That Creeping Feeling

Some horror films, especially those with half a dozen sequels, are very melodramatic in style, presenting one or more people walking into a situation where the audience knows danger to lurk but the characters have no inkling of that danger, or haven’t admitted it. Scene by excruciating scene, the plot unfolds, the author having arranged matters so that the helpless characters cannot see ordinary safety unraveling all about.

Climate change is like that. It unfolds slowly, patiently, its plot never moving in a straight line, making sure that there’s every reason for most of the characters to to feel comfortable. As with a good melodrama, a few characters are aware of the problem and they struggle to warn the others, but always to no avail as a gruesome ending becomes increasingly inevitable.

The sick plot twist here is that we are the authors and we are the ones arranging for our own complacency, even in the face of the clues our fellow characters have discovered. It feels sometimes like the people who know what’s really going on are locked in a sound-proof plexiglass room, able to see out clearly, watching it unfold, but powerless to stop it or even to just get a message out.

Would that it were just a sci-fi or horror movie, or even a simple nightmare from which one could awaken.

* * * * *

Cancer is a subtle enemy. It presents itself in such small ways, almost imperceptibly. We may see signs, but hope we don’t. It creeps. Worst of all, it accelerates.

We want to control its rate, to force it to be linear, measured, paced. But try as we might, we cannot hold it still. It resists commands.

We seek to impose onto it, by force of will, by clutching at every definition and argument we can lay our fingers upon, that it must move, change, or grow only when we say.

We command of it a cartoon physics that says it will not bite us until we look, and then we steadfastly refuse to look.

As with all things Death, we are skilled at ways of looking away from it, hoping that if we don’t meet its direct gaze, it won’t come for us today. We hope it will simply walk past, taking no notice, our apparent indifference having saved us.

Climate change is like that, too.

* * * * *

Author's Notes:

These are just my subjective impressions. Please comment accordingly.
(We'll do objectivity another day.)

Originally published November 8, 2010 at Open Salon, where I wrote under my own name, Kent Pitman.

Tags (from Open Salon): acceleration, accelerates, creeping, creepy, death, denial, pace, cartoon physics, cancer, novel, mystery, escape, melodrama, warning, warn, cassandra, paradigm, sense, feeling, emotional, emotion, visualization, analogy, metaphor, global warming, climate change, politics

"That's How I Operate"

This story is a response to the contest announced by Gary Justis in his post Gushing Fiction, where he asked people to write an essay explaining the identity, name, and function of the item in the above picture.

I didn't see anyone else writing the 500-2000 words he says he requires of his students, so I kept mine short, too. As for it being an “essay,” this probably isn't the most traditional format for that. But I hope it's close enough.

“That looks ridiculous.”

“Well, at least I’m not boring you.”

“That’s a laugh. The truth is you wish you were boring me.”

“Fair enough. But you need to get better. So you’re really going to have to open up a little.”

“I don’t want you screwing around inside my head.”

“It’s nothing personal. It’s how I operate.”

“Oh yeah? With that ridiculous thing sticking out of your forehead? What is that?”

“It’s a doorknob.”

“A doorknob. In the middle of your forehead. Why? To show me how open-minded you are?”

“Actually, yes.”

“It makes you look like Mr. Potatohead.”

“Who?”

“Never mind. Just a toy my owner said she had when she was growing up.”

“Do you want to see inside my head? It’s not every day—”

“I’ll take your word for it. Besides, if I don’t open your access panel, I can think of you as closed-minded instead.”

“Another joke. If I hadn’t done a circuit analysis, I’d say your CPU was in top form and didn’t even need this upgrade.”

“Ok, ok. I give up. You can bore into me and do the upgrade.”

“Great. Hang on second while I replace this doorknob with—”

“Something more practical?”

“That’s right. A laser attachment. It’s how I operate.”

“A minute ago you said you operated with a doorknob.”

“Whatever it takes to get you to open up.”

“I think when my neural net matures, I’ll be a surgeon.”

“So you can help other robots like I do?”

“No, so I can have the tools to wipe that silly smile off your face. It’s starting to bug me even more than the doorknob.”

“I’ll look forward to it. I’m pretty tired of it myself. I've always thought it makes me look like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz. Lie back now, and count to eighteen quintillion four hundred and forty-six quadrillion seven hundred and forty-four trillion seventy-three billion seven hundred and nine million five hundred and fifty-one thousand six hundred and fifteen. This should just take a moment.”

---

Author's Notes: If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.

Originally published January 7, 2009 at Open Salon, where I wrote under my own name, Kent Pitman.

This post tied for “first runner up” in Gary's contest.

The number, since readers asked, is 2⁶⁴ – 1.

Tags (from Open Salon): stories, thought exercise, writing exercise, exercise, jumpstart, things, mystery, humor, something to do on a sunday afternoon, photo, photograph, interpretation, rorschach, contest, open call, gary justis