by Kloghole
I recently ended a book chapter with this, “We are locked in a cage with a tiger, and if the claws do not get us, the teeth will.”
The Writing is on the Wall.
As COVID was spreading across the globe, I joked with my tattoo artist that the nightly news resembles the beginning of an apocalyptic movie where brief news flashes highlight economic chaos and looting, civil war destroying civilian populations in small nations, looming pathogens and overcrowded morgues, bloody clashes with riot police, and emaciated polar bears.
My tattoo was meant to convey a moment in the future where we abandoned the geometric linear architecture and trinkets of the industrial age. Nature reclaims the refuse of our failed experiment in modernity. As COVID interrupted my tattoo sessions and the pandemic settled in, the concept began to take on darker tone. I emphasized the presence of nature, but as fascism and the pandemic became resurgent, the absence of people moved from the background to the foreground of the image that now has come to dominate the majority of my back.
I joked with SoDak that I am rooting for the Yellowstone supervolcano lurking below the geothermal West. He interjects that he would be instantly vaporized, but I countered that I would die in the pyroclastic flow. Though we may have disagreed on who would suffer the more grisly death, the end of this “civilization” cannot come soon enough for me.
Our glory is built upon the blood and bones of the vanquished. All empires overstretch themselves to be gobbled up by the next parasitical force in humanity. Once begun at the dawn of horticulture, the cycle appears to be endless, terminating only when life as we know it is extinguished.
To prop up the malignancy, those with the power to do so pit one against the other in a cannibalistic frenzy. Our struggle for freedom only appears to make the bindings tighter.
The lyrics of “The Writing on the Wall” resonate:
Across a painted desert lies a train of vagabonds
All that's left of what we were, it's what we have become
Once our empires glorious but now the empire's gone
The dead gave us the time to live and now our time is done
Now we are victorious, we've become our slaves
A land of hope and glory, building graveyards for the brave
Have you seen the writing on the wall?
Have you seen that writing?
Can you see the riders on the storm?
Can you see them riding?
Can you see them riding?
The tiger is coming, and we are naked in it presence, having collectively summoned the beast ourselves. With suicidal glee, we worship those who bring the tiger within our midst believing it to be our savior when it will devour us all. Only a few wise stand at the margins gaping in horror, knowing the fate that awaits us, powerless to change its course.
The song continues:
Holding on to fury, is that all we ever know?
Ignorance our judge and jury all we've got to show
From Hollywood to Babylon, holy war to kingdom come
On a trail of dust and ashes, when the burning sky is done
A tide of change is coming and that is what you fear
The earthquake is a coming, but you don't want to hear
You're just too blind to see
Have you seen the writing on the wall?
Have you seen that writing?
Can you see the riders on the storm?
Can you see them riding?
Can you see them riding, riding next to you?
Have you seen the writing on the wall?
Have you seen that writing?
Can you see the riders on the storm?
Can you see them riding?
Have you seen the writing on the wall?
Have you seen that writing?
Can you see the riders on the storm?
Can you see them riding?
Can you see them riding, riding next to you?
Ignorance is exalted in our age. Blind, stupid rage directed at unsuspecting and blameless targets. Those of us who know see the writing on the wall. They treat the earth like an exsanguinated victim, senselessly believing they can figure increasingly absurd ways to force the blood in faster than it is gushing out.
The youth stare helplessly at their compromised future, their directionless rage building. The old stubbornly refuse to look back at the decimation they have left behind. Their only concern is wringing the last bit of nourishment left in a system desiccating beneath their feet.
I have seen the writing on the wall, but I still fight for a brighter future I know I will never see. I cannot explain it. I want to die in a bright flash, sitting with my dogs and my partner doing nothing important. Evaporating into the ether, together, not strung out each tortuously ripped away from me like all the others, victims of the byproducts of the malignancy dragging us all to ruin.
The Writing is on the Wall.
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