Static

Evolution devours everything

But nothing so rapidly as our tactile history

The sound of the L clacking toward center city

The smell of my grandfather’s hair oil

The static on the tv.

A single generation devours these, absorbs them into new things

My children don’t know the scream of dial up

Or car exhaust so thick you can feel it on your skin

The heft of an old rotary phone.

This is the reality of our armageddon

The real way the world ends

Not through plague or famine or war

Not through indolence or irresponsibility

Through simple forgetfulness.

But as we forget the simple pasts we embrace complex futures

The reality of worldwide instant communication

The green growth of new technologies

The chime of a new way to meet up

To shun this change, this devouring

Is to shun the rebirth that comes withit

To turn away from the hum of progress

For the Static of an old idea.