“A man deserves a second chance, but keep an eye on him.” – John Wayne
It has been a handful of days since I wrote the Kiss My Asteroid story and I haven’t looked at it until just now. Aside from correcting some grammar, I didn’t want to touch it. As I wrote in that piece, I normally write a story over the course of several days and put it up at the end of each week.
I don’t know what made me think I was going to write that Sunday story and just have it sit for the week, while I twiddled my creative thumbs. At the same time, I got concerned that if I put up two of these within a week, the sky would fall. Nobody would read either and where would that leave me?
Well, shit, I have this need to write and sadly it transcends the need to be read. How do you like that? This is the first time I have done one and just wanted to leave it alone, for better or worse. Frankly, after reading that story, I wasn’t very happy with it, all the more reason to knock out another one.
I truly believe we will continue on the arc we have been traveling, since before cave drawings and/or any archeological artifacts have been dug up and analyzed. So, in my mind, the only thing that will jam our relentless trajectory is an asteroid, like the one that changed the world millions of years ago. Unlike the dinosaurs, whose huge size was offset by their small brains, we might be smart enough and lucky enough for some to survive and restart a civilization, turning its back on its past transgressions.
While the asteroid is a totally random occurrence, there is a case to be made for our destruction being brought about by our own hand. Kids, the climate is warming and if there was ever a fail safe mechanism, we have gone way beyond it. It is one thing to melt a glacier the size of Florida, but a completely ridiculous idea to think of refreezing it. We ain’t cooling off the warming oceans either. I assume you all know that the amount of CO2 and methane in the air has been steadily increasing, while we talk about it.
This exquisite jewel of a planet has been around for billions of years. While I may feel old at my age, getting up into those numbers is beyond my ability to count or really understand. The amount of shit, literally and figuratively, frozen in all that melting ice is undoubtedly holding some, stone-cold lethal specimens, Covid 19 on steroids. While I wouldn’t bet my 24 year old Lexus on the asteroid, I am all in on defrosting toxicity.
Maybe I am cheating a little here. If I tried putting all this in one story, it would blow all the rules of the right word count for techno-attention. In deference to the rules of the game, I will put these stories out a day or so apart, but it is one story. In a way, all my writing is one story anyway.
Don’t get me wrong. I love being human. We are a miracle of creation with no explanation, regardless of how hard some religions try. Unfortunately, some of these disciplines make one person more valuable than another, more power than the other. In many ways, some religions have historically been as lethal as the probability of defrosted destruction. When one of them totally negates an entire gender, you think that’s God’s work? Another believes it has the right to persecute and attempt to eliminate those who believe in a different God, motivated solely by geographical convenience
I remember writing in my book to my grandson, when Reagan let God into the White House, we were screwed. When you marry power and righteousness, you have aroused the devil inside. Not only that, you inflate the Big Top of the human circus and here we are today, witnessing the epitome of the clown with the upside down smile, thanks John Prine.
Speaking of the clown with the upside down smile, this country of ours has a limited sense of history. Basically, we are pretty new to the world. Keep in mind, I am talking about America, the name given it by its invaders. The First People here, long before “civilization” arrived, were around as empires came and went across the oceans. The dominant society here has a sense of history only a few hundred years old.
Tyrants have come and gone for thousands of years. Check out Caligula, if you have a chance. Last time I looked, Rome is still here. Their time passes, just like ours does. DJT joins a fraternity of megalomaniacs and will become part of America’s history.
Myopia is an epidemic human beings have always metaphorically suffered from. We behave like we will be here forever, blind to our impermanence, insensitive to the damage we are causing our home tomorrow. We love looking in the mirror, but not into the telescope of our actions.
Honestly, I don’t know how many generations we have left before our devastation of the climate turns to face us, slapping us in the face with a force that Mother Nature has only been teasing us with til now. People, like the clown, think they can ignore her. His friends, the royalty of the cash cabal, think they can buy her.
I am right here, feet on the ground, eyes open, heart open, reaching out to you with my words. Trust me, I’m no fucken pollyanna, nor some, suffering fatalist either. All each of has is our time here and how we spend it is all we got.
Just one other thing to share. I promise to write only one story next week and I have no idea what it’ll be about. I realize this story and the last one have a lot of negative shit in them. I am torn between apologizing and simply being honest with you.
I’m gonna stick with honesty, because that’s the only currency I have to spend on the page.
As always, thank you for your time, twice.
LISTEN TO IT HERE:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/1292459/episodes/16118948-twofer