Vesna McMaster - Collapse

‘Ah, the Hittites.’ Her eyes fix on a distant horizon, somewhere a few kilometres beyond the concrete wall of the room.

‘Get her out! Get her out! She’s going to start talking about the Bronze Age Collapse!’

‘How rude. I was merely considering the relevance of the predations of the Sea People to modern immigration debates.’

‘The hell you were. You were going straight to the Minoans there, without passing Go.’

She sits back with a martyred air, folding her hands in her lap. Michael, sitting next to her, is sure he catches the muttered imprecation of ‘Philistines’.

The door bursts open and a further six members appear, flushed from an evidently brisk walk in the summer storm, and exuding an aura of damp and heat more suitable to the end of a racetrack than a meeting.

‘You’re late. We’re half-way through. I can’t go over the agenda again. You’ll have to read the notes.’

‘We were stopped at the level crossing! Circumstances beyond our control!’

‘Never mind, we only have a few more minutes before the Philosophical Society kicks us out. You know how particular they are about the time-slots.’

The Chair scans the rest of the items with the air of a general contemplating how best to disguise an upcoming defeat.

‘Items 5 and 6 are irrelevant. Item 7…’

‘I still think the example of…’

‘Oh, shut up!’

The meeting ends, as so many civilizations before it, in complete collapse.