Ambient Uncertainty

It’s rising. Can you feel it? I can. There is an anxiety in the air, a pressurized hurry, that seems to be most everywhere. Even the water tastes of it. I feel myself eroding.  I usually feel freed by ‘not knowing,’ but something else is happening this time. It seems to be centered everywhere, like it doesn’t have a home, or its homelessness extends to this moment, this place. Life, the vitality that underlies this being, this energized actualization, is weighted with some tense freight. I can feel the atmosphere darkening, trees losing their luster, the hours becoming precious.

Something is waiting. Growing and waiting. I don’t know what it is, but I can tell others can feel it too. It is breathing down my neck. I would be squirming, if I could. Instead, I have this feeling of growing dread, like I’m somehow in the horror movie I’m watching. Perhaps, I am. One of the hapless, soon to be victims, of a strange monster, that wants to feed on me. It lurks, and I innocently go about my business. 

I’ve been feeling oppressed lately. There is a storm rising on the horizon. I can see it and feel it. I know it is coming. Not everybody sees it, or feels it, but I know some do. It is like growing older, and recognizing that death is closer. But, nobody is talking about it. I am strangling slowly from the lack of shared concern. My world is going down into some abyss, and I’m alone with the dawning recognition of what that means. Uncertainty is mounting.  I am screamingly lost, without other humans, isolated by this horrible awareness, unable to drink deeply of the miracle of the moment, because I am alone with this poignancy and disappearing beauty.

I am still here, a witness, gutted by what’s going on. I am facing what I would not, thought I could not, face. I don’t really have another choice. I’m seeing what we have done. I know I am complicit. I took the easy way too. Aching numbness overwhelms me. I want to be in the arms of my loved ones, and I wonder where they are. I realize, to my chagrin, that they too, participated in our mass suicide. 

I am not dead yet. I’m some sort of walking (actually wheeling) zombie. I am more dead than alive, defiantly angry and despairing. The rubble, the  world of appearances, looks so good, the smiles reassuring, and the inevitability so complete. It is an intoxicating set of circumstances. I keep wondering. “Why am I alive for this?” My only answer is “Why not.” 

The world, my precious mother, keeps providing, acting like nothing is wrong. Maybe for her, nothing is. But, for me, the storm clouds are gathering, the pressure is mounting, and I feel an increasing sense of dread. I’m ashamed to realize, I’ve never been so vulnerable. My soul is outstretched, do you feel it too, will you come into my arms, can I admire you for these last moments. You, like me, are such a beautiful and sensitive abomination.

The suspense is killing me. Maybe that’s the plan. Metamorphosis by loss, and shame, and of being a creative mistake. I hope I have another chance, and that my memory won’t fail. You too.

Teetering is a strange business. Utterly human, and desperately lively. My heart, is like some wild animal, penned into being a beast of burden. It shatters, then enlarges, and shatters again. My body is in the process of becoming dust anyway. So, why does it matter. I don’t really know. But, I feel the tide turning.