RANT: ZOMBIES BY MY WINDOW, ZOMBIES BY MY DOOR...

 

 

Eclipse

The long winding down has begun.

Bring the ships to harbour

and summon the guards to order.

Gather close while I tell you

about days of sunshine

and fields of golden grain,

about the green hills of Talmar 

and Jansea's swift, blue waters;

about dream-rich orchards

whose first sowing was by Tal’s own hand.

Let me tell you of the race

He chose to tend His garden—

And how we, His loving children,

grew tall and beautiful

in the bounty of His blessings,

here in the boundless wonders of His gift.

Let me tell you how we came to live here,

and how, in the Great Withering,

when the gods warred in Heaven,

and flames from their conflagration

scoured  the earth, let me tell you how

Tal lead us past the burning fields 

and broken orchards,

past salt-scarred shores and dust-choked streams,

and brought us safely to this land.

Our land.

Let me tell you how He triumphed above,

and how we, in turn, triumphed on earth,

as we began our new beginning here.

It is the story of who and what we are,

and how we came to be.

Let me tell you the adventures of Sath

and loving Adalph

and their Great March on Tal’uk Nal,

of the battles fought there

and the bravery of the armies,

and the sacrifice of the giant, Kush—

God’s own hammer upon the earth!

O! Let the song of those days,

and all our days,

be sung for a thousand years!

But soft! Before it’s too late,

let me tell you all there is to tell.

 

 

You, too, can be a Zombie Movie Extra! Phone 705-ZOMBIE, right now!

    You, too, can be a Zombie Movie Extra! Phone 705-ZOMBIE, right now!

Whenever I’m feeling post-apocalyptic, I like to watch a good zombie flick. I saw one earlier tonight in my bunker called Train to Busan that came out a couple of years ago. It’s a fun flick with lots of raving, re-animated "deaders" on board a high-speed commuter train in South Korea. The film has the usual assortment of survivors—from young-parent hero types to craven, cowardly businessmen. Good scenes of crowd hysteria (on the part of the survivors) with blood-thirsty zombies serving as Armageddon's stand-in de jour (even if the trope is a bit shop-worn.) It’s the kind of movie you can sit through and let your brain puddle while your eyes move scatter-shot from one crisis to the next. In the end, the humane, socially-conscious folk survive, (some, anyway) while the selfish, fearful people in the crowd (most) get their faces chewed off by zombies. If only it were true: Love expressed, redemption gained and the good guys winning in the end (more or less). Unfortunately, life presents us with too many examples of the opposite. And I would probably face-plant in the latter category, if truth be told.

   "Could I have your attention, please! I've brought you here today...HELLO!!...Is this thing on?"

Like a lot of people, I’ve been surprised at the longevity of the ongoing pandemic crisis and economic shutdown. It’s been well over six months since we’ve started hiding out in our ‘hidey-holes’ or masking-up and avoiding as many of our fellow citizens as possible. Sirens sound from ambulances and firetrucks going by my place, a little more often than in the past, but traffic seems almost back to normal, with businesses reopened for the most part. Some businesses, like several stores in my local plaza have not, and “For Lease” signs on the doors of their now-vacant shops tell the tale. Four more have closed there since my last visit, businesses and livelihoods gone for good. The “No Frills” grocery store and a large drug store at each end of the mall “anchor” it, in real estate parlance. Both are part of national chains with more resources; the stores in between struggle to survive. Covid-19 casualties involve more than just people.

The downtown library is open. Everybody dons a mask inside, but you can sit and read for a time or until you can’t stand your mask any longer. The local YMCA is not reopening. They’d been fund-raising for a new facility for a while and can’t afford to reopen the early 1970s building. It was old and tired, to be sure, but it was a welcoming place to go, and comfortable as an old shoe. My own experience with the fallout from coronavirus has thus far been muted, and I remain in a better position than many whose livelihoods, not to mention their health and their families’ health are at risk.

In the news, there are reports of “Depression-level” unemployment figures, massive debt loads, growing eviction rates, business foreclosures, protests, etc. But the forces of social inertia are great, and it takes time for effects to ‘scale-down’ to the community-level, to street-level, to get granular and personal. I am aware that in other communities, other societies, the pressures wrought by Covid-19 and the global economic freeze have already fissured and cracked the bedrock and weakened their foundations. Not here, not yet, though I seem to hear more angry voices on the sidewalk outside my window of late, more frustration in these waning weeks of summer. As I wrote earlier, more of our youth seem to be caught in the widening cracks, resorting to drugs and violence to escape. So it will come here eventually, one way or another.

 

         “Diplomacy” (glyph c. 2020)

Meanwhile, the federal deficit has grown to a size not seen since the Second World War, with programs to help the unemployed, businesses and citizens in distress. Provincial and local governments, churches, charities and non-profits are all in, and stretched to the limit. It remains to be seen how well we’ll cope with all of this and what lessons we’ll have learned. I am not convinced that what we are doing is what we should be doing, or all that we should be doing, and that our emphasis may be misplaced, our analysis wrong, and our diagnosis misaligned with reality.

I have the image in my mind of a juggler frantically trying to keep all his balls in the air, even as more are perversely tossed in for him to catch.   

As much as I would like to get things over with, ‘zombie-style’, I think it will take longer than we imagine winding everything down. Societies and civilizations don’t die easily (though die they must in the end.) They usually have to be dragged kicking and screaming into history’s dumpster. We are perhaps entering the tantrum-phase of collapse. 

So, for now, I’ll climb into my crib and suck my thumb, and rock myself back to sleep.

Cheers, Jake.

When he had questions, Old Alf always raised his hand. Always. All the time.