A change of seasons

This is it. I hope you breathe it all in. I hope all of you tonight walk out of your homes and smell the air because it's going to be the last time it will be this pleasant. In all likelihood, the bombs will be falling by midweek, possibly within 48 hours. This weekend was the last for pre-war protesting at sites around the world. One last shout before the go-team, rah-rah Stockholm Syndrome sets in, when we are first glued to the TV by battle footage and then caught up in the "Proud to be an American/Support Our Troops" mindset. Already, I see flags sprouting on car aerials, akin to their Indian summer bloom after 9/11. I don't envy the anti-war protestors on the first night of bombing.

These are the last good days, the surreal and calm ones before everything changes. Everything will look normal as you go grocery shopping, return that DVD to the rental store, or make out on the couch with your lover. Yet, unlike 9/11 (the last time "everything changed"), we have been given slow-motion foresight to what's coming, thanks to updates on CNN, all fat and happy with pictures of troops and equipment moving into the Middle East. The images are only broken when that sad sourpants known as the U.N. (or Europe, or millions of protestors, or former lawmakers, or CIA analysts...hey, whomever, really) tries to give peace of chance. Damn, you out-of-touch hippies, trying to get in the way of a good time. What's wrong with you? Didn't you get the message? War is fun. War's a good time behind TV screens and on techno-sexy TV studios.

This weekend, I couldn't make it to any of the protests. Maybe I didn't want to make it, subconsciously slowing down my grocery shopping so I could stay away from all the noise and drive-by gestures from the pro-war zealots. This war has been decided already, so I don't think my sign would do much. What I really wanted to do is wait for the next pro-war driver to come tooling by in his pick-up truck or SUV, offering either a thumbs-down or, even better, a Mr. Middle Finger to several dozen people gathering for peace. I wanted to grab him and ask:

"Are you for the war? I mean, are you really for the war? Are you driving now so you can hurry home and sit in your chair, clutching your little USA banner in one hand and a red, white and blue "We're #1!" foam finger in the other. Is your set now glued to CNN or FOX? Have you bothered to turn it off? Are you listening on your talk-radio station for the news that the bombs are dropping, dripping with a cooing, "I'm in love with our bombs" inflection by the announcers? Will you then ache for footage of those butch U.S. troops, decked out in all that Tom Clancy fetish wear, hopping over dunes, shouting "Hoo-ah" and killing any raghead that moves. What about that nifty night vision or maybe the camera footage from bombs going down chimneys? Technology has made leaps and bounds since the first Gulf War. Now we may be lucky enough to see the children's frightened faces on camera before the bomb blows it off of them. And what about your children, hm? Do they know some kids roughly their ages are going to experience "Shock and Awe" without the luxury of a U.S. pundit making it all sterile and ready for the video-game version of the war, coming in July for the Xbox? Have you let your children know that when this all starts, it won't end on our terms? It'll come home many times in the form of a chemical weapon or a suitcase nuke? Do you know that we're all on the frontline now if Bush's little war starts, and nowhere in America is safe? Not your home, not your kid's school, not the mall, not the season ticket seats at the sports stadium, not your fancy SUV. Thank you. Have a nice day."

And then, I would really lose it and attack him, tearing his flesh off in thin strips with my fingers. And that's what zealotry looks like. That's what I'm feeling these days, sarcasm and violence. After all, why not? My government is enjoying its nihilistic freefall of lawlessness and brutality. Why shouldn't I? Maybe I'm wrong when I think there is no room for agreement between the pro-war and anti-war folks. Maybe we're not two different species on the same savannah now. Who knows, maybe the senior editor at my job was right? Maybe when the bombs do drop, a contingent of anti-war folks will transform from a milquetoast Bruce Banner bunch of sign-wavers and marchers into some black-clad Incredible Hulks smashing everything in sight.

And, again, why not? If Team Bush believes that war will being peace, massive deficits and tax cuts will create a sound economy, and its ignorance of world opinion and slews of diplomats means it is leading a "coalition of the willing," then maybe it's not unreasonable for anti-war activists to burn whole cities in the name of international law and nonviolent solutions. Do you think we're pansies now, as we swing baseball bats through SUV windshields and take genetically modified tomatoes to our local Army recruiting stations? Oh, and just wait until the first wave of Molotov cocktails arc through the night air, hitting the local Chevron station. You'll be able to see the blooming mushroom cloud from miles away. It's MOAB, but much cheaper and coming to a neighborhood near you.

Yesterday, I avoided the protests. It's hopeless for now. It's over. I couldn't take all the futile gestures pointing out what a powerful few would never ever want. I was tired of being useless, of shaking off all the drive-by hatred. Yesterday, I didn't need politics; I needed something intimate to which I could recharge my frayed ends. My wife and I headed to Bainbridge Island to see friends, and their new addition...a hedgehog named Rudy. And for a little while, we sat on a living room floor and watched as this little mammal with quills came waddling out of a tiny faux-log cabin home, clicking and huffing in annoyance all the time at our unfamiliar scents. All he cared about was the pile of corn and chicken and bottled bugs that would make up his dinner. He was happy only when climbing on his adopted human mother, Debbie. Debbie and her partner do not have a TV or a radio on in their condo. The only noise, besides from us or the ever-agitated Rudy, came from a CD player sitting stealthy in the corner singing out show tunes. With darkness settling in and the trees visible from the main living room window fading from green to a dusky olive, the condo became a pocket to hide from what's coming. Breathe this in, I thought. Remember the night air, good friends, and a critter in a box circled by a pair of curious young cats who mean no harm.

And after dinner, a dinner where I ordered French fries with my entree and the waifish waitress laughed at loud at the absurdity of it all, I stared up at the moon, moving on a celestial axis to its full, engorged monthly splendor. By March 18, it'll be at its most glorious, the perfect time for U.S. forces to engage in its culling under a blue glow of natural illumination. Silent astronomical splendor means death, and meanwhile your neighborhood will be irradiated by the blue glow of a million television sets tuned to the ultimate reality show, the ultimate edition of "Survivor."

This is it. Change is coming. To be fair, change happens all the time. Cycles of growth and death can be found everywhere in nature. It's only the big things we tend to notice, especially if it gets repeated on TV, a visual partner to the talking heads content-free monologue. For now, I'm staying indoors as much as I can until I can regain my balance. I’m feeling what I can only explain as a primal sense of alarm, where you are compelled to hide until the threat goes rumbling by. I'll do my best to not watch TV, but you know...you really cannot not watch. But this time, change is coming in prime time. It's ready-to-wear off the rack and will be everywhere at once. It'll come marching in with Wagnerian fanfare, dovetailed by commercials for Pepsi, Verizon cell phones and "The Matrix Reloaded" when the networks can spare the airtime. I don't know what the change will result in, but that primal instinct which tells me to hide hands me a bulletin saying terror is coming, and it has friends riding on its grotesque tail.

The symphony has finished playing the overtures and a great silence has come into the hall. Soon, terribly soon, the main program will begin.

Today's Word: Dictate (with minor edits)

From One Word

Forcing one way, jamming a fist down the throat of her body and letting her know she was his puppet, to do which as he pleased. Her blood didn't matter, her screams were pointless. No one would help, no one would care. She was merely a target, a bag of meat that could be forced into a shape, into a dress, into a way of thinking, just by the mere push of sightless words.