back in the day: August, 2009

we scare because we care

Saturday, August 29th, 2009

There’s a horrendous demon creeping across the landscape, Monkey Keys. The likes of this monster have never been known to mortal man. So frightening is this monstrosity that we mustn’t ever refer to it by its true name. It should simply be called… H1N1!

“You mean Swine Flu?” Silence insolent Key! Even uttering the words will bring about our damnation.

“You can’t be serious.” Of course I’m not! But if I don’t try to blend in with the absurd fear mongering I may be McCarthyismed into an internment camp. You see, ever since the first unwashed guttersnipe was paid 40 dollars American to be injected with this trivial sickness to bolster useless drug sales, society has collapsed into a quivering blob of terror.

Let’s start with the basics for those Keys who couldn’t snag a government digital converter box coupon and missed TV for a few months. Swine flu (or H1N1 influenza if you have a thing for extra syllables) is the flu.

“Wait, there has to be more to it than that, Dylan.” Oh, you didn’t let me finish, Excitable Key. It is also POSSESED BY THE DEVIL!”

“…” Alright, you got me. I meant to say it’s… um… wait, seriously what the crap is the difference between this thing and normal flu. Let me check with the Center for Disease Control.

Let’s see… symptoms… Here we go. Coughing, fever, sore throat, runny nose… nope that’s all normal flu stuff. Sounds like it spreads the same way. Oh, wait maybe it’s really deadly! Oh… no not really. Wow, 36,000 people die annually of normal flu.

“Hey, quit educating yourself. You have a post to write.” Sorry, I got caught up in trying to find a solitary difference in this huge pandemic that will usher in the end of the earth and the sniffles. There has to be something to explain why every time I turn on the TV I see concerned anchormen blithering about its spread. Something must tell me why anti-flu stocks searching for the “miracle cure” are soaring at crazy inflated rates. There must be rational why my workplace is covered with biohazard posters explaining the danger of flu plague and how to cover your mouth properly when you sneeze. A shred of evidence must exist proving it was a good choice to shut down entire communities where one person was found to have an illness that is EXACTLY the same as what millions get every stinking year.

Oh, I know what it is. The government finally passed that law forcing stupid people to breed uncontrollably. I was a firm proponent of that one.

“Dylan, you know that’s a fallacy. Stupid people would breed uncontrollably regardless of the law. It’s called Arkansas.” I know, Soon to be Tarred and Feathered Key. In reality, those committing the worst acts of flagrant sensationalism know darn good and well Swine Flu is no different than anything humans have been dealing with since the beginning of time. Like everything else, it’s all about cash money. The news forgot how to report back in the Age of Enlightenment, so they make up scary sounding things to sell advertising time when a celebrity hasn’t recently died. Work puts up posters and schools close down out of lawsuit phobia.

What is inexcusable is our lemming attitude toward it all. I have coworkers who have begrudgingly hung posters listing the signs of flu that wouldn’t help anyone who attended kindergarten. I have family who watches the news and complains about how pointless the swine flu reporting is while the remote lies unutilized micrometers away. Then there are the people who are truly stupid enough to live in terror and buy into the whole crisis.

“Well, you know what really caused all the Swine Flu fiasco?” What’s that? “This econo…” Oh no! I’ve had enough of THAT malarkey too. Looks like I’ll have to lock myself in the basement until World War III starts so there’s something interesting on TV.

“Why not pick up a good book?”

Yes, Levar Burton Key, World War III.

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bitter sweet

Monday, August 24th, 2009

It’s odd the things that stick with me, Monkey Keys. I recall, vividly, being chased by a teenager on a ride on lawnmower through a church forest when I was eight. I remember designing a board game with a good friend that involved chicken knights and moose warriors getting cybernetic enhancements (patent still pending). Today I remember something a good English teacher taught me my sophomore year of college about writing emotion.

Emotion, she taught, should never have to be spelled out for the reader. Saying something akin to “Billy was happy” is the writer’s equivalent of a laugh track. It’s weak, and someone in the audience invariably comments on how horribly contrived the weakness’s setup was. A reader shouldn’t need to be told how a person is feeling. The emotion is self evident in the person’s actions, words and the surrounding situation. If done correctly, the reader is the one who walks away feeling exactly what the character feels.

We were tasked with demonstrating the concept in an exercise. My own example is lost to the recesses of my brain. One can imagine how compelling it must have been with an impact like that. A girl in my class, however, wrote something I did not forget. It was a brief story. Even so, I’ll fail to do it justice.

An elderly woman is being thrown a birthday party by her family. Her children and their children are playing and talking amongst themselves. The apartment is soiled with dollar-store streamers and confetti. She sits, alone, at a card table with a cardboard party cone perched atop her curled white hair. A grocery store, sugar-free cake sits with a single candle to her front. Someone mentions it’s time to sing the song and open the gifts. Perhaps it was one of her daughters’ husbands?

A CD of a band she doesn’t know; no CD player to play it in anyway. A gift certificate to a restaurant in the city. Maybe she can eat there if she visits. The children eat cake first and return to their games. She gingerly picks up a knife.

“Let me help you with that, Mom.” A small, lopsided, piece is presented to her on a paper plate covered in cartoon balloons. She picks some up with a plastic fork, but halfway to her mouth it drops in her lap. She’s looking at it in silence. Her daughter has answered a phone call and laughs to the voice on the other side.

“Look at the time! We have to get going. It was good to see you again mom.” The procession exists slightly faster than it entered. Alone, she picks the crumbs from her lap. They don’t taste right. She looks through welting eyes at the discarded cordless phone tossed amongst some streamers. It’s too far away to pick up. No one would answer anyway. There’s probably next year.

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