Obit

Obit

“You want me to do what?”

“I’m pretty sure you heard me, you haven’t lost your hearing have you?

“Look, it’s one thing to write about a person who has crossed over, but what you are asking?”

“I realize it is not easy, but death is not easy. It is extremely difficult on everyone. Even though it is inevitable, we tend not to believe it could happen to us, at least not in the near future, which puts it into a realm of another dimension. So, just do it. It is your job after all. You don’t want me to get Mortimer to write the obits do you?”

“No, good God!”Mortimer is a nice guy and all, but I wouldn’t have him say goodbye to a dead chicken, or a live one for that matter. There is no feeling in what he writes. You remember when that sheriff died? According to the autopsy it was due to stress related factors. I know it is a rather nebulous report, but saying he died worrying about never having fired his service revolver in the twenty-five years he was on the force? He made it sound like he was afraid to use his weapon when he could have said he chose violence as the last option. The man has no empathy, and I’m not too sure about his level of apathy. I think he’s one of those zombies they claim that walk amongst us waiting for Armageddon.”

“Yes, I understand your concern, but I, as editor, feel this story needs to be told now, not ten years from now when it will be evident to everyone, even the skeptics who claim it’s a hoax.”

“OK, I’ll see what I can do, but when the pay checks start to bounce, I’m gone.”

#

Randall is a nice enough guy, and he’s a fine editor, it’s just that when he gets something in his head it won’t leave him until he does what it suggests he should do; he’s a capitulator. That may sound presumptuous but it’s true. He once got the idea that mankind had somehow been shifted into reverse and that Darwin’s evolutionary theory had stopped working, and we are now going back to “from whence we came,” his word, not mine. He believes that mankind is working its way toward extinction, but on its own terms. To say he was an environmentalist would be stretching his philosophy some, but he is aware, I’ll give him that.

He had me do a story on the ability of trees to communicate with one another through a series of electrical impulses that travel through their root systems. It was an interesting topic. I compared it to the WEB even though it was underground, and not a cloud or an invisible brain in the sky, the trees network performed basically the same function as the web, communication. He said the two were unrelated and not even close when comparing their capabilities. By the time he got through editing it I felt I’d been transformed into an electron that was pulsating through my universe at the speed of light, but with no destination. I’m not a big fan of amusement rides either.

I suppose I should stop procrastinating and attempt the piece before Mortimer is called on to pinch hit. Mortimer does a fine job on accidents and basketball games, but when it comes to writing about reality, or I suppose in this case spirituality, even though he can’t tell the difference between a bible and an encyclopedia. I don’t think he’s ever been in a church unless he was assigned to be there for some reason, usually brawls occurring at baptisms or Confirmations, which seem to bring out the devilish side of people; I think it’s all the white everyone involved wears. White, I know, is supposed to represent purity, but it is a rare color, it has been replaced by off white in hopes of toning it down a bit, not as harsh, easier on the eyes.

If you believe I’m procrastinating you’d be correct. Procrastination has a bad reputation. It presumes you are dawdling, so you don’t have to begin whatever it is you are supposed to do. But that is not always the case. I use procrastination as a tool. It allows me time to circumvent the obvious inclination to get on with it when you are not prepared, just so you can feel good about accomplishing something, despite the fact it is all milk-toast nothingness that belongs on the back of a cereal box.

No, I prefer to take my time and allow other thoughts to coagulate around a theme that looms just out of reach, but when it congeals and begins to take on the form of a story, I break from the cocoon and let my imagination try its new wings and fly. Sometimes I crash, but most often I manage to land on something substantial, at least substantial enough to affirm Jerome’s faith in me, and I in his ability to be an editor, and not my mother.

I am to write about the death of our dearly beloved planet, earth. You probably realize the earth has not died yet or we wouldn’t be having this exchange, or whatever it is. But I believe, as does Jerome, that the planet is ill if not dying, and although it has not taken its last breathe, it exhibits all the symptoms associated with death.

I’m becoming too dramatic. I should have no doubt procrastinated a while longer, but deadlines are what they are, and like it is too often said, time waits for no man or deadline. To be completely accurate I have to remind myself that the earth won’t die for perhaps millions of years; people, animals, plants, will disappear and be replaced by other animals and plants. After a series of trials and subsequent errors that can drag on for thousands of years, the resurrection of life will be once more. It is only man if he comes back, that will begin peddling the destruction wheel once again.

So how do I write something about something dying, when it actually isn’t dying? It is more like it is preparing to be reborn in a different form and resume its sustainable ways that has allowed it to survive for billions of years before man showed up and performed a corporate autopsy on it; selling off piece after piece until there was so little left it couldn’t sustain itself, let alone other forms of life.

I don’t mean to infer that man alone is solely responsible for the earth’s rebirth, the universe and time also play a huge part in its demise. Everything eventually dies, which completely destroy the theories about infinity; no beginning, and no end. If you think about that concept you begin immediately to look for metaphors that make visualizing the concept possible, but more importantly, understandable.

I use a circle, and the concept of there being no beginning and no end, should you be inclined to find one, assuming you were there when it was created. The problem with my theory is the circle itself. Where did it come from, what is it made of, and who was it made by and for? That brings us to the creation story, and later to the insertion of humans into a blissful garden of everything essential to our needs, and apparently an apple tree and a snake.

I asked Miss Pruett, our Sunday school teacher, how it was possible for a snake to convince a being, created in the likeness of God himself, to jeopardize his existence as a human, plus lose access to all the knowledge in the universe for a bite of an apple?

She explained that the story was itself a metaphor emphasizing a point, that humans are never satisfied with good enough and will jeopardize everything for a little bit more. It was not a sophisticated explanation but as I grew older and had thousands of interactions with other humans I realized she was as right as you could be, given the scenario we were given to work with. I’ve decided to hang my assumptions on the creation hook and use our inability to leave well enough alone in favor of just a little bit more, as my theme for the piece about the rebirth of the earth and the end of a species that committed suicide by consumption.

The concept caused me to go back in time to the first human type species that crawled, according to some, from slime and become what we are today. For thousands of years the human species in one form or another survived without destroying the very thing that made its existence possible; other forms of life and the excessive use of organisms that have died. Coal and oil being the obvious suspects, not to mention over population, and all under the headline banner of progress.

The latest claim floating in the universe is that we have made so much progress we should be sick of it, and yet the thirst for more escalates. Data Centers are posed to sit at the right hand of government, fueled by the purchasing power of financial wizardry which gives AI the same rights to water that human beings now enjoy. We are becoming useless as a species while a new species is being primed to take our place; an artificial one.

Perhaps this piece should be about not only the temporary extinction on the planet and its inhabitants, but the new generation of humanoids who will not require an environment to sustain their lives, only the sacrifice of lives necessary to provide the electrical nourishment needed.

I know Jerome will think I’ve gone over the edge, but he asked for it. My mind is racing in an attempt to keep from floating endlessly in doomsday predictions of starvation, migration, disease, and uncertainty, but I’m only following the evidential path that procrastination has plotted.

So what do you say when the inevitable becomes an abyss forming before your very eyes? “The planet looks just like it’s sleeping?”

I don’t believe there is enough rouge in the universe to cover up the fact that the oceans are coming to pay us a visit, and much sooner than we’ve been led to believe. At the present rate of acceptance, it will take sharks swimming in our backyard to bring the realization to our attention that they look nothing like our dog spot, who hasn’t been seen in a few weeks and never did learn to swim.

Denial is a wonderful tool; when the inevitable is presented, as either a perhaps or a may be, to keep us from the realization that a lyrical verse exemplifies, “The Times They Are A Changing.”

The nice thing about inevitability, is that it is not inevitable for many until it is. It allows them to speculate on certainty, in a way that I feel is a waste of time we no longer have. Nearly half the population lives within a hundred miles of a coast and will be forced to relocate, unless swimming is preferential to life.

We have been living in a state of procrastination for over fifty years, when considering the environment and its ability to provide the essentials of life. Too much rain, not enough rain, too much heat, not enough heat, too much apathy regarding the earth, and not nearly enough empathy.

A continued existence depends upon a sustainable approach to life; you don’t consume more than you produce or the inevitability of doing everything with nothing will leap from the confines of procrastination and leave you attempting to live on the contents in Mother Hubbard’s cupboard.

#

“Are you done with the obituary, or am I going to have to wait until ten minutes before deadline as usual? You do realize that procrastination is simply a way of avoiding inevitability or a path to a dreams fruition of a new career. I’ve come up with a title for the Obit, if that is the problem. “The inevitability of the inevitable, is upon us. "What do you think?”

“Sorry, wasn’t listening. I was procrastinating and couldn’t get past the ice fields melting. OH, you wouldn’t happen to have any clean air or water you could spare?”

“Should I see if Mortimer is busy?”