Guy Fawkes was an “English soldier and member of a group of Roman Catholics” who tried to blow up Parliament on November 5th, 1605. He failed.
So now, every fifth of November, people all across England go batshit crazy and have big bonfires and burn Guy Fawkes effigies and set off fireworks. Presumably, they are celebrating his failure, although one of my native spies tells me that it’s more of a love-hate thing, because secretly, Brits are kind of ‘tickled’ by the idea of Parliament blowing up.
I like bonfires and fireworks. Who doesn’t like bonfires and fireworks? Bonfires and fireworks are, by their very nature, likeable things. They are PRETTY and COLORFUL and FUN. And burning effigies? That just sounds wildly satisfying, and I fully admit it.
All I’m questioning, really, is whether it was truly necessary for the adolescent nutjobs in my (admittedly slightly sketchy) neighborhood to celebrate their love-hate of Guy Fawkes by setting off fireworks for three straight days leading up to Nov 5th, then commemorating the actual day with a near-constant but maddeningly ERRATIC cacophony of explosions. ALL DAY. INCLUDING when the SUN was up. Which is when I sleep.
In that odd place between sleep and conscious thought, where you are aware of your surroundings but still have only the tools of bleary sleeplogic at your disposal, I lay in my bed, jerking awake every 7, 12, 26, 3, etc. minutes with the next burst of fireworks:
<*BOOM*> God. That could be gunfire. I know it’s not, but it could be… …
<*BOOM*> That sounded like an explosion. Maybe London is being bombed Right Now, and I don’t even know, because I’m sleeping through it… ….
<*BOOMBOOM*> Shit. What if that’s what’s happening? Oh God. London is under attack. Attack? What? No, no, they’re just fireworks… …
<*BOOM*> What? Oh, right! The bombs! I shouldn’t be sleeping through bombs… …
<*BABOOMBOOM*> Agh! Agh. ugh… …
<*BOOM*> War! It’s war! I wonder if they’ll hit this building. It would be trippy if they took out a corner of my ceiling… that corner, over there. It would be like those bombed out buildings in that Polanski movie, with the husks that looked like school dioramas… weeird… …
<*BOOMBOOM*> I’m awake! I’m awake! Yeah. Yeah… yeah, if the bombs took out that corner, I could see the sky while I slept… …
<*BOOM*> No, no, if we were under attack, someone would have texted me. Did anyone text me? <blearily check mobile phone> No. Good. It’s just fireworks after all… …
<*BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBABOOM*> Agh! <still clutching phone> I should call my mom. She’ll get worried when she sees the war on the news. Yeah. I’ll call her in a minute… …
<*BOOMBOOM! BOOM!*> Oh. My. Sweet. Jesus. I. am. going. to. kill. those. kids.
As you can imagine, it was all rather stressful.
*I don’t know how many people actually watched V for Vendetta,
but it was inspired by Guy Fawkes. It was also bad, truly bad.
So he has that to answer for as well, in addition
to my unsatisfying sleep experience.
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