A Light in the Mirror

Bombardment! The blitzkreig of media and influence
attacks my every nerve, challenging my academia
setting ablaze what I thought was my critical thinking
like a young French anarchist when he finds a car just begging to be set on fire

An arsonist runs ramped though thought and reason and research
and no matter how many times I reaffirm myself that
Collegiate standards mean something, that intelligence means something
the arsonist finds his target and sets it on fire, billowing a way in smoke

And so I lay in the early morning sunbeams
streaming from a burning ball of incandescent gas, a thermonuclear furnace
feeling it’s warm rays of radiation caress my skin like a long lost lover
who just happens to be a billion miles away

The motes of dust dance their silent tango above my head as I drift in and out
of sleep on a lazy Saturday morning
the arsonist gone for the moment, allowing for the repairs and rebuilding to begin in earnest
and by now you’re asking yourself “So what combination of drugs is HE on?”

And it was in this lazy sleep I was visited by a unique visitor. He was my son, my daughter, my niece, my nephew, my neighbors kid, my student, and the little kid in the “Save the world” commercials that bring on guilt for eating popcorn while watching a late night TV show.

His-her eyes stared deep into my soul and without a word I knew what he-she was saying.
The question burned deep with the intensity of a thousand suns and I knew,
there was no dodging this question
there was no giving it the Sarah Palin treatment

No, the inquisitor before me implored me of a simple question, like the Raven of Poe repeating ad nausium, ad ravenum: “why?”

It’s a loaded question packed with the force of the entire world’s arsenal from the smallest caliber bullets to the largest atomic weapons. Enough force in that one simple word followed by a simple question mark, to destroy worlds.
I am the destroyer of worlds, and I am called “Why?”, or “¿Que?” in Spanish.

And the stoic in me was destroyed. There was no stiff upper lip. There was no Bill Pullman in Independence Day giving a rousing speech while space octopi leveled destruction. There was no Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption being strong while others collapsed into lunacy.
There was only “Sorry.”

There was only a deep, meaningful, “sorry.”

It doesn’t matter the question. It doesn’t matter if they asked why the fish had two heads, or why they couldn’t drink the milk. It doesn’t matter why they asked about old Fukushima, now abandoned and forgotten amidst a specter that used to only hang in Pripyat.

It doesn’t matter if they asked why they have to work at such a young age, in the mines, in the factories, in the camps. It doesn’t matter if the question is where did liberty go, and when was she coming back. It wouldn’t matter if the asked why the oceans weren’t blue and clear, why the sky wasn’t  blue and clear, and why the snow wasn’t white and pure. It wouldn’t matter if they asked what was a kitty cat.

It doesn’t matter if they asked any number of questions because the answer would simply be: sorry.

For the future they visit me from is one that I failed to protect for them. I failed to defend the liberty I loved. I failed to keep the earth
wild, free, and clean. I failed to keep the skies blue and clear, and the snows light and powdery. I failed to keep cats a treasured species, domestic and wild. I failed to fly with the eagle when he asked me to take wing, and I failed to swim with the dolphin when she asked me to dive.
I failed to keep Pripyat, Pripyat, and Fukushima, Fukushima, and allowed the two to become all to similar. I allowed the milk to become too irradiated to drink, and I allowed the fish to mutate into unrecognizable abominations.

I was too busy living my life is the only justification one could muster.

Sorry, is all that could be said.

Because no matter what, there are truths that cannot be denied:
pointing fingers at others, leaves three pointing back at you
and
the only thing needed for evil to triumph, is for a good man to do nothing

And because society asked for silence, resilience, calm, I did nothing, and the evils we had been warned about, triumphed.

And then I realized, she-he may have been a figment of my imagination, the world was all too real, and I felt helpless and paralyzed.