2022 is officially the year of Revelation. It is the year when our planet has finally decided to take off its mask and show us its scarred, dried, infected face. It has finally decided to show us its zombie skin: all the rot and disintegration that had been taking place underneath the mask for hundreds of years, which we had tried to cover up with all kinds of distractions and cosmetics: our consumer lifestyle, glossy advertising and digital entertainment served as the “make-up” that we desperately applied, layer upon layer, on this putrid smelling, decomposing face, trying to make it look pretty. Trying to stop the bleeding, to block the smell of death, so that we can pretend it’s all good and we can continue our toxic existence on this planet.
But however much putrid and deformed this face becomes, the eyes are still there. And they are stronger, sharper, more beautiful than ever. They stare back at us through their glass lenses, reflecting everything that’s happening: Our wars. Our pandemics. Our collapsed supply lines, dried rivers and parched agricultural plantations. Our increasing hunger and desperation. Our exodus from the equatorial regions of the planet as all life forms abandon the uninhabitable heat zone. For good.
Even those who want to continue to imagine the zombie as a pretty face, will struggle to do so. Because “doomism” is finally “trending”. Because there will be no power to plug their Netflix into. Because they will be treading the land sweating, in search of food and shelter, or running away from floods and their “fellow humans” armed with ballistic weapons. They will eventually realize that, they had been living all their life ON the zombie face, beating it to death every time they walked, pissed, shit or built on it.
We are the ones who injected the poison on the once glowing skin of this planet. We are the zombies, dead on the inside long ago, wearing our own masks, self-applying our own make-up, perfume, anything we can get our claws on to cover up the Truth.
Apocalypse literally means “to uncover” in Greek. The Big Reveal is under way, and it will be increasingly hard for anyone to continue to pretend things are “normal”. This is only the beginning. The mask has only just begun to fall off, we have seen nothing yet.
George is an author, researcher, podcast host, chemist, molecular biologist and food scientist. You can follow him on Twitter @99blackbaloons , listen to his Spotify podcast George reads George, sign up for blog alerts below, or enjoy his books
George Tsakraklides 