Sitting on his sofa amidst his old living-room, England had been staring helplessly and hopelessly at the same terrifying headline of The Sun newspaper for the past God knows how long. It was as Time had ground to a creaking, groaning halt, and left him hanging and immobile in a chasm of infinite black space.
"48% of Brits Want to Get Out of Britain."
All at once he felt the most blinding and brain-splitting pain in the pit of his stomach, pushing and pushing through his innards and tearing through his throat like a millions of tearing needles. The pain was so uncontrollably agonizing that he had no voice to speak, and tears streamed silently down his cheeks as his facial muscles gave way, and choked splutters forced their way out, faster and faster, until all at once, he was shrieking with an insane, terrifying laughter.
Still howling, the nation clutched himself and collapsed sideways onto his long Victorian-style sofa, overcome with spasms and tears staining the fine crimson velvet.
Oh, what the hell? What the bloody hell? It was all so wrong. Everything was just so horribly, horribly wrong.
England let out a strangled sob.
But of course! Why wouldn't they leave him? How could he even ask such a ridiculous question! Everything was falling to bits. His treasured industries, his businesses, his heritage, his pride, his society, his family, his people...
Moaning in agony, England's fractured mind tried to focus on one aching question: Where had it all gone wrong?
Scanning the flashes of memories harbored through the ages, one unforgettable and still-raw memory burned in his mind.
World War Two.
Jittering moss-green eyes shot open as he unconsciously mouthed the three words, those dreadful three words that pointed a bloody finger to that God-awful time of blood and tragedy he had prayed never to live through again.
From that time, it had been a harrowing and horrible spiral downwards into the dark depths in which he wallowed today. That war had been England's downfall.
He had not know it then; no-one then could have fathomed the unspeakable consequences that monumental conflict. The instant he had declared those immortal words over the national radio: "Britain is at war with Germany", he had sealed his fate. Indeed, he had written his own death-warrant, then fatally disguised as a noble crusade of democracy.
Ruin was his reward. The economy, once able to build and muster the burden of any task, was stripped down to a pitiful husk of its former self, and had never, and never would, be the same again. The once unstoppable naval force, the greatest in the world, was blasted to a joke laughed at by its many, many superiors. The values that had defined his society and bonded them together in times of immense hardship, had wasted away, and now it was all people could do to support each-other's neighbors, living isolated existences worthy of his own horrible loneliness and detachment of long days past. The strength of the law and its enforcers, once one to be reckoned with, was now laughable in their pitiful leniency that endangered countless lives and bastardized the very word 'Justice'. Now criminals and illegal scum walked and further dirtied the sacred British soil with their filthy feet, and it was too late to cleanse it now. Run by cowards and slimy worms who didn't even know the meaning of 'patriotism' and 'courage', he was being eaten away from the inside. The pride and decency that drove forth his people was also robbed from him, and now most did not want anything more to do with him.
Could he blame them? No, logically speaking. He couldn't. They were thinking for the happiness of themselves, their families, and their quality of life, all of which they could not do in England. They were reacting to a situation that was beyond their control and were leaving it for other lands.
But, at the same time, England cursed them with every fiber of his being. They were throwing him away for the sake of their own selfish, selfish lives! They would not even think to try and save him from his fate! They would not even try to do anything to help their home country. He was dying alone in his old, memory-ridden house, and they never gave him a second's glance. Fuck this sodding country, they said, as they shut the door on him and exited his realm for good, who needs it? It's dead to us now.
England suddenly recalled another monstrous headline: "Will the last person to leave England please turn out the light?"
Oh, he would be all-too glad to do the honours!
A quick succession of high-pitched, wild shrieks burst out from deep within England, half-mad with his own grief and rage.
He furiously hoped they all just died. He hoped that when they got to their precious 'new home' they would be hit by a bus or torn to pieces by a murderous local, or just wasting away in their own personal hell as they realized their new home was not as they expected it to be. He goddamn hoped they rue the day they left him to die! The bastards! Fuck them, fuck them all!
Unleashing an inhuman scream, England threw himself off his sofa and smashed at anything his fists and head could reach, throwing the table over, grabbing the legs, and smashing it into the bookcase, throwing it crashing to the ground, ancient volumes collapsing to the floor in disarray, smashing the wardrobe in with a frenzy of blows and kicks, stamping and stamping until his feet and hands were bleeding, taking the poker from the blazing fireplace and stabbing it into each of the priceless paintings, smacking them off the walls and breaking them into pieces, slashing madly at the walls, kicking over the sofa and throwing the lampshade, the table, the cassette-player, everything, all over the floor until they smashed into thousands and thousands of tiny, unrecognisable pieces.
With a deathly wail, England lunged across the devastated room, grabbed and tore down the two curtains veiling the two enormous front windows, ripping them away and standing bare, tear-streaked and bleeding in the mocking, cold light of his own inevitable doom.
"ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?" he screamed as his throat burned raw. "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO ME! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW? ARE YOU FUCKING HAPPY NOW, YOU SONS OF BITCHES?"
Clutching his head as everything imploded on itself, England screamed and screamed and screamed.
.
.
Today I read The Sun's headline, taken from a recent poll, "48% of Brits Want to Get Out of Britain".
This was the result.
By the way, I don't personally read The Sun at all. My dad collects and runs a newspaper archive, and The Sun is one of the many papers he collects from day to day. He found this particular article and cut it out for filing, and showed it to me.
Now I wish he hadn't. As if I didn't know most people think England is a shit-hole. I'm close to becoming one of them, to be honest. It just all seems so hopelessly out of my control, a downward spiral into oblivion. Ever wanted to see a country violently implode on itself? Look no further than England, your resident black hole of fucked country!
...
I truly don't want to feel this way, but sometimes I just despair with the way everything's going for Britain. Country's falling apart from the inside, and there's talk of Scotland leaving the UK and further breaking everything up and stamping on the graves of those who fought to protect not just England but Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the latter two of who, will surely follow if Scotland were to ever break away (which is what was meant by England 'losing his family' bit).
Don't get me wrong, I understand their (Scotland ect) reasoning behind wanting to leave, but...to me, it's an affront to everything Britain once was, and destroying it by breaking up our union is just...too tragic and horrible and heart-breaking to describe. I hope I never live to see it. Ever.
...rant over.