Everyone watched the late evening news. 

I can still recall the grim fascination on my father’s face as he’d sit gripping a beer in each hand and watching the names scroll slowly up the screen, like movie credits.

The names of the next 24 hours’ heroes.

The anchorman didn’t read the names aloud, allegedly for fear of sounding slightly apprehensive, or even Afraid. The previous anchor had perhaps made that fatal mistake, until he saw his own name on the autocue. Nobody really knew for sure. All we were fed was propaganda.

Kids stayed up late, families gathered around the television set. Watching was more-or-less mandatory, I guess.

We’d see the previous day’s events, in our glorious nation’s capital. Store shelves full of wondrous goodies, Grinning kids with mouths full of shining white teeth. Rockets shooting for mars and beyond.

Then there would be a weather report (always sunny) and sports (somehow always a success for every team) and a light hearted home video clip, perhaps of a cat playing the piano. Then the list of the next day’s dead, and the screaming would start. Gunshots would punctuate the night. Sirens usually signalled a suicide or two. Sometimes someone would jump from a window and you’d even hear the splatter, or the splintering of spines.

Sometimes you’d see names which you knew.

I remember the night my father’s name scrolled up. He laughed maniacally, and downed both of his beers with a belch before hanging himself from the broken old ceiling-fan, using his belt.

The military escort arrived the next morning. He seemed bitterly disappointed to see my father swinging a little in the soft April breeze.

He grudgingly took my father away, muttering about “Another f*cking coward” and barely acknowledging my existence. 

I was mature for my young age, and was used to making breakfast, so I was OK. I drank my maize-shake and popped my protein pills, and made my way down to the old schoolhouse, where my pals and I always climbed up onto the dilapidated roof to get a clear view of the launchpad.

Men, women and, increasingly, children were then led shakily toward the nose-cones of the rockets constructed yesterday, usually numbering thirty or forty. It was an educated guess, as the number of suicides varied. A brass band gave them a cacophonous send-off. 

As soon as each rocket was ready, it shot off faster than the eye could see, cold-fusion engines running silent as the grave, with each rocket’s kamikaze pilot steering their warhead towards the attack fleet rapidly amassing throughout our solar system. It was something to do with the enemy tech being able to neutralise or confuse our AI; that’s why flesh-and-blood was required. 

We’d see dazzling flashes in the sky, and imagine the impacts of those amateur astronauts. “That one was my mom!” I’d told myself. “That one was my brother!” Heroes, both.

Then there wasn’t much else for a kid to do except wait for the late evening news.