Hellbound Train – Love, Death and Like

Human rights in 2025 – you fight alone, Brother, be sure of that. The times have shifted, cold with a star above them, and the world sways at the edge of a moral abyss. Everything dissolves into likes, bots and mockery. The good – we want it, honestly, we long for it so desperately, look here, look closely, you even get a like for wanting it – appears only as a faint shadow. Those who fight, no one wants them while they are here. Helping? Yes, a fraction. The rest scroll on. My excuse was the best one: what, he’s dead? Sad emoji, that helps. Only when it is gone do we remember it once meant something. Damn it, the AfD in power, angry emoji.

When the bad is bad, society becomes bad. Bad for a click, whipped up for a comment, full of capital letters – that’s social hip. The good steps out of a side street, cautiously, yet the crowd waves him off: keep moving, don’t pass go, straight ahead into the waiting room. “We’ll look later.” Later means never.

A bird lands, then two, then three – a small moment, delicate, maybe real. “No,” the crowd shouts, “that’s AI, that’s fake!” Too colorful, too soft, too much dialect in the wing beat. Report it, report it, you have to report it, bullshit, it was real, no way, the world is evil, especially when it comes to birds – next story, please. Trump works eight days, 26 hours – a grotesque headline, perfect for mockery, perfect for sharing, a slice of cake on the side, delicious, the perfect emoji, look. And no one asks whether it’s true. What matters is that it burns well in the feed – I’m so hot. The truth, yes, it was somewhere. A shock, a contradiction, a fact – but if it doesn’t fit, it won’t be shared. The lie wins because it sounds like a song, soft, like sweet coffee, and it makes me important. Addictive, because you can like it.

The AfD becomes MAGA, everyone writes about it, media you’ve known for years, media that once checked, doubted, tried. Today a sentence is enough, a stumble, a feeling. Journalists, investigative – oh careful now, they want to forbid us from sharing lies – raise their hands: “No, no, sloppy style, nonsense.” Doesn’t matter. Share. Where is Nero when you need him? Move on. Because the new social-media news gatherers, the self-appointed saviors of the world, the social watchers – unchecked, unexamined, research? “Are you stupid?” – no like – driven by a hunger for significance, fueled by the fear at the kitchen table, strongest in the evening, the fear of being unseen. Thinking? Why? If they think, the others stop looking. You’re stupid, you want to take my like away, go away. Alone, yes many are alone – do you like that? Anyone asking? Wow-emoji for loneliness. Leave me alone, I’m watching panic-TV, then twenty articles on the same topic – which version pleases me most? I still have fish in the fridge.

2025 – a year made of lie, death and like. Helping, they say, is done with a thumbs-up. Mockery is hip, television taught us that. Empathy has become expensive – PayPal?
Häme ist hip, hat das Fernsehen gesagt. Empathie ist teuer geworden – Paypal?

People are dying, people unjustly locked away, somewhere – close enough to read, far enough not to disturb. Here, my like. Hope it helps. I must go now. Wonderful.

Love, death and like. - Often, there isn’t much more left.
Hi Ho Nobody’s Home – Hellbound Train.