Cast Asunder

We The People. How little we cherished, how much we squandered. We carelessly threw away the extravagant, delicate gift that we had inherited from our nation’s founders.

These catastrophic days it’s a struggle to remember there was a time before, and not that long ago…

…a time before we degenerated to where no one could any longer discern the signs that seemed written and spoken in a language unknown on Earth. Was this an ancient lost language, or did it emanate from the troubled bowels of the inner earth? No matter how loudly it growled, we could not make sense of it.

Only the constant hum of venomous vitriol from the web, from channels, from devices seemingly plugged into skulls, could now be heard. The deranged humming grew louder, canceling out the prayer wheels spinning their messages into the heavens, which now felt like Hell.

***

He and I should never have been “we.” But from the moment Dan’s gravelly voice rumbled in my ear, to be heard above the roaring of a rock band in a local pub, I was a goner in spite of our myriad differences. As is said, he was “beer to my champagne taste.”

I had always gravitated toward poetic, refined men. But there’s something about animal magnetism that will not be denied. Dan and I were hopelessly attracted, in that urgent way that emanates from cavernous depths, demanding the feeding of its ravenous hunger.

Though he’s a man who would rather chop wood than read books or strum a guitar by the fireplace, Dan possessed a keen and challenging intellect. This made our differences, which were many, compelling. I learned that our political and philosophical points of view were often stimulating rather than combative. Perhaps even a vital element of the attraction between us.

For every adamant conservative view of Dan’s, I came back with my vehement liberal one. We could “lock horns” for hours, yet often found some middle ground, no matter how tenuous. The passion between us softened the harsh edges of those differing opinions.

We tussled over such things as the ways religion has radically damaged society (my input), versus its positive influence in keeping humanity in check (his); though through fear and oppression I argued, while he rebutted “what the hell is wrong with that if it comforts people and keeps them from criminal rampages,” to which I exclaimed “it doesn’t appear to be all that effective!”

Climate change, environmental regulations, and immigration were just a few of many issues we differed on, but to me the scariest threat was denial of previously agreed upon facts and rampant conspiracy theories. While Dan didn’t embrace them fully, neither did he completely disavow them.

Technology served and betrayed us in monumental ways; spinning and spewing mad conspiracy theories from the depths of a dark web of deceit, which a surprising number were irresistibly attracted to, like moths to their demise in the flame.

We weren’t, by far, the only ones caught up in ideological warfare. Friends, families, nearly everyone held what were fast becoming irreconcilable views, which were fiercely defended. It felt like war, replete with toxic brutality and emotional bloodshed. To me it was a philosophical rather than political battle, each side deeply entrenched. Little did we know the apocalypse in waiting.

And so Dan and I were an odd pair, not likely to last; just a summer fling in Humboldt County in 2018. Yet as things heated up dramatically--in realms from the hot, parched wildfire weather, to our sizzling affair, to the escalating fever of the political climate--we found ourselves still together an unexpected three years later. We may not fully have noticed how vigorously hatred raged throughout the land, leaving scorched and smoldering ruins along the way.

Shouted accusations of Communist! and Fascist! reverberated far and wide, though with little understanding of either. These terms had become so muddled in the minds of those ignorant of history, that factions randomly accused each other of either or both. Tragically, both led to brutal dictators torturing and murdering their citizens over arbitrary infractions, while the concept of compromise was hopelessly lost in the bloodlust of tribalism.

On January 6th, 2021, what had been smoldering burst into flames and threatened to burn to the ground nearly 250 years of a hard-won democratic government. That’s when my relationship with Dan combusted over our fiercely opposing views of what happened. Inflamed by what I came to think of as Media Mania, Dan had gone to the dark side and we no longer spoke a common language.

Many of those who had no understanding of history or the old adage “history is destined to repeat itself,” were the heavily armed militia faction of our country and the most devoted to a revolution. In fact, they had dreamt of The Armageddon for two thousand years, awaiting a much-delayed Messiah to swoop their righteous selves up into the heavens, though we now know there is technically no “up.”

The all out war began abruptly and over a mild altercation. But any event would have sufficed as the trigger for those so overwrought and over-prepared for the second United States’ civil war. Their longing at last fulfilled, they vigorously embraced the chaos that left murdered and wounded bodies piled up in the streets of the major cities of the land.

Long prepared for battle, the actual bloodshed had varying effects on the “soldiers.” Some had been in other wars--Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan--so they knew what to expect. To younger ones, it was like a video game, all excitement without much sense of reality. But for others the sheer gore of these scenes was deeply shocking; for people just don’t die instantly, like in the movies. They can writhe in gut- wrenching agony for hours before death mercifully takes them.

Grisly scenes played out in the streets. It was a war easily won by the heavily armed militia that included government military and police who defected from their sworn allegiance to our nation, to throw in with the Patriot rebel forces. They achieved their goal of reinstating their king to power. The duly elected president was executed, along with countless dissenters of both political parties. Everyone who refused fealty to the reinstated ruler was killed or imprisoned.

Now began the fun, for the ensconced dictator, unrealized by his fanatical followers, had little regard for the interests of anyone but himself. There had been ample evidence of this, but literally every one of the devotees refused to see it. In fact they did see it, but somehow laughingly took it as a joke on their enemies. It was a rude awakening when they began to grasp that they had been royally duped.

Following the initial cleansing of the Evil Left, it slowly became apparent that there was no plan for life after the enemy had been slaughtered or imprisoned.

No one wanted those mundane, low-paying jobs as dishwashers, busboys, janitors, garbage collectors. Few were educated enough to be orderlies, technicians, paramedics. Few brave enough to become police officers. Now that the immigrants were gone, many jobs were vacant and vital systems began to collapse.

Most drastically impacted were the farms reliant on immigrant workers to harvest crops. With the strict enforcement of “those who are not us” policies that had been so dear to the Patriot party, produce rotted in the fields and greatly exacerbated food shortages.

Looting and battles over resources were commonplace everywhere in America because food and basic necessities were in short supply. Hospitals were overrun and understaffed, and most everyone was without health insurance.

Meanwhile, the Patriotic Leader played golf and ate lots of ice cream rather than bother much with administering practical measures to keep the economy and production of goods going; his initial showy efforts dissipated in favor of his creature comforts and personal pleasures.

Previously unimaginable events occurred. China and Russia’s power unbridled, these countries became the world’s rulers. They controlled the seas, the ports, the skies; because America’s leader had no clue about delegating, diplomacy, nor the vital concept of compromise that could contain the escalating international threats. Those in the military who had supported the civil war, now began to question the rationale that led to this great imbalance of powers.

I kept a very low profile during this period of upheaval and was so far able to avoid direct confrontation with the newly empowered regime. But I realized it was only a matter of time before I would be forced to conform to the system or be imprisoned or executed by the zealous Patriots.

I ran into Dan, who was becoming wary of the current regime, now that he discovered some of his assumed freedoms had come into question. He was trying to avoid discovery that he hadn’t attended a mandatory church service. But he couldn’t hide for long, due to the ubiquitous facial recognition systems that had been installed for his own protection against any surviving liberal rebel forces.  

What the Patriots had wanted was a daddy leader who would protect their interests above everyone else’s, but they were learning that daddies could be the gravest danger of all; not unlike the mythological gods who embodied the worst of human nature: jealousy, wrath, rape, murder, to name a few. They now lived under the rule of a supremely self-serving dictator to whom any means justifies the end. Which means they are all expendable in service to his whims.

We few surviving “liberals,” watched, transfixed, as this swift and mighty unraveling took place. What happened felt like the land had cracked and bled beneath our feet, the sky oozed and melted, the oceans cried in unknown decibels, our calculus unwound, geometry failed as the ancient societal scaffolding collapsed, its core rotted from outside in.

All that was left blurred into a vile cauldron that brought to mind Shakespeare’s “Double, double toil and trouble, like a hell-broth boil and bubble…cool it with a baboon’s blood.” But there were no baboons to be found, their blood spilled long ago…

A rumor came seemingly out of nowhere and flourished. It swiftly became common knowledge, to the disenchanted, that there existed a mystical object that held in its secret chamber the key that would fix everything.

The much sought-after object was a heart-shaped locket. It was thought to symbolize that love was the cure and would be restored, but few believed in love anymore because we’d seen it dissipate in the face of the rampant hatred that brought us to this cataclysm.

This Holy Grail of sorts came to be known as Tamera, for “The Absolute Mystical Enlightened Righteous Answer.” Tales of the locket evolved. It was gold, no platinum. It was encrusted with gems; no it was tarnished and covered in moss as though it had aged at the bottom of the sea for a season…

…it was thought to be valentine shaped, but others claimed it was the shape of an actual heart. And that it pulsated, appearing to have a heartbeat.

Cast asunder and alone, I followed a map that promised to lead to Tamera, something off the Internet…was it uploaded or downloaded? The instructions were oddly obscured, too many intersecting lines. No, wait, I found a tattered parchment map under the bed…

After an exhaustive and travailed spell, I found the fabled locket. It whispered to me that there never was a Grail, only the perpetual search for it. But its hinge opened at my cautious touch, revealing another smaller heart nestled inside. When that heart opened, it held yet a tinier heart-shaped locket, and so on.

This revelation made me laugh; the laugh of insanity I felt. About to give up, the littlest heart popped open and a scroll unraveled before me. It read:

“The heart shape is a clue, not an answer, because you do not want the answer. You want the riddle.”