I’ve been
giving a lot of thought to the upcoming action with the UAS, as has just about
every sane person in Haven and the Union.
Josh has already talked at length about this, but I wanted to put my
thoughts out there too. I know that I
tend to just parrot and remix some of what Josh says. Kind of like I’m a Puff Daddy. Or did he just insist on being called just Diddy before The Fall? For the life of
me I can’t remember or muster up the fortitude to care. Regardless, Josh
has a theme and occasionally I’ll just remix it and insist that the song about
a stalker is actually a touching tribute to Biggie Smalls with a well placed,
“Yeah” or two. That metaphor may have
gotten away from me slightly. And now
I’m thinking of a zombie Biggie Smalls.
Regardless, this is my thing.
Love it.
Specifically
my thoughts have gone to a poem I read back when I was a kid. Before that, though, let me explain
something. I have principles. But I’ve also always been a pragmatist. Prior to The Fall I was a conservative
because I believed in small government.
But I was ready to admit that big government programs like the postal
service, public libraries, and health care were necessary. I was religious before all this happened and
life became so confused. But I wasn’t
one to shove those tenants into anyone’s face and I always believed that people
had the right to believe what they wanted.
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t a pluralist, and it always drove me crazy
when people would say that all religions were the same. I always found that lazy, factually incorrect
in regards to dogma, and culturally insensitive. Regardless, I like to think that this
pragmatism helped me as a therapist. You
really can’t go around challenging every ignorant thing that people say in
therapy because then the bigger functionality issues never get addressed. What good is me correcting some poor guy
saying that “the Jews” are plotting against him when he’s also actively hearing
voices telling him that he’s Jesus Christ?
You need proportion and you need pragmatism in life.
All that to
say that while I do fear the war coming to Haven’s doorstep, I also don’t fear
the results. The Union wins, it’s all
good. The UAS wins, that’s rough and we
will all die. Not just us. Everyone.
The UAS can’t hold this territory and they have no idea how to grow and
adapt. They will crumble like the rest
of Humanity already has. And then there
will be nothing here. But what does that
really mean? Really? I’m not being fatalistic or morose and I
certainly don’t want to die, but seriously ask yourself the question. We all die, but how is that any different
than what life has already thrown at us in the form of rising dead? And we’re not talking about total extinction. There will still be other survivors. And other countries have their own pockets of
Humanity, some of them probably doing much better than we are here. Maybe an isolated island. I bet New Zealand is doing incredibly well,
for example. Humanity will survive even
if the UAS lays waste and then crumbles under their own weighty shortsightedness. And then Nature will continue without
us. The dead will run short on easily
obtainable food and they will starve.
The planted fields of Haven will grow wild. Clover will cover the streets. Vines and trees will spring up and everything,
the walls, the Box, the compound, the hospital, the cheeseburger emporium, the
fortified walls that Josh built around his house in the first days of The Fall,
they will all crumble away. We succeed
and life will flourish here. We fail and
life will still flourish and one day people will rise again. Survivors from other countries will branch
out as the dead finally lay down. People
will come and rebuild on the ruins of Haven, rebuild Josh’s house, the hospital,
the cheeseburgers, rebuild it all. The streets
will return and life will continue.
And that is
why I’m a pragmatist. Again, this isn’t
self-pity or depression. Someone I cared
for very much before these days used to tell me when my self-pity was getting
out of control. She’s…I don’t know where
now. Probably shuffling around with
everyone else I ever knew. But what I do
know is that these new people in my life, they are going to live. Whether it’s over the broken remains of the
UAS or as clover pollen in the wind, we will live. That’s the pragmatism I’m talking about. And it’s very comforting to me to think about
as I strain my ears during the night, listening to the moans outside the wall
and trying to catch the first sign of an approaching UAS vanguard. We will survive and life will continue.
That poem,
in case you were wondering, was by Sara Teasdale. It’s called There Will Come Soft Rains and it
was used to great effect by the always immortal (in the best possible way, such
words not being what they used to) Ray Bradbury in a short story about a fully
automated house continuing its blissful daily existence even after its family
was incinerated to a nuclear shadow on the front lawn and even as it burns to
death. It was included in The Martian
Chronicles. If you haven’t, go read
it. To the point here’s the poem:
There
will come soft rains and the smell of the ground
And
swallows circling with their shimmering sound
And
frogs in the pools singing at night
And
wild plum trees in tremulous white
Robins
will wear their feathery fire
Whistling
their whims on a low fence-wire
And
not one will know of the war, not one
Will
care at last when it is done
Not
one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If
mankind perished utterly
And
Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would
scarcely know that we were gone.
It’s very
sad, very inspirational, and very true.
And more applicable here than I’m comfortable admitting. The UAS is coming. But they can’t kill us. Not what was created here. Only Nature can do that. And really, that’s as it should be and how it
always was. No zombies, no delusional
politicians, no incoming army, no vigilante action, no Dragoon, and no blog
will stop it. We march towards dust
always and I do it with a glad heart because in the end, we are all part of
something bigger. Dawn is coming whether
we’re here for it or not. And it always
will be.
No comments:
Post a Comment