Watching dense smoke flow—like a waterfall—gently down from the ember of a cone of incense intrigues me. The explanation for the direction of flow, counter to what would normally be expected, is a matter of simple physics; but it appears almost magical. I have never had a backflow incense burner, but when I see them on display in shops I invariably stop and stare at them. The ember of the cone of incense and the smoke flowing in the “wrong” direction captivate me, yet something almost always seems not quite right. This morning, as I was skimming a website that sells incense, I realized what struck me as out of place: the incense cone, the ember, and the smoke appear “natural,” but the holders tend to be artificial. Plastic. That juxtaposition interrupts and damages what could otherwise be a sensation of calmness; like viewing beautiful ornamental glass spheres become cheap rubber balloons that pop when hit by a dart. My willingness to be persuaded that I am viewing something almost mystical was suddenly shattered when I realized the experience involves blatantly misleading trickery. Those gentle, magical rivers of smoke flow over molded petroleum products…poorly made in an attempt to look like stone. That realization was like learning the man I thought was Santa Claus had been mortally wounded in a shootout with police over a fentanyl bust gone horribly wrong. Imagine learning that a set of remarkably beautiful stained glass church windows you have admired all your life are, in fact, cheap and brittle colored plastic film. Your world is suddenly turned upside down; nothing you believed can be trusted anymore. You want nothing more than to forget everything and everyone you ever knew—just disappear from the face of the Earth.
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Distant thunder just interrupted my coal-black reverie. Temperatures are in the mid-thirties at the moment, on their way to barely reaching the mid-forties by 2:00 P.M. Lightning flashed in front of my windows, followed two or three seconds later by growling thunder. The day’s weather will be belligerent again…threatening, in fact. Like a prison inmate, recently released on parole, with no job, no home, no money, and no friends…his only comfort a bottle of cheap whiskey. He could earn a pretty penny, though, if he would just agree to perform a long string of public service assassinations disguised to look like natural causes.
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We are being watched. Even in small towns. In laundromats. In convenience stores. As we use crosswalks to make our way to the other side of dangerous intersections. Quite possibly in our own homes, where Mark’s and Elon’s eyes and the eyes of dozens of others are glued to monitors that track our every movement. Privacy is a fantasy, thanks to Alexa and Siri and the WIFI-driven cameras and microphones hidden in your refrigerators and clothes dryers and shower stalls and doctors’ examination rooms. Malevolent technicians control every device you have come to depend on; your smart-watch, your tablet, your phone, your television, the lights in your home, your automobile…the list is endless. If you ever wonder why a subject suddenly popped into your mind…it was placed there by the technicians or their AI counterparts. And it can be removed…as can anything else in your mind. It’s time we all become conspiracy theorists, assigning blame for all the world’s ills to Atheists and Catholics and Muslims and Southern Baptists and others whose own conspiracy theories paint targets on the backs of the rest of us. Paranoia will no longer be classified as an illness but, instead, as a great gift of foresight…because people with paranoia will have cameras and microphones implanted in their eyes and ears. If you do not believe these are factual statements, look over your left shoulder, where a microscopic camera will record the terror on your face as you spy the reflection of its lens. Do not worry, though. Bird-flu might rob us of chicken eggs, but the transition to platypus eggs will be easy…and worth the fear of cameras.
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Assuming she does not think what I’ve written here today indicates I am dangerous, my sister will come visit soon. As we grow older, I think people naturally gravitate back toward family, even if age disparities in the past made familial connections somewhat more tenuous that in families in which children were spaced quite closely together. The temporal space between the kids in families like mine ensure that all of us have memories that might as well come from different eras. Or, in my case, memories that somehow have largely disappeared over the years. So, gathering with one’s siblings is like making connections with bygone moments some family members did not experience. Hmm. Hard to explain, now that I am attempting to present myself as a moderately sane person.
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When I become emperor of this great domain, I will issue decrees that will cause enormous consternation to those who are causing us anxiety now. Where does one find suitable parolees on wet winter mornings? Would that life were so simple.
