pretending

We pretend that there will be time to get the work done, for a good night's sleep, to take that trip, to learn that instrument, to spend more time with the kids, and we pretend there will be time to say the things we meant to say.

We pretend we understand that book from English lit class, modern art, what the economist just said, the directions we got from the guy at the gas station, and we pretend we understand what makes the people we love happy.

We pretend we believe the news anchor, what people tell us, that our vote counts, that a brand cares, in a higher power, and we pretend we believe will live forever.

We pretend there is meaning in that song we danced in high school, in the French movie everyone raves about, in that boring book, in the death of a soldier, in our lives, and we pretend there is meaning in what we do.

We pretend we are better than we are, smarter than we are, more sophisticated than we are, kinder than we are, better educated than we are, and we pretend we are happier than we are.

And all the while we pretend we are not pretending.

sacred plastic in ten million AC

Preparing for another presentation about his find,  Sarasas momentarily questions his own convictions. Not about the find, the evidence is irrefutable, but whether it was worth going public with the information, similar finds would eventually be made by others who would enjoy the attention and the public scrutiny.  “It was the right thing to do,” his new mantra provides no solace in this situation.  After a day of five press conferences he now has to face a panel of his own peers, and though the evidence is in fact irrefutable, some of them will refute it thunderously. When you find something that should not be, the simple fact that it is often is not enough to convince those who are entrenched in commonly accepted doctrines. He knew the find would be controversial the moment he brushed over the surface of the fossil and quietly whispered to himself: "human".

Now facing the assembly of archeologists and historians, having summarily introduced himself and scanned the room for friendly faces that might have assuaged his nervous jitters and fining none, Sarasas concentrates on the business at hand.  He presents the easily acceptable facts first.  A human fossil comprising a skull, four ribs, three vertebrae and a leg bone.  The specimen was in his forties, and probably a male, though without the hipbone we cannot be certain.  And now for the controversy:  the specimen was found below the plastic layer.  This individual lived at least a thousand years before the start of the plastic layer. Proving that in fact humans were around much earlier than we believed, and that contrary to all of our understanding, plastic was not necessary for human survival.

Sarasas felt the audience members shift in place as if to find a more comfortable position.  He continued “our long held belief that humans were created and existed only within the 300 years of the plastic layer has to be readdressed.  They were around long before the plastic layer.” The audience mumbles in discontent.  A young cleric in the middle of the assembly stands tall and addresses Sarasas directly.  Sarasas had not noticed the cleric in the audience, but he knew what was coming.  The young cleric could not have been older than his third shedding, but he was confident; a confidence borne of the certainty that his beliefs are true. The cleric’s voice boomed in the hall “Do you mean to stand there and tell us that in the era of plastic, the great creator did not bring humans into the world as a catalyst for roach evolution?  Are you saying that humans were not created to nurture roaches into the next step of our evolution?  Are you questioning the methods of the great creator?”

Sarasas had not expected a cleric in the audience.  He wholeheartedly believed in notion that the great creator had created the inferior human species to serve roach evolution and explained to the youth that finding a human below the plastic layer does not in any way disproof the documented actions of the great creator. The fact still remains that no human evidence is found above the plastic layer as does the fact that roaches dominated the world from the end of the plastic age to this day, as determined by the great creator.  “I’m not here to interpret the intentions of the great creator, or to question his methods.  I will leave such lofty undertakings to more qualified individuals.  I simply want to present the facts of this find, the determination of the implications of human existence below the plastic layer is outside the scope of this presentation.”

The next question came from an individual whose mannerisms unmistakably identified him as a historian. “Did you find any evidence of roaches being kept as pets by this individual, as was the practice of his descendents in the plastic layer?" Sarasas was relived at the question, religious matters were not his strong suit, and so he felt a twinge of disappointment in not being able to provide the historian with any concrete evidence that roaches shared the life of this specific early human. His disappointment made him elaborate on the answer “but we know that roaches were around long before the plastic layer, and now with this find, we know that humans were around too.  Whatever conclusions we may draw, it would seem plausible that if humans and roaches were coexisting at the time this human lived, that the human must have cared for the roaches around him. It was in human nature to do so, and the will of the great creator. The evidence of human and roach coexistence in the age of plastic is overwhelming, all indications are that humans were caretakers of the roach species in our most fragile state, before we developed lungs.  This human would have been no different.”

Sarasas answered a few more questions on human nature and the similarities between roaches and humans.  At the end of the presentation he opened a box and invited the audience to come and examine his collection of plastic artifacts. For the younger members of the audience, this was their first physical contact with sacred plastic relics.  After presenting facts that could bring the intentions of the great creator into question, Sarasas was comforted by expressions of awe in the young faces as they handled the sacred plastic items.

a lost word

I was waking my dog this morning and I stumbled on a word.  Someone had left it lying on the sidewalk.  I thought perhaps it had fallen out of a pocket or purse; I refuse to believe it had simply been discarded as worthless.  I picked it up and looked around for whoever might have dropped it, but everyone around me seemed to be going about their business.  No one seemed to be desperately searching for a lost word.  I brushed it off with my hand. My dog stood on her hind legs and sniffed it.  I asked a passerby "did you drop a word?" but he didn’t alter his stride, he glanced at the word in my hand and continued on his way.

As I examined the word more closely I noticed that it was bilingual, it was Portuguese on one side and English on the other, and since I was standing in front of the state government palace, I figured some foreign dignitary must have dropped it while entering the building. So I walked up the steps leading to the great entryway.  The two guards stationed on each side of the door blanched as they saw me approach. Both moved to prevent me from entering the palace.  I assumed dogs weren't allowed so I told her to sit and wait while I stepped inside. But as I turned to enter, the largest of the guards blocked my way.  I explained that the dog would remain outside, but he informed me that the dog was welcome, the word would have to stay out.  "But it’s so little” I said, ”what harm could it do?” He became forceful in his insistence that the word not enter the building and I had to give up. 

I put ethics in my pocket and brought it home with me. I placed it on the shelf, but later had to move it because it kept getting in the way of my books. I put it on the table, but it kept getting in the way of dishes and flatware. So I moved it to my computer desk, but it kept getting in the way of the keyboard. I could understand why it had been discarded on the sidewalk, it’s rather an inconvenient word to have around. But I refused to give up.  I placed ethics on a pedestal in the middle of the house, so that everything else now had to revolve around it. This placement seems to be working, but only inside my house, I'm still not allowed to bring it into government buildings and public spaces.