So it's around 11:30 pm, a time that I'd just be starting my work shift in my not-long-ago past life, and a was startled up from my sleep with a nightmarish dream snippet.
I'd just gone to bed an hour or so ago and I was probably just entering into that restful REM sleep when dreaming begins. I don't remember my dream, per se, other than I know it was something benign and probably a little pleasant, but one part of it, just one tiny bit of it, was disturbing enough to make me suspend my sleep and say "WTF!?"
In my dream, someone (I don't know who, it really doesn't matter) tells me that they just found out that my good friend from Rhode Island, Wayne, was found dead near his hermit shelter in the woods. He'd been trapped under some rocks for days and when they found him, they surmised he had fallen, gotten stuck and suffered greatly, dying alone in great pain. They found crusts of salt under his eyes that had accumulated from days and nights of continuous crying.
This is some fucked up shit right here!
Once I came out of it, I remembered where this freakish idea had bubbled up from and started tearing up again like I did when I first read it. A CNN article I read yesterday told about some 16-year-old boy somewhere who was reaching for something while he was alone in the back of his van when, somehow, the seat flipped onto him, crushing him. He was gravely injured but managed enough breath to call out to Siri (iPhone's voice-rec software) and have her dial 9-1-1. He died, alone in the dark, suffocating in pain before help could arrive, which, according to CNN, never came anyway for whatever reason.
Here's the article: https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/12/us/ohio-teen-pinned-minivan-trnd/index.html
You know, the thought I have, like anyone, I guess, who was brought up to believe in an all-knowing, loving God, is "How can God let horrible shit like this happen?" That kid must have suffered greatly and he was likely praying to his God throughout the ordeal, of course, in vain. How can the answer be anything but "There is no all-knowing, loving God."?
Tell me this shit is "part of His plan."!
BTW, off topic, I know, but I'm scratching my head as to the end punctuation of the previous two sentences. The way I did it looks and feels off, but how do you express the writer's tone when ending your sentence in a quote which has differing punctuation? English be hard, son!
I know too that there's a thousand and one stories similar to the one above where horrible things happen. And for some sick reason, my brain, an organ which, due to many reasons including my own damn fault, chooses to black-out swaths of pleasant memories, seems to have some of the stories I've seen or heard hardwired in there. (Well, this sentence is just unforgivably bad.)
But then I dwell a bit on it and I soon realize why this is. Ah, my "faith" in the real operation of the universe is confirmed and I'm feeling a bit better now. Evolution, my dear Watson.
As AmonRa so wonderfully instructs us in his absolutely stunning YouTube video series about evolution, human beings evolved from ancient mammalian creatures, who likely were similar to today's ferrets or shrews. Little twitchy fuckers with beady eyes. Constantly on alert for predators. Constantly scurrying around nervously for food and sex. But, by the nature of evolution, the ones to survive always kept being forever aware of dangers, because the ones that didn't get to eat the food and have the sex, well, just aren't around anymore.
So now, we modern descendants of these Barney Fifes of the animal kingdom still treat signs of trouble and awareness of tragedy in high regard, putting us often in circumstances where we may irrationally experience "fight or flight" hormonal shifts as our minds fill with this daily barrage of negative input.
Wayne's fine BTW. He doesn't live in a hermit shelter and isn't dead somewhere. He has a wonderful life partner and two kids so he's not alone. He regularly posts on his Facebook page and even recently put his mug up on his profile after hiding behind an avatar for years (like I currently do).
Here's Miss Thang in all her twinkly queer glory! See, no crusts of salt under them eyes!
