an electric car and a ground source heat pump to reduce fossil fuels. Of reducing air travel and living sustainably. Of cooling the world down a little. Sometimes we need to hear things multiple times before we choose to make changes.
At the end of the talk, as the rest of the audience wanders out of the tent to get a cup of tea, the famous man stays behind to sit with a group of teenage students and debate global warming with them for a few minutes. I overhear him say: “You have the whole world in your hands; you are the future” They move forward, asking more questions, feeling included. The speaker chooses to engage with students rather than be whisked away for tea and cake with fellow dignitaries.
Meantime, I am reading a novel about the end of the world. In which two random people manage to survive the apocalypse against all odds. Same day, same town as the talk in the tent, there is a planned book-signing by the author at a local bookshop. I decide to do both things – to immerse myself in a day of apocalyptic culture – and find myself queueing up outside the bookshop to go in as soon as they open their doors. I am early and wait alone.
A woman arrived in a floral dress. She seems distracted. I am about to ask her if she is waiting for the book signing too when she telephones someone – the bookshop door opens and she is ushered in. She is the author. I watch her through the glass door. She does not look back at me. She chooses not to engage with me, someone holding her debut novel. Perhaps she is having a bad day.
I will never know because at that moment two friends who were at the Climate Change talk walk past the bookshop entrance and invite me to the join them for a drink. I accept. I choose to engage with like-minded people. To talk, laugh and learn. To make changes for the better.
What are your terms of engagement?