Prelude
Good morning Feelers— the hits just keep coming, don’t they? The weird unidentified objects getting shot down? The train derailments? Chaos abounds. If we haven’t already faced down enough troubling, apocalyptic notions in the last three years, now we’ve got UFO’s and chemical spills and whatever else that is sure to be happening but otherwise cloaked in secrecy. I have been—somewhat blissfully—disconnected from the feed while I’ve been training into my new job. There’s no time to doom-scroll midday (but not because I’m crying in the bathroom hating my job) which feels like an unexpected employment perk. When I’m done for the day, I have more pressing things to do, like go for a walk, work out, eat dinner, write, or take a bath. Thus, I’m just not on my phone as much. It’s pretty awesome. However, when I started hearing little snippets about an unidentified object having not one, but two missiles shot at it, or a train derailing in Ohio, carrying horrid chemicals including some of the ingredients for nerve gas, well… I felt a little disconnected from what was happening in the world. I thought I should plug right back in, catch up on the latest horrors. I felt scared. Then… I didn’t plug back in. I felt the pull, and tried to reevaluate: what exactly is plugging back in going to yield me? Stress? Worry? The urge to go drop $200 on (more) various survival gear for my (sad) bug-out bag? This time, I said no, thanks. I’m good, at least for this week. In fact, I’m already actively steeped in stories of potential end-times, thanks to Hollywood. I’m really plugged in to one of these stories right now, along with 7.5 million others: The Last of Us on HBO. It’s even the subject of today’s poem.
We are no strangers to apocalyptic stories. They’ve been with us since biblical times and have only segmented out to vast degree. Our projected collapse has taken many forms: aliens, natural disaster, pandemic, asteroids, fungi, fire and brimstone. We’re obsessed, and I totally get it; remember, we are animals that developed consciousness and self-awareness, but we are, nonetheless, still animals. Animals reckoning with questions the rest of our animal brethren are not plagued with (lucky them?). We think about the purpose of life. Why are we here? How did we get here? Where did we come from? Where will we go? What happens when we die? It’s a lot to consider. Now, ask those questions to your dog. Notice that their tail still wags; they still imagine you as their North Star. They’re not overwhelming their nervous systems thinking about end times. They’re not worrying themselves into a diseased state. They’re right here, right now, loving the way your voice sounds and the way a scratch feels. Us, on the other hand— how could we not be obsessed with the proverbial end? There are so many options. So many iterations.
With the recent release of The Last of Us and my subsequent viewing, I finally realized why I love watching apocalyptic films: there’s only one thing left at that point in survival, and it’s exceedingly poetic. The Last of Us is crushing viewership worldwide because it is focusing on this very tenant and diving deep into end-time relationships, be they romantic or platonic or familial. I won’t go on— that’s basically the crux of the poem, but I am curious— how is everyone feeling, what with all of the ongoing turmoil, and are you watching The Last of Us? I hope you are well, and that maybe you are choosing to not plug in, too. Let’s go outside and lay in the sun. I like that plan better. XO, HW.
The Poem
In The End
I watch a show about the end of the world. There is a hunger in me to know. There is a fear in me that somewhere amidst Hollywood’s array of potential endings is a kernel of truth. This time, a fungus has infected mostly everyone, rendering them monsters. A man who lost everything, but survived, is charged with transporting a young girl, west. No matter the story, despite the bloodshed and fear and imminent death, I am relieved to see that even in the end, when it comes, what scares us most is never the fungus or aliens or asteroid, but love. To love and lose is terrifying but love is the only reason to go on. I realize I do not watch these shows to approximate our own demise. I watch them to remember that love is the only tattered parcel we will carry in the end, in our shaking hands. Love is the only thing that will carry us, battered and weary, through that final door.
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