20070102   

Michael considered fate at 11:52   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

When I can't sleep the thoughts that run through my head are like children, far-flung relatives who show up once a year and run over your day smearing creamy peanut butter on everything; annoying. It's umpteen times worse than the real dreams, which never seem to make sense and so therefore don't carry weight or meaning. You'd think the reverse would be true; that the power of the subconscious would have you in stitches of laughter, tears streaming down your face at how perverse your twisted self can be while your awake self dreams of the mundane - winning the lottery or riding a shotgun shell space shuttle to the f'ing moon.

Not so.

It's tough when the subconscious is the escape because in there it is lonely and cold, like walking the halls of a beautiful museum of art with nobody there, echoes of your footsteps reverberating along the walls. Hullo? Is there anybody in there?

I hope your nodding if you can hear me cause that's as far as we're going to get with that one I suspect. A curt nod and off we go. Let's whirlwind down a strange path of dead presidents and slain dictators. Let's dance in the wake of cyclonic destruction, as if we would never choose to live in the path of Mother Nature's whims of fancy, as if we - born there, bred there, raised and rooted there - would see it how we see it now, of course! It's not safe, let's move. Leave mama there on the porch and the sleeping dog lying under the floorboards. Move up, move over, to the land of a'plenty, stores and shopping malls stacked up like shiny pill-shaped candies in colourful little boxes. Nevermind the second class citizens eating their macaroni and cheese from the back of humvees in the desert thinking If I knew what the world was like I never would have agreed to "see it", their confused expressions of doubt plastered, mirror like, on the faces of passing locals. Inside, in their minds, they are all thinking about how very much alone they are, sitting amongst each other in a big group. Only the cold smooth surface of gunmetal shining through the anti-euphoria of wartime malaise.

Somewhere else an ice shelf eases slowly into the ocean like a hippopotamus-mother easing into the hot tub at the motel 6 on the family's journey to see the Grand Canyon.. some scientists are there to see it but it still doesn't seem to make a sound. The global citizenry are distracted by black and white balls kicked across playing fields, men are celebrated for their deft maneuvers and ability to contact ball with head; a horrible metaphor is born.

Alas, stillbirth.

Somewhere, an economy churns and out comes toothpicks. It's a modern miracle, produced for almost nothing - the greatest achievement of the human being, goods and services that cost nothing, generate revenue, and create jobs. The underbelly is warm and full, as if an entire feast has just been devoured.. but it is really on an IV drip - more efficient this way.

Up above, in the grand void between us and the infinite beyond (where god and zeus and scary things that go bump in the night gather for texas hold 'em tournaments) a tiny station sits. It's multinational crew do somersaults in the anti-gravity and a spacewalk record is set, like the most home runs hit in a bathing suit. The people of Darfur cheer, grateful, triumphant, born anew.

Pepsi anyone? No, a Coke for me please. Black, with acrid smoke pouring forth from the exhaust pipe of the can. Radiant, with all the hope of nuclear power (you know, the kind shaped like a bomb). When all our hope is lost and we come to realize the ineffectual nature of the democratic beast, when we are busy tying each other up in a scandalous two-sided affair, the pure equality of it all bursting forth like sunshine on a rainy day, and $78.4 a barrel seems like an ancient and far off memory (and frankly, what a bargain!), well whell whhell, I tell yah, it'll hurt so good those chains of bondage, the liberty of being owned like that, each of us in our cell with petunias around the outside and a white picket fence marking mine from yours, it will be so beautiful while the fireworks of a new world make atomic displays above our heads. The Iranians, they can take it. The Koreans can march out their stiff little suits pretending the world is perfect within those walls of Chinese depression. We'll lose and all the women will be locked up, the Knicks will win a title, and the world really will be a better place. Nobody will be happy but nobody will be sad and that is a Good Thing™. The people of Darfur will cheer, grateful, triumphant, born anew.

Here's to 2007.