Some years ago--about 7 years, actually--I met an outraged expatriate drunk in a local bar. He entered the bar shouting "Fucking America!" and "Fucking John McCain".
The man was an American, from the State of Hawaii, which, as he later explained to me, was not part of America at all. News to me. But then, most of what this man said was news to me. The parts that could be translated into meaningful English, that is. He was quite drunk, really--about 5 or 6 too many drunk--and for some reason, he picked me out among the crowd in the little bar to be the beneficiary of his philosophy of general outrage. I never did quite understand what the problem with John McCain was. The man said that he had been trying to chase McCain down for years; and although I told him I knew where he could probably find McCain--that is, in the Senate Chambers of Washington DC--this information appeared not to satisfy the man. He was trying to catch up with him, he said. He wasn't trying to actually find him.
Later on, the man calmed down, hovering in fumes just above the rim of consciousness, and talked about love instead--his love of a Balinese woman, who had also joined us in the bar, more or less, and of how when she was done with him, she would surely eat him. It's what these women do, he explained. I wrote a story about this at the time, and called the story--you guessed it--Fucking America.
This all kind of popped back into my head the other day--who knows why? At the time, I thought it was kind of funny. This angry, outraged man seemed extravagant, odd, unusually disturbed. It strikes me now, though, that we see this sort of outrage commonly at work in America, in violent confrontations, in chanting mobs, Trump campaign rallies, shouts of 'Lock her up" and 'Lock him up'. Chasing fucking John McCain, but never catching up. Every day new fuel is heaped on the fire and many of us over-consume. We take to social media to vent, are attacked by perfect strangers and old friends alike, and we sharpen our own barbs, harden our own hearts, prepare for apocalyptic battle.
When the zombie outbreak occurs, it starts in a small way. At first, there are only isolated cases, odd, abnormal. But the infection spreads quickly, bite by bite, and soon has overtaken the old order. The zombies are become not the exception but the rule. And you cannot reason with zombies. You just simply cannot.
Perhaps in the end, hovering just above the rim of consciousness, we will speak of love. And who knows? Perhaps that love will consume us.
The man was an American, from the State of Hawaii, which, as he later explained to me, was not part of America at all. News to me. But then, most of what this man said was news to me. The parts that could be translated into meaningful English, that is. He was quite drunk, really--about 5 or 6 too many drunk--and for some reason, he picked me out among the crowd in the little bar to be the beneficiary of his philosophy of general outrage. I never did quite understand what the problem with John McCain was. The man said that he had been trying to chase McCain down for years; and although I told him I knew where he could probably find McCain--that is, in the Senate Chambers of Washington DC--this information appeared not to satisfy the man. He was trying to catch up with him, he said. He wasn't trying to actually find him.
Later on, the man calmed down, hovering in fumes just above the rim of consciousness, and talked about love instead--his love of a Balinese woman, who had also joined us in the bar, more or less, and of how when she was done with him, she would surely eat him. It's what these women do, he explained. I wrote a story about this at the time, and called the story--you guessed it--Fucking America.
This all kind of popped back into my head the other day--who knows why? At the time, I thought it was kind of funny. This angry, outraged man seemed extravagant, odd, unusually disturbed. It strikes me now, though, that we see this sort of outrage commonly at work in America, in violent confrontations, in chanting mobs, Trump campaign rallies, shouts of 'Lock her up" and 'Lock him up'. Chasing fucking John McCain, but never catching up. Every day new fuel is heaped on the fire and many of us over-consume. We take to social media to vent, are attacked by perfect strangers and old friends alike, and we sharpen our own barbs, harden our own hearts, prepare for apocalyptic battle.
When the zombie outbreak occurs, it starts in a small way. At first, there are only isolated cases, odd, abnormal. But the infection spreads quickly, bite by bite, and soon has overtaken the old order. The zombies are become not the exception but the rule. And you cannot reason with zombies. You just simply cannot.
Perhaps in the end, hovering just above the rim of consciousness, we will speak of love. And who knows? Perhaps that love will consume us.
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