THE SMELL OF THE NEW
"Overconsumption is killing our planet.. we must learn to live with what we have," enunciated the guru of up-cycling, slowly, deliberately, emphatically.
Pausing momentarily for dramatic effect.
"Repair, re-purpose, re-imagine - those are the keys," he continued gently stressing each word, his warm smile and gentle baritone voice lending extra gravitas where in reality, none was required.
His audience, located around those parts of the English speaking world that his message had so far penetrated, peering into their variously sized screens, sat hushed and enthralled.
With precise timing the guru's artfully lit, smiling face segued into a sequence of short video clips, accompanied by blasts of harsh discordant music.
Images of huge earth moving machines tearing into denuded landscapes in the search for scarce metals, faded into shots of oil refineries and power stations pumping climate changing fumes into the atmosphere which in turn morphed into heart wrenching images of peasants dressed in rags, their faces swathed in inadequate anti-pollution masks fighting to make their way through flooded landscapes.
The myriad screens faded to black and momentary silence, just long enough to raise fears of signal loss before reigniting with pictures of waste disposal centres piled high with stacks of unwanted consumer goods; fridges and washing machines, cookers and TVs, broken furniture, crushers shredding obsolete computers and other unidentifiable electronics. Which faded again into the guru's unsmiling, now frowning and angry face.
"The un-boxing fetish must end," he continued slowly, carefully stressing each word, his voice getting louder as the sweep of the music rose steadily to a crescendo as rising in volume as his words sailing above a rising sweep of synthesised strings.
"The smell of the new, is the smell of death!" he half hissed half roared as the music abruptly stopped and he brought his hands together in a sudden violent clap, which reverberated through the ether.
The audience, spread around the English speaking parts of the globe, each in their own protective bubble, gasped. It was in the expectation of just this kind of theatrics that they'd splashed for this exclusive online seminar.
"Oh he's SO right," cooed Stephanie, clasping her husband's hand to her breast, her eyes bright with youthful idealism and a new found purpose,
Matthew smiled back, surreptitiously tickling her left nipple with his pinky finger and winking.
They had only been married three short weeks, and only together for just short of a year but he had quickly learned to be indulgent of his wife's fads.
Last year it had been Gregorian chants. Twenty versions of "Media vita in morte sumus" on repeat on Spotify had been enough to convince him that he never wanted to listen to Latin American music again. But of course he did, in silence. Because.
As for up-cycling ?
"It'll pass," he thought, smiling to himself. Either way, £25 was a small price for keeping her happy in her new hobby.
The guru was one of many who had gone viral on social media, advocating alternative lifestyles, green initiatives, planet saving hacks and in his case repurposing and up-cycling.
With followers numbered in the hundreds of thousands, theirs had proved to be a lucrative career move, one which enabled them the luxury of living the virtuous lifestyle that their followers could only aspire to.
"All great ideas," Matthew had agreed when Stephanie first revealed her interest over a dinner on their second date, mentally adding the caveat of "at the right time", which as far as he was concerned hadn't quite arrived yet.
His job with an up and coming IT company required frequent travel to London. And, well, driving down from up north took too long and you just couldn't rely on the trains not to be on strike.
As for up-cycling, fine if you had the "ups to cycle" he punned to himself, but if you didn't, what were you supposed to do, buy someone else's old junk? Better to buy new and buy the best, that way it would last longer, he reasoned.
Their courtship had been swift. The initial passionate couplings and public declarations to their respective friends of having found "the one", swiftly gave way to questions of practicality. The what, the who, the how of extended nuptial celebrations, of how and where to marry, and where they were going to start spending their life together.
His stag do, was over a weekend a full week ahead of the wedding, to give him time to recover.
He wanted Vilnius but she'd heard sordid tales of drugs and Russian prostitutes so he made do with Copenhagen and ten close friends from school and university, all guaranteed to behave sensibly.
She chose Barcelona with five friends for her hen do, the same weekend. The galleries, the Gaudi, the glamour.
They circulated their wedding present list early to avoid the embarrassment of duplication.
All boxes ticked, and suitably wrapped packages delivered, the ceremony itself was at a country house "wedding venue".
Not the best, but not too far out of town so relatives and friends could drive there, if they didn't fancy the bus laid on for those planning to drink.
Sensible, they both agreed.
The cost split between both sets of parents, who also coughed up for the honeymoon in the Maldives, of course.
His flat, marginally bigger than hers, would suffice until the nuptials were completed.
Bank of mum and dad - more accurately; his mum who had in turn inherited a nice lump from her father, and her dad whose plumbing business was always earning well, came through with the necessary for a deposit.
The result, an affordable mortgage on a three bed terraced house in one of those parts of town that had until recently been considered down at heel, but now was very much touted as up and coming.
And with enough spare cash each month, to plan for holidays and who knows when the inevitable patter of tiny feet might be heard.
The old couple through the wall welcomed them with watery eyed smiles. He was a retired miner, bent of back and wheezing, she a housewife whose working life had been punctuated by three children, all long flown the nest.
What had clearly once been a well tended garden had equally clearly become overgrown and beyond their ability to restrain.
The unfashionable green paint was peeling on their window sills and the net curtains had long since muted from white to a vaguely streaky grey.
Both couples kept to themselves, smiling on the odd occasions their movements coincided at their respective front doors.
"What were their names again?" asked Stefanie one morning not long after they'd moved in, peering from the window at the ambulance which had just minutes earlier pulled up outside..
"Beryl and…. something," shrugged Matthew.
It was a full hour before its crew emerged carrying a stretcher, drip held aloft. Beryl a clearly flustered figure alongside.
And… something didn't return from the hospital.
The three long departed children, summoned in urgency, arrived too late for goodbyes, but in time for the funeral, reminiscences, and tears.
And, unsurprisingly, to decide it was time that Beryl was downsized into somewhere more sheltered.
"You'll be happier there," they'd smiled.
She resisted of course. It's one thing to lose the person who for decades has been your closest companion, and another entirely to voluntarily give up the house and possessions you shared together, leaving only faded and fading photographs, and the impersistence of memory.
Stefanie watched idly as the pile of junk outside their octogenarian neighbour's house outgrew the tidy row of recycling bins, the guru's mantra echoing in her mind.
"Would you mind awfully if we took this?" she enquired politely.
Her neatly manicured finger pointed to an unsteady stack of dented trays and pans, and once transparent, now cracked and opaque plastic food containers, atop which sat an ancient food mixer.
Its plastic body shell was worn, dusty and scratched. But the attached cable and plug and the two paddles still attached, suggested it would function still.
"I have no need of it now," sighed Beryl sadly, her resistance to the inevitable having evaporated
Dismantled, cleaned and oiled, its body shell polished, and with a new cable and plug attached, the mixer span anew.
Its bright orange body shell contrasted sharply with the chunky, lime green thumb switch together speaking of a more innocent era, when bright mismatching colours pointed to a future, of light and hope, and change. Rising through three speeds, from a gentle throb, to a powerful throaty whirr, the machine itself spoke of both age and solidity.
"So much better than the ones they make now," smiled Matthew approvingly, eying the bids arriving for their online auction.
Up-cycling he had discovered, was a hobby with benefits. Their recently departed neighbour had been generous in her resignation to the inevitable.
The cupboard under their staircase had been filled with her former possessions, awaiting similar revitalising treatment.
Meantime their new arrival had already suffused their house with the sweet scents of baby lotions and powders, of warm milk formula, and filled it with the fruits of a successful baby shower.
His paternity leave had afforded the time to pursue his new hobby, while enjoying the pleasures of low budget daytime TV.
"Cash in the attic", "Find it fix it flog it", "The Repair Shop", "Money for Nothing", - entire daytime schedules given over to retrieving and repairing or repurposing old junk… And again in most cases, monetising it, with a vengeance.
"Even the adverts are all aimed at the wrinklies… it's like an ante-room to death, joked Matthew.
"That advert for funeral insurance with the woman smirking that she's "seen the ads with Parky" I swear It's enough to make you want to kill yourself," he laughed darkly
"Oh don't say things like that," wailed Stephanie, uncomfortable at any suggestion that their idyll could be anything less than permanent.
An involuntary shiver, passed through her, as she peered back at the screen disbelieving at the price people were willing to pay for an ancient food mixer that had cost them nothing, and taken so little effort to clean, and refurbish.
"We should buy some flowers for the old lady's grave," she whispered, Beryl's name already a fading memory.
They didn't of course. Standing behind his wife, Matthew cupped his hands around her belly, just starting to show the first signs of another tiny life inside her as she tapped out their order for the four cheese pizza for which she had already developed an insatiable craving.
It had been a long day, and life was short.
© 2024 David O'Byrne
