music to go with this sad story: The Fracking Song
The morning sun was rising over a sleepy Spanish town. Where am I? Jeremy Motherfracker wondered, peeping through the curtains of his hotel bedroom window. Judging from the architecture, this wasn't the South with its Mexican-style whitewashed houses, but as far as Motherfracker knew it could be anywhere. For more than three weeks he had been travelling Spain, going north, south, east & west, sleeping in a different bed every night while visiting the company's operations over daytime. Mundo Entero Energy Corp., as the firm's Madrid based Spanish subsidiary was called, were doing one hell of a job. Soon the whole countryside would be infested with drilling towers, injecting highly pressurized water mixed with chemicals and heavy metals into underground shale rock formations in order to literally break free billions of tiny bubbles of natural gas.
Fracking was hard work for small profit margins, but as long as local authorities were left to deal with cleaning up the ruined landscape – not to mention the poisoned groundwater reserves which basically rendered the soil above unfit for agriculture – it was certainly worth the trouble. From an energy company's upper management point of view, that is. Jeremy Motherfracker was aiming to land an upper management position soon.
There was a knock on the door and a woman's voice.
“Señor Modafaka?”
“Fracker, please.”
“El desayuno está servido.”
“Coming.”
Friendly, stupid people, those Spanish. You raped their country and all they were able to come up with was obedience with a smile. Well, they didn't have much choice, in all likelyhood, with their economy pillaged by Wall Street and Brussels. Still, it was good to see there was so little resistance. The incidental environmentalists' gatherings were dealt with swiftly by the well-instructed police. Rule number one: always use excessive force. Rule two: keep raising levels.
He had forgotten to bring a fresh tube of toothpaste and he had very little toothpaste left. Jeremy Motherfracker was used to brushing his teeth both before and after breakfast, but he wondered if he shouldn't change this habit. It was Tuesday now and he wouldn't be back in Madrid before Friday evening and he was certainly not going to buy a local brand. You never knew what you'd get if you didn't buy the best. And the best, according to Jeremy Motherfracker, was his trusted blue tube paste, composed of natural elements from one of the world's last pristine areas.
Same with food. There was no guaranteeing even the best restaurant's food was free of genetically modified elements. Certainly in a country like Spain, with its lackadaisical style of governing, the big GM firms had been freely sowing their utterly untrustworthy seeds. Every Saturday a metal box containing fruit, water, bread and ready-made meals was delivered at his Madrid hotel. Motherfacker would bring it along and have the places where he stayed heat up his meals, preferably over a cooker, though he accepted the occasional micro wave operation.
He decided to cut back his teeth brushing to twice a day, after breakfast and before going to sleep.
Downstairs in the dining room he wouldn't touch any of the delicious looking food. Instead he ordered to have him served one of his own bake-off croissants and a cup of coffee made from his own water and coffee beans. Better safe than sorry with all those chemicals flying around.
After a frugal meal Jeremy Motherfracker went back upstairs. He needed to brush his teeth another seven times before returning to Madrid. His tube made of plastic – can't trust those metal ones – there was no way of slowly rolling it up. He would have to just carefully press out the right small amount. Adding to his misery, the maid had accidentally forgotten to put the tube upside down, if it hadn't been out of sheer stupidity. As was his custom, he had asked her to clean up his bathroom after he had got ready for the night, ensuring he would find the place perfectly in order the next morning.
With the lid off, he began pressing the tube between the fingers of his left hand while keeping the brush at a ready in his right. But the paste had sunken too deep to be pushed out this way. Motherfracker stuck the brush between his teeth and now applied the strength of both hands. Why did the goo resist him? It hadn't by chance dried up, had it? Jeremy considered adding some drops of water and shake, sort of home style frack it, but he feared the paste might get all liquid. Anyway, can't trust tap water these days, certainly not in fracking areas.
The tube resting on the edge of the basin and now applying force with both hands, suddenly a large blob of toothpaste shot out.
Damn it.
There was certainly worth of four brushings on the basin's lazy slope. Motherfracker thought of saving it, but he immediately realised the detergents used by the maid were not to be trusted. Can't trust anything in this toxic world of ours, Jeremy Motherfracker was convinced.
Carefully he began dipping his brush into the toothpaste dripping which was slowly sliding into the sink, making sure he would only touch sofar uncontaminated parts. What a waste, he meanwhile was thinking. Just when almost all is gone, I start spoiling the remains.
The situation reminded him of something, but he wasn't quite sure what of.
He was angering himself, Motherfracker noticed. He had always been like that. When all wasn't perfect, he would feel a blind rage taking hold of him, making him want to ravage, rage and destroy. How he hated this country his bosses had sent him to, the vast swats of useless beautiful countryside, idly baking in the sun, and its docile, catholic populace. How could they accept their fate so easily? There's no gratitude for rape, didn't they know? Those who didn't resist, who didn't fight, who didn't see their fellow men as adversaries, didn't deserve protection.
Jeremy Motherfracker maniacally began brushing his teeth. He had never succumbed to the electric brush, since the engine couldn't withstand the pressure his temper required. Stupid, useless invention.
Spain was to be looted, pillaged, intoxicated, ruined, ravaged, raped. Soon, people living near fracking sites would start getting sick. But the obvious correlations would be denied, doubtedand obfuscated, with investigators handsomely paid off if necessary. By the time horrible skinburns, cancers and nerve system disorders had become epidemic, they would be out, on to the next stupid, lazy, useless country. They were doing it to the world.
Jeremy Motherfracker washed his mouth with his own water, derived from one of the last pristine aquifers on the planet. Still three days before he was returning to Madrid. He needed new toothpaste fast.
Motherfracker pulled out his mobile phone and called his secretary.
“Christine? Could you send me a tube of my toothpaste asap? If you get to it now, I can have it in my hotel tomorrow.”
“Jeremy? Aren't you slightly exaggerating?”
“If you can locate a supplier in Europe you are welcome to have them send me some, but I doubt if it is sold outside the States.”
“That's not what I mean, Jeremy. I mean, do you really have to wake me up for this?”
“Wake you up? It's eight o'clock.”
“Wherever you are, perhaps, but not in Washington.”
“What? Oh, sorry.”
“I'll see to it first thing in the morning. Are you okay out there?”
“Never, Christine, I'm never okay. Remember that.”
further information to be found on: Dangers of fracking and Fracking en Catalunya
