Dust in the Lungs
Dust in the Lungs
On the slow suffocation of the present tense
The radiator in the corner of the flat clanks once, a sharp metallic cough that echoes in the small room. It is three in the morning in a London that has not yet decided to sleep. The heat it produces is uneven, patchy, and unreliable. Outside, the streetlights hum with a low, electric buzz that vibrates in the teeth. The man sitting by the window watches the steam rise from his cup of tea. He does not think about the long run. He thinks about the damp patch on the ceiling that grows larger every winter. He thinks about the price of bread. He thinks about the ache in his back. The long run is a phrase used by men who do not have aches in their backs. It is a phrase used by men who sit in offices with central heating and view the world as a series of trends rather than a series of days.
Historians write of the short run as a prelude to the long run. They treat the present as a rough draft, a messy accumulation of errors that will eventually be corrected by the logic of time. This is a comfortable fiction. It allows the observer to remain detached. It allows the planner to ignore the immediate suffering of the people he is planning for. The long run is a place where statistics live. In the long run, the market corrects itself. In the long run, the economy stabilizes. In the long run, the dust settles. But the dust does not settle. It stays in the lungs. It causes the cough. It kills the man in the flat. The historian calls this a transition. The man calls it Tuesday.
The language of the long run is designed to obscure the reality of the short run. When a government announces a five-year plan, it is not talking about the five years. It is talking about the idea of the plan. The plan is a clean, abstract thing. It exists on paper. It has no smell. It has no weight. The reality of the five years is the queue for coal. It is the ration book. It is the cold floor. The planner sees the curve on the graph. The worker sees the empty cupboard. The graph is smooth. The cupboard is jagged. The discrepancy between the two is not an error of calculation. It is an error of empathy. The planner assumes that the worker is a variable in an equation. The worker knows he is a body that feels pain.
Consider the demolition of the slum on Vauxhall Cross. The report calls it urban renewal. The report speaks of improved sanitation and increased property values. These are facts. They are also lies. They are lies because they omit the cost. The cost is the family torn apart. The cost is the loss of community. The cost is the confusion of children who wake up in a strange place. The report does not mention the smell of the new concrete. It does not mention the noise of the drills. It does not mention the fear. The long run promises a better city. The short run delivers a broken home. The better city is a future tense. The broken home is a present tense. The present tense is the only tense that matters to the person living in it.
The obsession with the long run is a form of cowardice. It is a way of avoiding responsibility for the present. If you say that the pain is temporary, you do not have to stop it. You can let it continue. You can justify it. You can tell yourself that it is necessary for the greater good. The greater good is a ghost. It has no face. It has no voice. It cannot cry out. The people in the short run have faces. They have voices. They cry out. To ignore them is not wisdom. It is cruelty. The man in the flat does not care about the greater good. He cares about the heat in his room. He cares about the food on his table. He cares about the safety of his children. These are not small things. They are the only things.
The long run is a myth invented by those who hold power. It is a tool of control. It tells the powerless to wait. It tells them to be patient. It tells them that their suffering has a purpose. This is a lie. Suffering has no purpose. It is just suffering. The man in the flat knows this. He does not need a historian to tell him that his life is a transition. He knows that his life is his life. It is not a prelude. It is not a draft. It is the final copy. The radiator clanks again. The steam rises. The tea goes cold. The night passes. The day begins. The long run is still far away. The short run is here. It is now. It is the dust in the lungs. It is the ache in the back. It is the damp patch on the ceiling. These are the facts. The rest is noise.