I Think They Call This Media Fatigue By Emma Jackson

      Mike Maguire CC



I Think They Call This Media Fatigue 

I stopped taking in the news, not because I want to be ignorant, but because I just can’t take it anymore. That makes me sound like a child, I know, but what am I supposed to do when the death of a nine-year-old boy in another country leaves me sobbing in the bathroom midway through an unexpected seventeen-hour shoot day. My breaking point. 
    I still read the headlines, don’t get me wrong. Buzzing topics layered over one another: Ukraine, Quarantine, Millennials and Their Low Self-Esteem. We are doomed, we are doomed, we are definitely doomed. I read a headline and move on. At least then I can fake my way through a discussion across the table at work. Oh yes, right, I do recall. I’m not ignorant. 
    Someone was murdered on the East end, bits of their body found distributed amongst several garbage bags. Is that the way it’s done now? Tossed out alongside our neighbour’s trash, fingers crossed the city wildlife isn’t roaming. It seems thoughtless and impulsive. A clear reflection of the do-er. How do the calculating and thoughtful murderers get rid of their victims? I don’t expect an answer. I don’t think I want one. But, someone was murdered on the East end, and my friend started clutching her keys and taking Ubers the moment the sun began its slip into the horizon. Convinced there was a SERIAL KILLER AT LARGE. I had no idea, and even if I did, I don’t know if I would have changed much. I didn’t when I was younger, and a woman’s body was found in a shopping cart two blocks from my parent’s house. A woman reduced to a headline, isn’t that how it goes? My parents, worried, urged me to stop taking my night walks—only for a bit, until all was sorted. I more or less told my parents that I am invincible, and things like that don’t happen to women like me. Also, I needed those walks for sneaky cigarettes, the stench still reeking from my jacket when I came home. I’ve realized I’m not as smart as I thought I was, and I accept that. But, I think in accepting that, it makes me smarter, even though I only read headlines. 
    I told this to my friend—the headlines part, not the rest because we’re close, but we aren’t that close. Yet. She understood, but she still told me all the details because we’re human, and we can’t help ourselves. Every gruesome bit caught in our brains, held on the tip of our tongues, ready to be shared. I can’t be the only one disturbed by this. 
    It was a relief to both of us to hear the body belonged to a mother, the murderer, her son. A family affair. We could stop running between the yellowed lighting of street lamps, the jagged imprint of a key fading from our palms. For now. 

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Emma Leard Jackson is a graduate of the University of Alberta where she studied film and creative writing. Her writing has appeared in Glass Buffalo, and Funicular Magazine. She is currently working on her first novel, which she writes and rewrites in Toronto. Emma can be found on Instagram at @emmajacksohn.

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