Once again yesterday, I had a multitude of things on my mind, but my brain refused to cooperate in documenting any of them. So, after I had been up for quite a long time, went back to bed, where I spent most of the day. Consequently, I missed visits by two friends. Later, between brief periods of consciousness, I tried repeatedly to focus my attention on something that might trigger thoughts of a subject to write about. Finally, sometime between daybreak and its subsequent midnight, a few topics of interest crossed my mind. If I had been sufficiently energetic, I might have recorded some thoughts on my smart-phone or jotted a note to myself to serve as a reminder for later. I was not energetic. I did not have a pen and notepad nearby (nor did I have enough drive to go find them). So, I gave up. And I do not recall yesterday’s ideas. Such is life.
+++
I had another massage Saturday afternoon, my third since being introduced to the massage therapist not long ago. When the session concluded, I set another appointment for two weeks hence. Between massage and sleep and movies/streaming series, I think I could occupy all of my time and then some. But I’d still have to fit in time for my oncologist and people like her… people who rely on my Medicare and supplemental insurance to fund their current lifestyle, their retirement, and so forth. In fact, I do not begrudge members of the several medical teams that serve me. They chose careers that would flood their bank accounts with money; I settled for an employment trajectory suitable for sustained mediocrity.
+++
I would like to find something worthy of celebration…an event or an idea or an attitude that merits festive observance. This worthy “something” need not be especially noteworthy—just deserving of appreciative acknowledgement. Additional caveats: it must be something positive (not involving the cessation of something negative) and it must be unusual. Oh, it also does not need to be relevant to a majority of the world’s population, but it must have an impact on large percentages of at least half the countries of the world, as presently configured. Why, though? Why the desire for something to celebrate? Why the limitations on it? Why must it be relevant to so many people in so many places…but not necessarily to everyone? Those questions have answers that matter only to skeptics and cynics…and, of course, to people like them in meaningful ways.
+++
Mass casualty events—especially those that are planned and executed with the express purpose of generating fear, terror, and hopelessness—can almost immediately wreck a society’s frame of mind and keep its spirits low for a very long time. Multiple invasions of a society’s psychological condition have the potential of radically altering nations’ collective perception of one another. Distrust can morph into malignant invasive kudzu, spreading so fast within even healthy communities that, once detected, its spread is nearly impossible to contain. In my opinion, deep research into the after-effects of a few of the mass-casualty events since the 1960s illustrates how such events can remain in a nation’s/society’s collective consciousness for years, shaping long-term reactions and responses to them. For example: the Vietnam War; the 9/11/2001 Al Qaeda attacks; the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing; 2016 Pulse Nightclub attack; 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting; 2022 Uvalde, Texas school shooting; the 1994 Rawanda genocide; the July 1995 Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina massacre; etc., etc. A quick search of Google returns a very long list of such catastrophes. In each case, I believe thorough research would yield information about deviant psychological and sociological reactions directly attributable to the triggering events. What can our descendants expect in response, over time, to the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol? Ongoing school shootings? Murder and arson perpetrated in religious venues? The “disappearance” (at the hands of a Federal government laden with disdain for morality, legality, and human decency) of hundreds or thousands of potentially-undocumented immigrant children? The lists of such events are beyond comprehension…mine, at least.
+++
An apple turnover is visible in a cool display case, nestled among all sorts of other pastries. They, along with apple fritters, donuts, cinnamon roles, kolaches, klobásníky, and cake donuts plead with me: “Please take me! I need to be eaten joyously, and I know you’re the man to do it!” This little display case is directly in front of the door to the pastry shop. Almost everyone in this sleepy East Texas town visits Patricia’s Pleasing Pastries at least once every month; either right before or right after church. Most of the working-age population of Palestine, Texas is employed by Patricia’s Proton Plant, a facility that manufactures original-equipment-quality products for use in restoring atoms whose neutrons are fully operable but whose protons were damaged beyond repair during various stages of the atomic restoration process. Patricia’s Proton Plant is the largest employer in Palestine, with a workforce of roughly 28,000. Patricia’s Pleasing Pastries employs the remaining 200 workers. Some people in and around Palestine call the town’s employment situation a “closed-loop semi-serfdom system,” but most of them still call it “Bruce.” Before Patricia bought the proton plant, Bruce had been the owner; old habits die hard. I hear the turnover’s plaintive cries again; “I am the last one. The one with the most flavor. Don’t forget, too, I was baked in a nuclear oven! ” The apple turnover tried to retract that last sentence, but it was too late. Before the exclamation point could leave its lips, the turnover burst into flames, blackened layers of its crust spraying into the air. My eyes barely had time to scan the room, before I could see and feel and smell the fear in the air for just a fraction of a second. I was the only one left alive after the terrifying, apocalyptical explosion…but the blast made me invisible to the first responders, who flew in from Percilla, Texas on the papal helicopter. You might recall the year before, the global religious community was shocked when the merger was announced between Christianity (formerly the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention), Islam, and Hinduism. The Pope was named church leader and the headquarters of the combined church units was moved to Percilla. I was delighted to be, essentially, a fly on the wall, to watch and hear the religious and political ramifications of the merger. Thanks to my surprising invisibility, I was able to manipulate conversations and agreements so that, ultimately, the “Unaffiliated” faction, comprising only 24% of the total membership of the combined religions, was given irrevocable religious powers, thereby taking absolute control of religions, worldwide. Petitions from the “unaffiliated” faction to ban the Bible notwithstanding, the book was retained as an historical resource for religious fables.
