Be prepared

 In the globalists ideal scenario, you die. Or you become a slave (same thing).

If you do not stop the globalists your way of life will die first. If they succeed your personal death will surely follow. Today. In a week. In a generation. They don't care. Now or later, either is fine with them. In their ideal scenario your extinction is inevitable.

These are not an enemy that one defeats at the ballot box. Their sickness is insidious. They are the debasers of life. They infiltrate a society's institutions and corrode them from within. 

However you may have to do it, you must purge this evil. You may have to risk all, even your life. You may very well die defending what you have. Or you may not. But you must defend it or be forever cursed. In either case you must be prepared to die.

Empty? Lonely?

 Crisis is a word enjoying an incredible resurgence these days. For a lot of us crisis has been the norm for our entire adult lives. Had we been paying that much attention then it is likely that crisis was the norm for our childhood too. We just seem to muddle our way through from one to the next. Some of those crises may have actually been resolved at some point, though we're not likely to have noticed due to our preoccupation with the crisis of the day/week/month/year. You never hear discussions about how a crisis was solved. You only hear how a crisis "has passed", or has been "narrowly averted". The narrowly averteds are my personal favorite.

The thoughts just expressed above pertain to crises in the general sense. Crisis as played out upon the public stage. Cash crisis. Energy Crisis. Labor crisis. Educational crisis. I'm hardly scratching the surface here! It's a long list. Crisis has come to apply in so many other ways. There is an epidemic of personal crises, some real, some only imagined. Crisis of confidence, in all of it's many forms. It seems that this insidious word has entered the very cellular makeup of our collective being.

There are legions of people out there who surely MUST be enduring soul crushing existential crises on a daily basis. Most of them before lunch. The sure tell of this are the number of wannabe gurus with a Youtube channel or a Tik-Tok account with a Heinz 57 to the ninth power variety of solutions to your troubles. Feeling Empty? Lonely?Don't worry. Somebody has got your fix. Hopefully.

Feeling rather bad about ourselves, aren't we? As well we might. I'm not going to offer you any solutions. I won't point you to Jesus, or Buddha, certainly not the Church of Scientology. I'm not selling anything. No salvation, no redemption. Those things are free and you need to find them on your own. You are on a journey my friends.

Whether your goal is redemption or salvation there is a path. That is not to say that the two are mutually exclusive. I am not a Christian, nor do I ever claim to be. That does not mean I know nothing about it. Important in Christianity are the concepts of penance and repentance. Penance is an act or acts; repentance is a process. You may find some measure of redemption in penance, but only through repentance will you find salvation.

That shit, empty, lonely feeling you have inside? That is called suffering. Suffering is actually good for you. It instills humility. Suffering is your penance. If you do not learn from your suffering then you are only doomed to continue your suffering. There is only one step remaining after this. And that is also on you.

 

Civil?

 You hear a lot of talk today that revolves around the notion of a second civil war. That always struck me as such an oxymoronic term. As most of us understand the meaning of the word civil it hardly seems an appropriate adjective for war. But then there are different types of war, aren't there? Just as there are different meanings for the word civil.

Given the times I surely appreciate the sentiment. Nevertheless, I regard it as a classic instance of right church, wrong pew. Some wars are like flash fires: completely unexpected and all consuming. Other wars are more like a bog fire: smoldering deep and unseen, until eventually the earth sags into it. The truth is that we are already in a war in this country, and it is of that latter variety. The former may occur at any time without notice.

The idea of a second American civil war as delineated by geopolitical units is laughable. It is a fantasy. Not the part about a federal government unleashing their vast arsenal upon it's own citizens. That part is completely plausible. But the idea of a north versus south, the coastals versus the middles, competing armored columns with tactical air cover maneuvering about the countryside as a civilian population looks on in horror.... sorry. That's a Michael Bay script.

If there is to be a second American civil war, like an actual shooting war, it will be something more akin to the Spanish Civil War. I will not digress into the depths of that murky sea, you can do your own homework if you need to. A second American civil war would devolve into a series of regional conflicts with multiple competing factions, waged chiefly in key urban centers. Just as in the Spanish Civil War one should rightly expect that various foreign interests would insert themselves in sponsorship of the faction of their flavor.

Oh, and don't forget the UN crowd. You can bet they will be right there to, uh, protect your human rights. They'll be strutting around in their little blue helmets and armbands, handing out blankets, tents, hypodermic syringes and Koolaid. Lots and lots of Koolaid. They will likely recruit manpower for this operation from those members of that august body who shine as a beacon for freedom and basic human aspirations. So many to choose from.... Iran, Brazil, South Africa and, if things don't change, maybe even Canada. It will be like history's largest Red Cross mission with armored cars and round the clock cable news coverage.

Should that second American civil war actually occur, the scenario I have sketched is by no means a thorough and scientific analysis, but it is closer to the truth than the sort of renderings that make their way into television or cinema. I am afraid, however, that the discussion revolves around the wrong war entirely. America is already in a war. It's a very different kind of war. Not the war on drugs (ha ha!), not GWOT, nor any of a host of other money laundering charades across the globe. We are in the second American revolution. 

Some might pin the beginnings of this at the ballot box in 2016, and while that was certainly a crucial event, I believe that the roots go back a bit further in time. Some of the seeds were sown late in the reign of Dubya, with Wikileaks as the point of the spear. 2009 and 2010 gathered more steam. There were the beginnings of organization taking form in what was briefly dubbed "the Tea Party" and other related efforts. The federal government's reaction and the mockingbird media's lockstep response are sure indicators that those at the switch were paying attention.

Others may certainly contend otherwise, but it is my belief that the quickening of this slow rolling bog fire occurred during the second Obama administration.  The Benghazi affair leading up to the 2012 election was eye opening as details emerged. What was even more telling were the sham congressional hearings which followed. And then there was that key event of 2013: Edward Snowden. After that there were enough layers peeled back from the onion to start making more eyes water.

These events did not just have an impact here. They were at least in some measure the impetus to a populist groundswell throughout the west, and consequently a more aggressive counter-offensive from the establishment. To Americans bludgeoned by a lifelong cheering section for the rule of law the solution had to be accomplished through the electoral process. They didn't account for corruption and betrayal, which became more apparent with each passing election cycle. 

Revolution and counter-revolution continues. It is not over. The first American Revolution lasted for eight years. This one is somewhere around the 15 year mark and who can say when or how it ends? Not to disparage the feat of arms accomplished by those prepared to make such sacrifice, not to diminish the invaluable assistance of the French, but there is one prime reason why that revolution succeeded. That reason has nothing to do with either the colonial army or the French.

The bit of American history that is taught omits one key factor. The British made an economic calculation and determined it was better to cut bait from the American colonies and focus their limited resources on India. Where they were making big money at considerably lesser expense to maintain. They knew that commerce with America would continue, regardless which banner flew over their shores.

This time there are no French or any other consequential powers to come to our aid. This time we face a foe that has too much to lose. They will not so easily relinquish their grip. This time we face a foe with considerably greater resources at their disposal. 

An extra-constitutional usurpation of rule is not to be defeated by staying within the bounds of the constitution. That is as futile as bringing a knife to a gunfight. I laud all of you for your efforts, but what is your plan B? You'd better have one, because on this the 248th anniversary of our founding, the state of this revolution is in peril.

Today is Independence Day. Enjoy your fireworks, your picnics and block parties, your paid holiday. Start thinking about next year's celebration. If there is to be one... 

The strange travels of Mr. Smith

  Like most living organisms on the planet Mr. Smith began his day with the expectation that at day's end he would still be alive. On this day he had uncustomarily given the subject at least a couple of minutes' thought, though he was still unsure how he felt about it. 

He opened his 14,383rd pack of cigarettes. That count seemed rather short to him, but the official state tabulator was generally regarded as accurate. Just out of a moment of sheer mirth Mr. Smith decided to give a gentle set of raps upon the side of the tabulator, and to some mild amazement he witnessed the digits suddenly lurched and rolled forward to 83, 84, 85....86&87. He muttered to himself  "Yeah, that seems right then!"

Once the tabulator had finished resetting it emitted the pre-recorded message that accompanied all tobacco transactions. "Thank you for smoking, Mr. Smith. Your premature death will permit the state to afford care to two younger workers. Workers that are paying for your care now. Thank you for smoking". It was a computerized voice, delivering the message with cold, precise diction and completely absent any nuance, intimation or judgment. 

Mr. Smith had completely lost track of which day he was on. Now if one were to encounter Mr. Smith at random there would be the inevitable impression that here was a man of some advanced years. One would undoubtedly be assured that if one were to inquire of Mr. Smith "How old are you?", a reply in the manner of "I'm seventy-some years old" would follow. Sadly Mr. Smith is incapable of providing such a response. You see Mr. Smith lives in a different age, an entirely different society altogether. Mr. Smith lives in the age of the total state. The state has long since eliminated all calendars. Mr. Smith would only, assuming that he'd offer any response whatsoever, be able to say " I'm on day twenty-thousand and something". It is for this reason that Mr. Smith had grown concerned at losing track of which day he was on.

Something had tickled his memory on the subject. He had some vague recollection of some time, probably ten to fourteen days prior, when he had checked the official state tabulator to see that he was up to day 26, 230. This number really would not hold any significance, but for the fact that Mr. Smith was registered as a tobacco user. As a tobacco user Mr. Smith had been allocated the state standard of 26,280 days, or 72 years as we might say. Mr. Smith was in complete awe at the beneficence of the total state. They saw to all of his physical needs while generously allowing him to exercise his choice to smoke cigarettes. It was one of the very few perks offered in compensation from a society that afforded one very few choices. 

No one alive could really pin down the exact date that the total state was established. It never came as a declarative moment, rather more of a process. If one had to imagine then it might be an apt comparison to say that it occurred in much the same manner as the growth of mold. A thing beginning in dark, damp and seldom disturbed spaces, where it should remain undetected until such time as it had metastasized to a degree requiring a vigorous response. An insidious threat is never vanquished by half measures. Thus did the total state emerge and by the time we should find ourselves in Mr. Smith's world we would learn that there were none living who had any memory or knowledge of things being any different.

No private property, no physical currency, no months, years or calendars. No music and no churches, of course, as these are the first refuge for the heretics and malcontents. Just shut up and take your drugs. Learn to get along. Everything will be fine. Trust in the state. We have your back. We have all of you. We own you. And lest you should ever forget...

Mr. Smith had considered for a moment going to the tabulator to clarify his fuzzy recall, when instead he was summoned by the urges of nature to make for the toilet first. Mr. Smith was rather fortunate among those of his age group as he did not typically suffer from irregularity. After having bartered extra potatoes from the domicile across the hall for the prior evening's dinner, he was experiencing a greater urgency than normal. Within mere seconds of landing his bare bottom upon the seat the familiar plop into the bowl occurred and Mr. Smith let out a sigh of relief. This was rather short lived, I'm sorry to report. Within an instant of the deposit having been made a persistent and shrill beeping began to emanate from the tabulator in the next room. The display flashed red characters of <.225Kg>. At the exact same time the bowl opened beneath Mr. Smith and swallowed him whole, below the floor and off to who could know where.

Mr. Smith would have done better to have shit his pants. He should have checked that tabulator first. You see his recollection of days was more off the mark than he had thought. It had actually been 35 days since he had looked at his balance on the tabulator, meaning that he had started this day at number 26,266. A mere 14 days before expiration. A touch of constipation could have carried him through to the finish, a feat actually accomplished by surprisingly few. 

In our world if there is any recognition of the term SWPF it is most likely as a form of shorthand on personal pages to signify single, white, professional female. These are, however, completely alien terms in Mr. Smith's time and place. There the letters signify Solid Waste Processing Fee. What some might dub "the shit tax". It seems that Mr. Smith had not only forgotten his allocation of days. Tragically he had failed to also monitor his Fecal Credit Index. You see the total state makes a calculation that in 26,280 days an individual is permitted X Kg's of solid waste to process. This is naturally at some expense to the state, and thus once that "X" has been surpassed a penalty is automatically triggered. Unless, of course, one had the foresight to purchase fecal credits. Sadly, Mr. Smith was not one of those.

And so it was that with that automatically triggered fifteen day penalty Mr. Smith, at least in accounting terms, was one day past his expiration. In the total state once one has reached the limit that it costs the state more to process your shit than you are worth to the state, then you become only so much solid waste. The tabulator in the next room continued to blink in red characters <79.225Kg>. Even with the abrupt manner in which it occurred, I suspect that Mr. Smith embraced his expiration with a smile knowing that he had beaten the state out of at least half a day.

In the next room the display on the tabulator stopped blinking. A pre-recorded message began as the display reset to zero. "Your time has expired Mr. Smith. The state is now relieved of it's burden to care for you. Thank you for dying." It was a computerized voice, delivering the message with cold, precise diction and completely absent any nuance, intimation or judgment. 

The Buzzard's Roost

 A few years back I had the privilege of covering the Greater Hilltop Groundhog Lasagna Festival. Through a combination of coordinated misinformation and a latent lack of interest this event is no more. The stalwart residents of the Hilltop have reverted to alcoholism, spousal abuse and amateur auto mechanics for their mid-winter festivities. The community has absorbed this blow and the groundhogs of Westgate Park are relieved. I should offer some small clarification. The official name of the festival was indeed the Groundhog Lasagna Festival, not the Groundhog Day Lasagna Festival. While this may imply that the festival featured actual ground-groundhog lasagna, we can not say with certainty that this was the case. Some of it did taste like chicken though...

 The 1993 film Groundhog Day certainly placed February 2 back in the public mind, but with a generation's passing I suspect that it has relapsed to the status of a holiday which is noted on our calendars while going uncelebrated. This is certainly now true in the Hilltop. Whenever I am prompted to think upon Groundhog Day I recall my introduction to this tradition as a child. I remember... feelings of confusion. My juvenile mind was incapable of peeling the layers off of that onion, yet even then there was this uneasy sense that something was amiss. So when he sees his shadow it's back into his hole and there will be six more weeks of winter? And if he does not see his shadow there will be an early spring? After straightening out whether it was one way or the other the tale was accepted without further question. Sadly there are many traditions that are perpetuated in this manner.

As adults, when we've nothing better to do with our time, we are able to apply the discipline of mathematics to Groundhog Day. 

Six weeks = 42 days

2 + 42 = 44

44-28 = 16

Following this formula we can determine the calendar date of March 16 to be six weeks post Groundhog Day. We are confronted with two issues right away.

First of all, I think that it is safe to say there is a general consensus that the vernal equinox arrives on March 21. March 16 falls five days short of the mark. So is that the early Spring? Have we got it backwards, or is there something else we've missed?Secondly, what about leap year? This is where it starts to get interesting.

When one factors in that additional February day we then arrive at March 15. Yet another day shy of an astronomically calibrated arrival of Spring. There is some historical significance in that date: the ides of March. Of course that is from a time when we still operated on the ten month calendar, so probably best not to muddy the waters. This date is still notable. No, it's not for some obscure Feast of Saint Something-or-other. Patrick, with all the debauchery that entails, has the March Saint calendar pretty well locked up. March 15 is a herald of something less saintly and, dare I say, more sinister in nature. For a little over 200 years now the great, black flocks of the homely, unwanted turkey vulture have reliably returned to the bluffs above Hinckley Lake; a place that is today known as The Buzzard's Roost.

On March 15 they say that "the buzzards return to Hinckley". Every year. Even on leap years. The accuracy and consistency of these carrion feasting scavengers is uncanny. The groundhog's prognostication is not for the start of spring. That is only a happy accident. Just as John the Baptist went before his Master, the humble rodent known as groundhog blazes the path for the ghoulish Buzzards of Hinckley and their annual return. The groundhog is no doubt the beneficiary of a good press agent, but let's be fair. How does one pitch the turkey vulture? Let's see.... Buzzard, versus Turkey Vulture. Which one sounds better? No? Which one is less off-putting? See what I mean? Interests and hobbies? Oh yeah, they eat dead stuff. Really not choosy, just so long as it's dead. No refrigeration required.

Perhaps we have, only on account of the buzzard's gruesome face, misjudged the character of this creature. Though they are equipped with fearsome beaks and talons, easily rivaling those of hawks or ospreys, the buzzard has voluntarily elected to not kill their own food. It's a moral stance, kind of like being a vegan. Any self respecting carnivore knows that the whole flesh eating experience can only be fully appreciated by killing one's own prey before dining. Otherwise it's just hamburger, some pre-packaged patty drawn from the inexhaustible supply of your local refrigerated & frozen food warehouse. The buzzards committing this act of self denial would suggest that they may be more like us than we know. Just as we have come to trust the safety of city water to some nameless municipal employees at the local wastewater treatment plant, the buzzard has come to accept that the carrion feast is derived from a righteous kill and is thus safe to eat.

We must then ask ourselves if the precision timing of their annual return to Hinckley is mere instinct, or is it the execution of a conscious plan? There are other questions we should be asking. Where have the buzzards been all that time? What have they been doing? Are they in league with the groundhog? Did they all leave at once and when? And finally, do they also always depart on the same day? Seems like someone would have been keeping track of this.

The groundhog's behavior predicted either an early spring, or a spring more or less on schedule. His has been a happy task and he has, if not happily, at least played along for our amusement. Frankly it's a pretty low bar that he has been asked to reach. The groundhog is only asked to offer his prediction for the start of one season. It is one way or the other with no great consequence to anyone in either case. There is no pressure to be right the rest of the year. Other than at Groundhog Day every year no one really gives a shit what groundhogs think about anything. 

What then is the significance of Buzzard Day? What is to be predicted by their arrival, on time, every year? Though they were never asked, the buzzards carry a more weighty burden. Just as the rainbow serves as the symbol of a happy promise, so too does the annual arrival at the Buzzard's Roost every March 15 act as a concrete reminder. It tells us that for at least the last couple hundred years, in good times and in bad, no matter what the circumstances: there will always be enough dead to eat. That message, while it does not carry the optimism or hope found in the groundhog's tale, is in fact more instructive as to our own condition, the general state of things and, the vast grey area where these two fields are conjoined. It is in that temporal plain the buzzard's tale resides and is made manifest.

We have been conditioned to abhor slaughter, even when our most base instincts tell us that letting it happen will reap a net benefit.  As a species we have been mostly softened by civilization. By and large this has spawned a population that no longer has the stomach for the kind of cruel yet impartial judgments rendered by nature. Unable to deny these things we have opted to simply ignore them, inasmuch as we are able. Failing this most will simply resort to outright denial; to simply pretend that these phenomena do not occur. Whether by fire, flood, invasive species or random mutation slaughter occurs with a certain regularity in nature. In all of it's various forms there is a common element. There is the slaughter, and then there is the aftermath. This social conditioning against it is less of a moral objection than it is an underlying aversion to the gruesome task of all that clean up. This, my friends, is the meat of the buzzard's tale.

Every year, in times good or ill, there is always enough dead to eat. The buzzard cleans all of the carrion. Whatever they are unable to take from the bones the flies easily finish off. This prevents widespread putrefaction and the number of diseases and plagues thereby associated. Hurray! Makes you want to adopt one now, don't it? The buzzards will digest all that rancid meat, thus filtering those toxins from our environment, and shit it out in a sterile form at a secure, undisclosed location. The buzzard looks for no thanks, expects no considerations for these services rendered. It's just a job they do. A job that might easily go unfilled, were it not for the buzzard's unique digestive characteristics. Thus has nature ordained it.

The deeper message to be found here, if indeed there be any, is that the buzzards' continued and precise return to Hinckley signals to us that no matter how badly we manage to louse things up, there will always be someone along after to clean up the mess. They're not much to look at, the job they do is not glamorous, but they show up and complete the task nonetheless. This is how it is for those thankless tasks; the distasteful yet necessary. How easily this translates to human vocations in society. The buzzard's tale is only noteworthy in the event that they should ever stop showing up. If that should ever happen it would indicate that either there are no more dead to be eaten, or that there are so many dead as to simply be beyond their capacity. Neither case is good, I assure you.

"A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist."   Stewart Alsop

Tugboat

I don't wanna stay at your party

I don't wanna talk with your friends

I don't wanna vote for your president

I just wanna be your tugboat captain

 

The song Tugboat is Dean Wareham's homage to Sterling Morrison, guitarist for the iconic band The Velvet Underground. Wareham, by his own admission, was heavily influenced by the band and by Morrison specifically, but the song is not a tribute to Morrison's career with the Underground. It is instead a reverent honorary to Morrison's second vocation, working on tugboats at the Port of Houston. That gig lasted from 1971 until his illness and ultimate demise in 1995.  Some no doubt ask, why should this be so celebrated in song? 

I will attempt to answer this, with the stipulation that only Dean Wareham can speak to the truth of it.

Sterling Morrison's life post Underground was quite simply just that and nothing more. It was his life and it was of his own choosing. 

Fans and music critics, Andy Warhol and the whole New York Art crowd, all the hangers on, grifters and tweakers all took that meteoric ride with The Velvet Underground from 1967 to 1971. Lou Reed and John Cale both went on to have legendary careers in their own right  Not widely known, yet widely known within a certain set. Musically the band would easily continue to hold a profound influence on rock music as an art form for decades to follow. All of this clout with little more than five years in total and a catalogue of only three or four albums. 

All of that is very impressive. If you are wired to that part of the world that is sometimes referred to as "polite society" or "civilization". Within that context these things actually matter. In truth none of it makes a bollocks bit of difference and Holmes Sterling Morrison understood this. On a late August day in 1971 he made his break from his past life. He left his band mates at a Houston airport, suitcases stuffed with phone directories as a prop. His original plan was to attend University of Texas. There is no indication from anyone that it was his plan at that moment in time to completely bail on polite society and spend the next quarter century riding tugs about the Port of Houston. But that is in fact what happened. 

Even though we are talking about a time period that is multiplied by a factor of four, we are generally led to accept the notion that those six years spent with The Velvet Underground are to outweigh the value of a life fourfold. When it is so spelled out one is confronted with the utter absurdity of this idea.  What is honored in the song Tugboat is Morrison's lifelong act of civil disobedience; a practiced mind over matter mentality. Cale and Reed are both deservedly weighted with accolades to their respective genius. Morrison figured out how to live a simple life with a roof over his head, food on the table and a good woman at his side. All that without the world knowing all of his business. Who was the real genius? Perhaps H.Sterling Morrison's true genius was that he wasn't overtaken by the need to constantly have his genius affirmed by others. Wareham's admiration is not misplaced.

Songs will very often take on a meaning to listeners that is far afield of the artist's original intent. Such are the risks inherent in any art. Each of us as individuals will experience different meanings in a song at different times in our lives. Speaking from my own personal experience I present a prime example. The Pretenders released My City was gone as a B-side to Back on the chain gang in the fall of 1982. Like Chrissie Hynde, I am also a Buckeye native. I was at that time returning to Ohio after having been working out of state for several years. The song was entirely relatable to me, in terms of where I was in life, where Ohio did/did not figure in that equation, and her observations were true. I could never have imagined at the time that the song would become immortalized as the opening theme music of a controversial radio program. There's thirty plus years of royalties paid, I should  think!

I find today that Tugboat is something that has become thematic to me. There is an elemental quality to the broader meaning of it. It can go unseen and yet intuitively it remains undeniable. Thus do I open the page with those words.

I don't wanna stay at your party

I don't want to belong to a party. I don't want to be part of any clubs or civic associations. I don't want to belong to a church. I don't want to live my life in debt. I don't want my every move measured by a scale that was made by others. I don't believe my blood is owed to pay for another's treasure. All of your institutions are meaningless, hollow shells of themselves. Your shining city on a hill is a decrepit wreck caught in a mudslide

I don't wanna talk with your friends

There is nothing left to talk about. Everything has been talked to death. All of your catalogue of isms has been presented. I reject them all. I'm alright Jack. You do you. I've heard every line of shit ever conceived and if you think your's is something new you are sorely mistaken. I don't want to hear about your solutions. I don't want to hear about your problems either. Most problems are created. By people trying to sell solutions. I don't want to be sold on anything. Save your breath. Whatever it is I'm not buying. I'll be polite only as long as I have to. That increment of time shrinks with each passing day.

I don't wanna vote for your president

Your campaigns mean nothing. I know it helps you to feel better to believe that. I also know that it is better that a man believe nothing than to believe that which is false. All of history is littered with tales of single men who come as saviors. They end up dead or as despots. I owe allegiance to no one simply by the accident of my birth. I bow to no lords or kings.

I just wanna be your tugboat captain

I don't need your validation. I determine what has worth to me. I associate with whomsoever I choose. I likewise do not associate with whomsoever I choose. In either case that is my business and my business alone. My business is my business and none who are not party to my business have any rights to interfere with my business. I can take care of myself . I am able to help care for others. I, and only I, will decide who those others might be. Form your own economy. Form your own currency. The only people telling you that you can't are the people who benefit from things as they are. I will navigate these troubled waters to a safer shore.

The Stag

Early in adulthood the stag was a sturdy young buck with eight points upon his rack. He knew of wolves and of men, and of the dangers inherent in each. As a stag he naturally knew to be wary of the wolf, or more properly stated, the wolf pack. The stag was large enough to stand his own against any lone wolf and fleet enough to evade the pack. He was no easy prey by any measure. It was right to fear the wolf for the knowledge of what they could and most likely would do in any circumstance. The stag feared man because it could never be known for certain what evil man might do, or when, or how.

It was in these years of the stag's youth that the world was also young. The forest was still deep and wide. It was possible to travel for days within it and to see nothing else. Yet the world was changing nonetheless.

 Season after season he ranged the great sylvan expanse. He grew stronger and more formidable with each year. He took does at his liking, spreading his seed far and wide, yet he was ever alone. He began to frequent those strange, brown lands upon the edges of the forest. These were lands that had been claimed from the forest for man's own purpose, whatever that was. Nature's cycle passed in it's turns. There were times of bounty and scarcity alike; drought years or flood years; hotter summers or colder winters. There was the best and the worst that every season could give and every season the stag survived.

It was in the course of a most severe winter that the stag was tempted to delve deeper into man's settlement. Foraging had grown extremely difficult that season. Heavy snows had arrived early upon the heels of an extraordinarily wet and windy Autumn, followed by a bitter, wind driven cold that held it's icy grip for weeks on end. Driven by hunger and desperation, in the moonless dim of a predawn, the stag came upon a shelf of snowdrift at a clearing.

Pawing tentatively up the slope of the drift he discovered that there was an earthen mound beneath. He began to explore the length of this mound, finding it bolstered here and there by the insertion of logs. The mound fell away from the wood, leading him ever more perilously into the open ground until coming to a point where more logs had been arranged to form a square. There were some mice startled at the stag's sudden appearance there and they scattered away in every direction. The winds had ceaselessly reshaped the snows atop this square, but there were clear signs that this corner was frequently disturbed. There was no smooth, wind-sculpted contour on the face here. This little corner had crusty, jagged edges ringing most of the space. Here and there were also holes burrowed through the crust. Still sensing no danger the stag lowered his nose to one of these tunnels through the snow and he caught the scent of grain.

A normal winter was hard by any measure for the forest creatures. This winter had been excruciating. With constant, bone numbing cold and piercing winds was paired the ever present spectre of starvation. It was a season when lesser species were left to the last, desperate resort of eating their own young. But not here. These mice were healthy. Almost plump. Certain to catch the keen eyes of the owls or hawks. This only reminded the stag of the bitter hunger scraping at his innards. With a sudden impulse he plunged his snout deep into the snow.

The grain was frozen hard as stone. The first bite was difficult to crush in his teeth, breaking into brittle shards. He felt the snow in his nostrils as he drew in another icy breath. Greedily he burrowed his snout further to take more until nearly choking. When he withdrew from the mound snorting steam into the air he stiffened, suddenly aware of how vulnerable he had left himself. It was a bland and bitter mash, but it was solid. If for just one moment the gnawing hunger in his belly was sated. The temptation to remain there was great, but his overriding instinct was to move off and return at a later hour to observe from the nearby tree line. He had to hope that his tracks in the snow would not give him away.

Some hours after sunrise, after the low winter arc of the sun had climbed above the long, grey blanket of cloud, he had taken a perch amid a small stand of beech trees. From this vantage he was no further than sixty meters from the site he had discovered earlier. All of the foliage was gone, but this particular spot provided good cover. There were four stalky beeches clustered quite close together; one with a bifurcated trunk that appeared as two separate trees. There were smaller saplings scattered across their shadow, all intertwined by an aged berry briar. Were he to remain still at this spot he might go undetected for hours.

In the wan light of the mid winter day the stag surveyed this clearing further than he had been able during his predawn visit. Now he could see that the drifted mound he had followed to the cache of grain extended well on to the west. It went on almost to where the forest resumed before linking to a row of hewn logs that followed a right turn to the north. That junction was more than one hundred meters from where he was standing. The clearing went on for some distance further to the north. The stag was unable to recognize any detail off into this expanse, but the field before him had lost it's pristine, white coating. That indistinct landscape was painted over in mucky brown and grey frozen mud. Well beyond that, in the clutch of the looming wood there stood a long, low human structure. It was only a grey shape in the foreground of the great forest beyond, yet he knew that it was of man and not nature. He dared not venture further into the light, remaining there patiently sniffing the air for any approaching danger.

One peculiar consequence of the prolonged frigid air was that the stag's normally keen sense of smell was often compromised. The soft, velvety tissue about his nostrils was cracked and sore. Anything beneath the snows was practically undetectable, unless standing right atop it. Despite this there were also times that a fortuitous shift in the wind would seem to heighten this sense.

At mid afternoon the sun had passed far enough across the sky that the far reaches of the clearing were already falling into shadow. It was at this hour that the winds suddenly rose, shifting to come directly from the north. In an instant the stag's nostrils flared and he bucked involuntarily. He was abruptly jolted with multiple scents, each distinct and unmistakable. There were the scents of man and of swine. They dwelt together and he could smell their urine, acid and pungent. There was the most fearsome scent of all: the scent of fire. This was not some smoldering Autumn bog fire, but the smell of burning wood. And there was the smell of death. Images of blood upon the snow flashed in his mind. The stag snorted a plume of steam against the wind as he tried to shake off these jarring sensations. The wind burned his eyes and nose fiercely, yet he did not turn to flee. Instead he pawed forward stealthily to just beyond those beech trees. He knelt down into the snow behind the cover of some briar, attempting to hunker down against the wind and still keep a watch to the ground beyond.

The wind sustained at a steady ten knots from the north  The stag's nose continued to be assailed by a rich and heady scent palette, becoming more dominated by fire. Across the flat of land a white smoke drifted and rose as wind got behind it. Far distant, through the rolling shroud, there were now licks of flame dancing before the human dwelling. In the well trodden, muddy foreground the stag could see indistinct shapes moving about randomly. From within the smoke the stag detected the smell of swine. 

The hours of daylight were waning. The stag should have wanted to prepare his return to the deeper forest, yet a curiosity nearly as strong as his hunger gnawed at him. He was drawn to witness this horror. With billowing smoke at his flank the stag rose from the briar and stepped off further into the wood. He began to circle in a long, wide arc through the trees, slowly working his way north. Very deliberately he stalked through the undergrowth tangled throughout the mounds of snow, taking caution in every step that his movements might remain unnoticed. Keeping his nose into the wind he could look off to the right and still catch the occasional glimpse through the trees to the open ground.

After long and painstaking effort the stag had reached a point where he was able to hear them quite clearly in the cold, crisp air. It had reached that hour when the sun beamed it's last rays beneath the clouds before making it's final descent into night. An eerie fog had enveloped the forest, interspersed with light and shadow that frosty, white spectres danced about the air. Those shapes slowly merged into the smoke of their fires at the forest's edge. An occasional glowing opaque flared in the cloud and the stag heard the crackle of licking flames. Within this shroud of mists he felt emboldened to inch his way forward, until coming to rest at a spot a mere ten metres from the clearing.

In the light of the fires the stag had gained a clearer view of the deeply shadowed end of the clearing. Dusk fell early to their little settlement, but there were ample piles of cut wood to burn from the land they had cleared. The stag watched with tears frozen upon his eyes as a small band of men  threw logs into two pits of fire. A steady cascade of embers rose into the air until wind carried them off, floating and spinning away like the dry leaves of Autumn. Above one of these pits the men had arranged a spit where an entire hog had been skewered upon a long pike above the flames. The smell of smoke, blood and roasting flesh was nearly overwhelming, yet the stag was frozen in place. The scene before him was terrifying and captivating at once. There was some silent hand that stayed his flight.

 The clearing had it's last fading hour of daylight. The indistinct shapes the stag had seen spotting the glen before were now clearer. These were the wild swine, and yet they were not. By their scent he knew them, yet they had changed. They were no longer the rough, stumpish  and hairy brutes he had encountered in the past. He recalled beasts of a surly nature with long, leering snouts rooting about the undergrowth of the forest floor. The creatures in the field before him were changed.

Swine were still swine of a sort, but they had become pigs. Their lot was with man now and for it they were indeed changed. Their hides were less tough and absent the coarse hair. They were somewhat taller now, their legs less peggish. Their snouts seemed more stunted than before. Most of all they were larger. Much larger, appearing as a mangy and much bloated version of their former selves. The stag sniffed hard, seeking the scent of them deliberately despite the stinging cold. With a fresh scent of them he experienced another flash image in his mind of the grain fattened mice he had seen at the start of this day.

The stag knew that those mice were easy prey to the swift and keen eyed owls or hawks. And now he knew how pigs had become pigs. They were willing because they were fed. They were fed that they might be fattened. They were fattened that they might be eaten. The stag could tell that surely these pigs were aware of the nature of this arrangement, for they could not but tell the scent of the roasting flesh of one of their own. Out there, upon that very ground before him that afternoon, those same pigs had nosed about the frozen muck fighting each other to dine upon the discarded innards of that hog on the spit.

The stag knew through some indefinable intuition that something had changed in the world. Man was still man, though he had become a swineherd. Swine were still swine, yet accepting man's protection they had become pigs. Even knowing that the swineherd raised them for slaughter the pigs still accepted their protection, even to the point of eating their own. Pigs will be pigs simply because they like being pigs.

 Many more seasons passed and the stag grew quite formidable in stature. He was tall and broad backed and had grown a fearsome and multi-pronged head of antlers. As ever the stag traveled alone and he was seen as one of the mightiest creatures in the forest. Only those who braved the deep forest ever saw him, for it was only very seldom now that the stag ventured afield. It was only on those most grey mornings, or perhaps sometimes at dusk, that the stag was emboldened to venture further into the open ground.

It was on one of those grey, wet dawns in early spring that the stag wandered in from the forest on to the edge of a great plain.  These were the wide, gently rolling downs that led ultimately south to the sea. They were not lands that the stag had ever explored and he only knew small bits upon the periphery. It was when he arrived at the top of a rise in the land that a wind greeted him. It carried the scent of sheep. He knew of these stout creatures, fellow grazers as they were. The stag's encounters with sheep had been infrequent and brief, but he did know that sheep had a great nose for the sweet grass. Where there were sheep there was good grazing. This was enough to draw him onward.

In the muted light the stag stalked his way through the wet growth until he came upon a row of stones. These were not in any natural array, rather they had been arranged as a barrier and stacked to a height of his mid breast. These stones were of the earth, though as they were set they must surely be the work of man. This triggered some caution, though he was compelled by a growing ovine bouquet to press onward.

He followed the path along this wall for some time. The ground had fallen to a slow grade, settling deeper into a vale until he arrived at the low point where morning mists still hung heavy and low to the ground. It was here that he first detected the muted bleating from somewhere quite near the other side of the wall. His ears pricked and fell several times as he tried to capture more sounds. Cautiously the stag edged into ivy and crumbled stone underfoot until coming against the wall and poking his head across the top.

"Hullo? Are you sheep there?", he called out into the fog. His ears again flickered back and forth as he listened for any response. When none came after several moments he called out again, "Hullo?"

He did not have a long wait before his ears and nose were both greeted with the unmistakable stream of sheep urine and the wet thud of their droppings. They could be no more than a few feet beyond where he stood. He began to gingerly step over the notch he had found there in the wall. The stag could easily have vaulted over this gap in one great leap, but stealth more than speed was desired here. He had not attained the seventeen points on his antlers by being impulsive.

Once cleared of the wall he pawed forward gently into the grass. His hindquarters were sprung with every step, prepared to bolt back over the wall at the first sign of any danger. He found the dew still heavy upon all the foliage, streaming down the stalks of the taller plants and soaking the grass below. The mists carried the succulence of this graze, teasing his nose, tempting him: Drink. Drink!

A breath of air came, floating the grey veil aside for a moment. There were three of them standing before him. The first was facing him, about fifteen feet away. The other two faced away or in profile to either side at about twice the distance. The pair in the background appeared as dark grey woolly shadows in the cloud. The first sheep before him was a ewe. He was certain of this by her scent, just as he was certain by scent that these were sheep. Still he could not help sensing that these were somehow different from any sheep he had encountered before. 

The ewe stared blankly ahead, her eyes mere pale opaques fixed in a direction and seeing nothing, They were dead eyes. Her jaws moved incessantly, chewing whatever was left in that maw. This sheep was thicker, had fuller wool than any the stag had seen before. In every physical sense this appeared to be a much sturdier beast than he could recall.

There was a sudden, brief chorus of muted bleating as more sheep began to emerge from the rising fog. They were at once all about him and each was the same. They all shared the same soulless, unseeing eyes, moving as one mindless herd. The first ewe remained with vacant expression in front of him. The stag was left to feel that this space must be safe for grazing, but with each passing moment the sheep surrounding him grew increasingly alien. There was a hint of something unclean.

Still eyeing the herd he bowed down to the ground to taste the dew upon his lips. Then he tore away the first tender morsels. It was indeed  that sweet, tender new grass. He gathered a mouthful and then raised his mighty head high to chew and watch the herd drift through. He pondered, inasmuch as a stag is able, what had become of these poor brutes?

"Tell me, sheep, why do you congregate among these stones? Are these not the works of man?"

There was no response. The sheep went on grazing, there was a random bleating here and there, but there was not even the least acknowledgement of the stag's query. He moved forward a few feet closer to the ewe and sampled from another tuft of greens. He tried to examine her more closely whilst casually grinding away on that mouth of grass. She did not seem to react in any way at all to his presence. He began to wonder if perhaps sheep had somehow been rendered deaf to speech? Or to sound altogether? They seemed rather docile creatures so the stag decided to provoke a response. He tilted his mighty head forward just far enough for the top of his rack to poke gently at the ewe's side.

"Hey! What'cher pokin' me for?" The ewe's tone was indignant, yet her eyes remained blank and unblinking.

"You can hear me?"

"Of course I can hear you! I'm not dea-e-e-ef!"

"Then why did none of you answer before?"

"Because! You're not part of the he-e-e-erd."

"Then why are you talking to me now?"

"Because you poked me! You're a strange looking cow. How did you get horns like that?"

"I am not a cow. I am a stag."

"Oh. Sta-a-a-ag. Where do you come from, sta-a-a-ag?"

"I am from the great forest."

None of the other sheep present took the least bit of interest in this conversation. The stag began to suspect that he might not get any answers, but the grass was sweet and the day was young. At least he had been able to engage one of their number, so he continued.

"You sheep did not arrange all these stones. This had to be done by man."

"Ma-a-a-an, yes. The shepherd. That is the wa-a-a-all."

"Don't you fear man?"

"Man is the shepherd. The shepherd protects us."

"That is the purpose of this wall?"

"Ye-e-e-es."

"Protect you from what?"

"The wolf!"

Amused, the stag took yet another bite from the sweet grass. He stood amid the sheep savoring these tender morsels for a while longer, but he had decided that he would speak with them no more.

The world was indeed changing, though perhaps not as much as the stag had originally thought. Perhaps with his many seasons, having seen and lived so much, he had simply attained a better understanding of the world. The wolf was indeed his natural enemy, but in truth the stag had little to fear from the wolf. The deep forest was their domain to share and each were supreme in their own way. And, in truth, the sheep likewise had little to fear from the wolf. Though the wolf may also be their natural enemy, the sheep did not and could not understand that the cries of their lambs came from the slaughterhouse. The slaughterhouse was built not by wolves, but by the shepherd. The stag understood that the swineherd and the shepherd were the same. Yet pigs and sheep were still quite different from one another. Pigs enjoyed being pigs because they were pigs. Sheep enjoy being sheep simply because they don't know any better.