When ebola or some other plague adapts itself to the industrial world, when it can stream itself, when it goes wireless, when it learns to fly, the people of this fair land will see how far off the road they veered.
The plague has its task to perform. To remind the good people what’s what. To reduce them to oozing bags of pus and the singular; who survives and who doesn’t. On this precipice the plague puts all values in order, all superficial acts cease, it is enough to simply breathe. Warren Buffet won’t be buying and selling stocks. Kim Kardashian’s ebola ass will bid farewell alone and in the dark. The plague exposes the people’s infinite schemes and renders them moot.
Cancers are our internal plagues and a clear indication of what we do to the world we do to ourselves. It all adds up to using this good earth as a toilet. We are the toilet people.
This state of robbing Peter to pay Paul is a plague and all the worse as it is done with so much aplomb and arrogance they even croon about it, unfurl giant flags, send the fighter jets overhead, and then follow up by lecturing Peter, harassing Peter, keeping Peter from associating, killing Peter or throwing Peter in jail, it cannot last. The jungle gods are angry and they have spat a concoction.
It could be argued that the West has been a plague on the world for over five centuries – and counting. A plague carrying plagues. With ninety percent of the indigenous population wiped-out in these lower forty-eight; certainly that amounts to the worst of plagues.
We were a plague on the passenger pigeon, the whales, wolves, the list is endless, horrifying, and continuing, but does it get us out of our cars, keep us from cutting deeper into the earth and the little remaining wilderness? Nope. It’s no idle decision, the system is against you nearly every step, it’s a rough go.
Democrats and Republicans hope you are recycling your paper, glass and tin, giving to your favorite charity at christmas, because only a token is expected, a penny from a dollar buys an indulgence to get into heaven. They tap on their i-phones with equal awe and delight. They are all technologically goo-glee-eyed. All the eggs are in one basket.
If you’re waiting for the plague to arrive it’s already here. When it turns its teeth on us we will have little defense, moral, spiritual, technical or otherwise. The lock is stripped and we are shut in. No choice but to be stripped ourselves. Those who climb out of their death beds may see a much different world.
Michael McDaeth is a writer and musician living in Seattle. He is the author of the novel Roads and Parking Lots. He can be reached atmmcdaeth@msn.com