Dear Spot,
You know how I told you that we'd be able to get you that hip replacement just as soon as the Preznit got this health care mess all sorted out?
Well, maybe not... on account of I'm reading in the Blogtubes that the Preznit is about to sell us out and let the Republicans kill the public option in exchange for 0 votes. I know, it's a pretty steep bargain there, but hopefully all those Republican ideas that get worked into the legislation will make it so great that it will TOTALLY ROCK and we will forget all about public option in the woozy aftermath of realizing how awesome tiny little toothless co-ops are. They sure are cute, especially when they try to gum an acorn. Squee!
But I got to thinking, Spot -- oh yes, I know I've been told not to do that but it sometimes still happens... sort of like ghost limb pain after an amputation, except in this case my head is still mostly there. But anyway, with a head full of hurt and a heart full of sadness, I thought this:
Back before Obmama was a Senator, he said we needed single payer health care in this country. Said it wouldn't be easy, and might take place in small steps over a couple of decades, but that's what we really need to fix us up. Single Payer, baby. It's what's for dinner. In 2027.
Well later, after being a Senator and all, when he was a Prez-o-dential candidate -- he said that any meaningful health care reform must contain a public option large and big and huge enough to have sufficient clout to bargain down costs and keep the insurance industry honest -- otherwise the whole dang thing wouldn't work. Sure did. You can look it up.
Nowadays, Preznit Obama is telling us that a public option is important, but not that important.... except that it is, but it's really just a sliver, and definitely isn't the thing we should be focused on to the exclusion of all others in our debate -- like, for instance, the 'Don't Eat So Much' provisions that will help us not eat so much, and the 'Death Panels', which actually look pretty great when you tack them to the side of an Econoline van -- on account of they are all Heironymus Bosch type of spooky! Then Obama says, "Wait -- this isn't even the public option you were looking for!" while kind of wiggling his hand around. And we go, "Wait, what? Yes it is, it's exactly the one we were looking for." The he starts talking about how good the soup is.
Well, even though the soup really is pretty dang good, the poor public option has clearly now fallen on hard times, status wise. It's sort of lying on the ground right now, not moving at all. Kind of like a potato. Or that ball lying there, which has a bell inside and is pink and smells like peanut butter.
I have another wave of painful thought, and say, "We must ask ourselves a few questions about this potato, Spot. For the good of the country, and for potatos everywhere. First, let me ask you one:
Me: Why would a prezit want to turn the public option into a pink ball... potato?
Spot Licks his chops and whines a little bit.
Me: Right. He could just be hungry.
Spot: Growls at the floor, and picks up a ball in his mouth and thrashes his head side to side for a little bit, and drools on my shoe.
Me: Right again. He might just hate that potato now! Er, public option. Maybe it tastes bad?
Spot: Lies on floor and ogles the ball wistfully with dreamy eyes, every so often nudging it a bit closer to me.
Me: Reaches down and picks up the ball.
Spot: Howls a keening cry of loss and woe!
Me Oh. Oh right. I squint and my mouth moves a little. Hey! Maybe he loves it so much, he's afraid to lose it. Hmm. So maybe by not being all handsy and kissyface with it in public he's hoping nobody else will want to pick it up one night when he pops out for a burrito, or something. Maybe he was hoping that by the time everything needed to be put all together nobody would even know that ball... er, potato was even there. I mean look at it! It's small and pink and round and it has a bell in. Plus it smells like Skippy. Who would be afraid of that?
Spot: Makes a complicated series of facial gestures that I take to mean, 'Well, either that or he sold out all of his principles for a couple of votes!
Me: That is ridiculous! He has a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, and a huge majority in the House!
Spot: Grabs a pen, and writes this:
"Rahm says we still don't have the votes."
Us, in unison: Rahm is going to steal the potato!!!
Later on, after I beat Spot repeatedly at UNO, Spot writes a final note:
"Hip still hurts"
Me: There, there, Spot. I'll just sell some more plasma. Only 223 pints to go! I pass out.
Spot hides the ball... potato... public option under the sofa, then limps out to find a torpid squirrel.
Meanwhile.... I dream. I dream of pie. Sweet potato pie. And there's plenty for everybody.
The potato under the couch that is actually a ball but is really the public option is oddly quiet. But under the couch is a pretty safe place to be around here, as places go. Maybe it'll be safe there. Who knows?
The End.
You say 'Potahto', and I say 'Public Option'
My Bonny Lies.
The sea she’s a charmer, she’s cocking a finger
She coos of smooth sailing, still waters and foam
The shore sighs of sands where your feet shouldn’t linger
And the trees in their breezes sing softly of home
Is your true love still calling young simple, young sailor?
Does she even remember her promises made?
Has she ever replied to the letters you’ve mailed her?
Does the sandpiper’s call tell your heart that she’s strayed?
The sea she’s a devil, her lash plunges shoreward
She’s screaming of waves breaking hard on the reef
The shore shifts uneasy and flees in the shallows
And trees bend in gales blowing bitter as grief
If you went home tomorrow
Would you yearn for the tropics
Would you dream of the jungles
Would you breathe, could you see?
If you went home tomorrow
Would you settle for sameness
The bleakness of rooftops
The streets running circles
The drab and the dingy
The drawn, hungry faces
The somnolent marching
The drone of the factories
The eating and sleeping
And working in cycles
Unending ‘til you’ve
Lost your winding
Then, ashes?
Gingers
Even before I opened my eyes, I knew something was wrong. I was warm, and there was a smell – a musty, old, organic smell – in a place of glass, tile, and metal. It was damp. Something had gone horribly, unthinkably wrong.
I tried to climb out of my berth, but only managed to slither through a crack at the side, and then toppled with a thud to the floor. For some reason my berth was ‘standing’ foot end down – it should have been prone, keeping me on my back, cushioned by support foam. I tried to move, but my muscles wouldn’t respond. I grew dizzy, and may have blacked out for a time. I became conscious of my breathing; it was shallow and rapid. I forced myself to take deep, slow breaths. Slowly, my heart stopped racing and my head cleared, and I became aware of my surroundings.
I was in the clean room – in the inner chamber. The floor was covered in mud – damp mud, showing thousands and thousands of strange footprints. Most of them looked human. Emergency lighting was in place and working, so I could see in the red glow of the exit track lights that the entire pod of berths had been smashed to pieces and piled into the corner; with skeletons stacked neatly beside them. All the berths, that is, save mine. Mine had been propped up to stand vertically, with the shield facing out, towards the room. Everything in the room was covered in mud except that clear shield – it was spotlessly clean, and as clear as the day it was made. The rest of the berth had been painted with letters – or characters – symbols of things I didn’t recognize. I also noticed that it had been roped off with some type of thick woven cord. I didn’t know why.
I sat up, slowly. My arms and legs were shaking, but seemed to be nominally under my control. I tried to stand, but my legs felt rubbery and odd, so I crawled on my hands and knees to the control panel – really just a keypad, covered with a gray metal door, halfway up the wall. Security, temperature, lighting, music, entertainment, food and drink, computer, comm. – all were controlled through a central unit. The keypad should allow access. I hoped it still worked, but in order to use it, I’d have to stand up. That’s when I looked down and saw my legs.
They were bent – curved. Both knees pointed out at roughly forty-five degree angles, and my lower legs – shins – were bowed outward. On the right side, this meant that the side of my foot was facing down, and the heel facing left; on the left, my foot seemed to line up more or less normally with the ground.
I managed to get my left leg under me, and inched up the wall until I was standing on my left foot. I used the right for balance, but didn’t trust it with any weight – I was afraid the ankle wouldn’t hold. I reached over to wrestle the control panel cover open, and it cracked, dissolving and falling to the floor in a pile of scale and rust. The keypad was still there. It was still lit – so I took a deep breath and punched the computer button and brought it up on the comm. The comm began to crackle with static.
“Computer … how… how long was I in stasis?”
743 Years, 3 months, 12 days.
“What happened to the others… the other berths?”
No data.
“Who did this? Who destroyed them?”
No data.
I took in a gasping breath.
“Is there food?”
Final nutrients pumped into unit 23 two point six hours ago. Nutrient vats empty.
Sleep cycle terminated.
Reality caught up with me, then. I slid down the wall and sat and wept. My head was spinning – probably from shock, and sleep sickness. I looked at my legs and understood – I’d been standing inside my berth, perhaps for hundreds of years. “On display,” I thought, as I looked over at the rope that surrounded my berth. I buried my face in my hands, and fought for calm. I needed a plan, but I couldn’t think. I was too tired.
Eventually, I slept.
I dreamed of the day we were scheduled for stasis. Each of us had been selected and screened for talent, ability, intelligence, stability – we represented mankind’s hope in the face of the worst-case scenario. If the pathogen – metavirus c-22 – managed to wipe out all mankind then we would be there, in our clean room, held in stasis – one hundred and sixty seven of us. It was estimated that decades – perhaps five would be needed before the virus ran out of victims; ten more years after that the environment might be safe again. Barring some mutation – some rare natural immunity already in the population, there would be no survivors. The weapon had been used so quickly that there had been no time for testing, no time to develop an antivirus. Sixty years. In sixty years we’d be ready, or whenever sensors determined that the virus was gone. Otherwise, we’d be held in stasis until the nutrients and water ran out. We knew we could do it. We didn’t doubt that we could save the species. We embraced before climbing into our berths. Some were still singing as their blood was removed, and the infusion was pumped in that would prevent ice from forming in their tissues. Then the berths were pressurized as gas was rapidly piped in – that was my last sight; the clear shield fogging, the room beyond growing insubstantial, ethereal, and the feeling of time slowing as each heart beat grew farther and farther apart.
I awoke with rough hands at my wrists, and caught a quick glimpse of a pallid, unhealthy face – a distinctly human face – before a rag was stuffed into my mouth, and a hood drawn over my head. Lifted and placed on some kind of stretcher, I was then quickly borne off – my captors’ feet making wet slapping and dragging sounds on the slick floor as they marched.
The shelter had been more than half a mile underground. And that was seven hundred and forty three years ago, I thought. It took a very long time to reach the surface. I think I slept again – perhaps more than once, because the next thing I remember is feeling warmth on my skin, and smelling fresh air. Even through the musty fabric of the hood it was sweet, beautiful to breathe. There was scent on the air – salt? I thought I must be near the ocean; because there was also low murmur echoing all around me that sounded something like the sea. I felt the hood being lifted from my head, and the murmuring sound became a huge sigh – like a great outpouring of grief, or love or, perhaps – both.
I squinted in the sunlight, blinking. My cheeks felt hot. A minute or so later, once my eyes had adapted to the brightness and I could focus, I looked around me. My captors were six large men – each with very pale skin and reddish hair, and they were rocking back and forth in some kind of shuffling stance, as if dancing. I looked at them each in turn, but not one would meet my eyes – they kept their gazes fixed forward, incurious and unseeing, but I saw that they were trembling and sweating freely, just the same.
I turned away from them and looked out at a flawlessly blue sky, and down, at a clearing surrounded by a dense, old forest. I seemed to be in the mouth of a cave, high on a sheer cliff’s face. Below, in the clearing that must have reached for a mile in each direction, I saw the sea I’d heard – a sea of people – tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of them. The six men brought my stretcher forward, and I saw that sea move, as each face turned towards mine. Each face was pale – each head was covered in thick reddish hair, and every pair of legs was bent outward at the knees, with the left foot down, and the right foot facing in. I shaded my eyes with my palm, and looked more closely, scanning – there were young ones, children, with their legs bound in fabric, and slightly older ones -- toddlers, with their legs bound in splints. I felt a lump rise in my throat – of sickness, pity, or anger… I don’t know which.
I looked down at my own pale skin; saw the red hair that hung in limp strands before my own face. I looked at my own ruined legs, and understood. I thought of the thousands, millions of footprints – the flawless clear berth cover, the rope around it that held them back as they came year after year, decade after decade, century after century to look. To look at me. The one who slept, never changing. The one who was like them, yet not like them.
Something in the recessive genes for red hair – something must have conferred immunity. Perhaps they saw me as a protector, a guardian… and remade themselves. In my image.
I looked back out at them, smiling now -- and they gasped, tens or hundreds of thousands of them, in perfect unison.
As I raised my hands to them in greeting, and heard them begin to raise a cheer, at first soft, then growing in volume and intensity until the earth shook with the force of it, I wondered whether I’d be a benevolent goddess, or a vengeful one.
Perhaps, I thought, I might enjoy both.
This blog needs something...
But what?
Well, it needs some posts. And a new format. And a purpose. Hm.
It's an awfully daunting thing.
I'm continually amazed by how much greatness there is scattered around on the internets.
For instance -- Saladfingers. I must live under a rock or something, because I had completely missed this until a few days ago, and it's been there for years. Genius? I'm not sure.
Or this -- Flyguy -- definitely genius.
I really wish they'd update How Fresh is This Guy.
But I'm only one person, and I can only do so much clicking around.... and the internets are vast and dark and deep.
How many other greatnesses are there out there that I've missed?
A Toast for '09
When every notion goes awry
And each plan fails to hatch
When eaten up is all the pie
And spent is all the scratch
When all the whisky has been drunk
And every spirit’s feeling sunk
Well, don’t just sit there like a lunk,
But do one simple thing:
Just cock one ear up to the sky
And hear the angels sing.
But when each notion is a peach
And every plan goes true
When pies are stacked up out of reach
And cash flies up the flue
When every keg is filled with beer
And every spirit beams with cheer
Well, don’t just smirk and wink and sneer,
But do one simple job:
Just cock one ear down to the ground
And hear the devil sob.
Between Here And There
Here is the sun
There is the ground
Air is above
Around is grass
Beyond are trees
And further beyond,
White sands, green surf
Half a world of heaving sea.
Yet all of this
You will cross
In a day, a week
With a thought
You will go,
You say.
You do.
And then –
You were there
You are here.
Here you are
There is a door
Your breath kisses it
Fogging a pane
Around, a grey city
Beyond are wet streets
Then further beyond,
Railyards, factories
Industry in boxes
Places with names
That stumble on your tongue.
You will knock,
You say
Your fist clenches
You raise your arm
Resolve dissolves.
You think.
You don’t.
And now –
You were there
Some of you is here.
Part of you is gone –
Flown, scattered
Swallowed, buried
Drowned, hidden
Dashed, burned
Lost.
Scrooge's Ventricles
My spouse and one of her coworkers were trying to decide exactly what type of cold, hard material their employer's heart might be made of, since they are required to work on the day after Christmas.
The conversation went something like this:
Coworker: It's got to be something sort of hard, but needs to be... I don't know...
Spouse: Haughty?
Coworker: Yeah. Like a diamond.
Spouse: An ice diamond.
Coworker: Yeah!
Me: Really?
Coworker & Spouse: ???
Me: Hard and cold, but beautiful and precious... I'm thinking it needs to be something more... kind of... callous...
Coworker: Oh, yeah! Our boss's heart is made of calluses!
Spouse: ... thousands of dried up calluses, from the hands little children...
Me ...
Coworker: ...little children working in sweatshops -- and then someone sweeps all the dried up calluses into a big pile, and glues them all together with... with... blister juice! Blister juice, and...
Spouse: ...tiny, frozen tears. Tears from their exhausted little bloodshot eyes...
Me: Wow!
Spouse & Coworker: Shut up, we're not done!
Me: Yes. Yes you are.
Spouse & Coworker: ...
Me: Y'all should save some. For the day after New Year's.
Spouse & Coworker: Oh. Oh, yeah.
~FIN~
