Darkness still drenches the back deck, making it impossible to see whether there is any evidence of what made the very loud racket an hour ago. My guess is that a raccoon got caught up in one of the decorative metal accouterments hanging from the soffit. That would explain the noise. First light may tell. But I suppose the “noise” could have been an outgrowth of a dream. There’s a vague recollection rattling around in my brain that would explain the noise; if only I could remember even a snippet of the dream. But I cannot. So it’s all supposition.
Okay; I’ve returned to this segment of today’s post, after having checked the game camera; nothing. There was nothing to explain the loud banging I thought I heard on the deck. Perhaps it was my imagination, after all.
+++
This must be the time of broken promises. The pharmacist promised to call; no call. The contractor promised to get back to me by “Monday, at the latest.” No contact. The person who answered the company’s phone promised her boss would call me back “within 30 minutes.” No return call at, roughly, twenty hours later. It’s growing less and less reasonable to depend on promises; they are made at high speed, like cheap water glasses, and broken just as easily. The problem is the lack of consequences. The pharmacist should have lost the ability to fill the prescription. The contractor should have been taken off the list of acceptable contractors. The receptionist and her boss should have to look for new customers. But none of these consequences will flow from the impolite acts; we’re all too busy to look for alternatives, thereby increasing the likelihood that we will be the target of false promises. That may be too late, though. Our willingness to put up with lies, whether intentional lies or not, has transformed us into easy marks. We can be stepped on without ramifications to the one who treads on us like cheap carpet.
One either puts one’s foot down or places it under the massive tire as the semi-truck rolls backward.
+++
State formation has been a brutal project, with many hideous consequences. But the results exist, and their pernicious aspects should be overcome.
~ Noam Chomsky ~
+++
In the end, it’s all temporary. Nothing lasts for more than a a fraction of a tiny piece of a little bitty moment torn from the remains of a broken second. One hundred lifetimes is a slice of time so small it could not be measured by a fractional second hand shared by one hundred billion, billion clocks. Everything is fleeting. And everything is just as important as it is permanent; that is to say, nothing matters as much or as little as our tiny minds believe it matters. We can comprehend nothing so incredibly small nor so unendingly vast.
+++
My mind is too scattered this morning. I cannot keep thinking. I cannot keep writing. I can’t even start doing either. Look at what a mess I’ve made already. It would only get worse if I kept it up.
