The last two years have been more than a little strange. 2020/21 gave us a virus which changed life as we knew it for the survivors and the unthinkable happened for so many that my rational mind cannot comprehend the extent of the loss. Then there were locusts across several continents, a multitude of mice in Australia, plus a few cases of bubonic plague here and there bracketed by fires that made me wonder if the Bible is indeed right, and the world is going to burn. The fact it was mostly parts of the USA, Australia, Siberia and Indonesia and not a worldwide burning didn’t do much to soothe my worries. Then there were UFO’s in the American skies, and a political populist rightwards sweep across the globe that has rattled peace and democracy. The calendar ticked over into ’21 but nothing seemed to change very much: life has turned upside down. Any mildly superstitious person could be forgiven for quietly wondering if it wasn’t all getting a little biblical or at least strange beyond the normal mundane boundaries of reality as we know it, Jim.
I prefer to tend towards a gentle skepticism, a healthy amount of scorn for the conspiracy theorists and bashers of various books of messages which surely have deteriorated over time in a metaphysical case of Chinese whispers, but as I lazily idled through the news pages today, a man and a whale in Cape Cod made me chew on the arms of my glasses and wonder if I should not have been so hastily dismissive. You see, it is easy enough to irritatedly bark “global warming, you capitalist pigs”, you might even hear me sidle up to you in a dark alleyway, the collar up on my best gaberdine coat, and hoarsely whisper about biological weapons escape and American funding suspicions. You might even catch me with a tin foil hat on as I open the window and shout “Come get me, ET! I have had enough of this bloody shit show!” However, for me to grab the Gideon out of the side table unit by my bed in the shelter, and eventually give up to google whereabouts Jonah is anyway, takes a little more provocation.
That provocation came in the form of the strange events off the coast of Cape Cod. Michael Packard, A lobster diver out of Provincetown with forty years experience, was diving for crustaceans when everything went dark. Packard told WBZ-TV News he jumped off his boat into the water, when he “felt this huge bump and everything went dark.” He thought it was a shark. It was something more interesting. It was a young humpback whale. He felt around, felt no teeth and realized his predicament. The lack of tearing apart must have been a dead giveaway. The hapless lobster-diver reported he thought about his wife and children, and thrashed around. The whale was seen to break the surface, and then spat him right out…or as Mr. Packard reported it “I was free and I just floated there.”
Of course the usual precautions were taken, he won himself a trip to the hospital, a cute photograph with his thumbs up in the news, and the somewhat unusual distinction of having been spat out by a whale. Ok, ok, so it was hardly three days and three nights in the belly, apparently a far more reasonable 30 seconds. He can’t have pissed off the Big Guy quite as much as Jonah did. All the wrong questions were asked by the usual suspects. They failed to ask him his political affiliations or even if he had spoken to any whirlwinds or burning bushes recently, or ignored communications from the same. They didn’t even ask him about his vine sitting habits. It might have been a good idea to question him about any travel to Mesopotamian shores, and if he had had any recent issues with lingering Argonaughts in his recent maritime expeditions. I flipped to Bringing It All Back Home, and Dylan’s 119th Dream joining in Tom Wilson (the producer) and Dylan’s laughter before Dylan’s maritime new world boogie-woogie. Save the whales…who the heck carries harpoons nowadays, anyhow?
We are ill prepared for any biblical sized happenings, inflicted with widespread caution and a low tolerance for the supernatural. Our politicians are all in it for the money and the power, our heroes wear foam Yeezy’s instead of golden fleeces, and we killed our faith with reason and I for one, am mostly ok with that. It was only 30 seconds after all. Wake me up when someone gets right into the belly and sits there for two days, I might find the enthusiasm for a little watching at the gates for the alien locust-mice and their flame throwers.
It certainly does seem true that nature is firing message after message at us but do those with the power to do so do enough about it? I doubt it. Might affect the stock market and their own investments. Hard not to be disillusioned with this world.
It really is difficult, isn’t it. Profit over planet time and time again.