A CLOTHESLINE OF CONSCIENCE

 WHAT IT IS

An enduring dust, fine and determined, hung in the air like a bride’s veil, unwilling and unwavering as it witnessed a solitary bee climb high up a white pine for a final look around, knowing all too well that nothing is ever final. To scrutinize this mishap of finality, the observer might ignore a tunnel vision of events that grew heavier by the decree or, on the other hand, rely on a reliable dexterity of the mind and of the form;  the solitary bee certainly could do this, as could Feather. Through the orangey haze, Feather stood, her sword’s tip resting in the dust, a zombie grip glued to the hilt and her eyes transfixed on the desecration of the entrance where the one hundred women once lived. Sentenced by supreme tribunals, misogynist messengers and assorted cave dwellers, their principles drooped off the clothesline of conscience and would remain until another battle cry of common sense hammered at the endless farce as it was reborn again and again and again. This circle of foreverness, with its chauvinistic capers and adolescent musings is a glue in the arsenal that drags us back to the good ole days when the color was white, the religion was travesty and freedom was bought and sold at the market. As it languishes in a stupor of its own creation, inebriated by loathe and mistrust, the supremacist’s edicts are scattered into the winds of the future where much heavier lifting will be required to set the record straight. To all of this, the cat in the window yawned, then chirped wildly as the solitary bee flew from the tree and landed on the window sill to get a final look around. 

WHAT IT IS NOT

With a death glare on what was ahead, No.1 crawled along the edge of the runway, his body coated in a brown gunk from the early morning dew and the fine dust. A million others followed, shaking the stubby crab grasses along the runway’s edge as the brown hordes inched toward their final objective. Unlike other conscripts whose soulless battle of misinformation and disinformation is the blueprint that keeps the trenches muddy and howitzers blaring, those behind No.1 knew their death was certain and were determined to save their enemy from the madhouse that became their everyday lives. No.1’s fight was not Putinistic; no infanticide, no debauchery, no mass murder, only a simple message to a complex problem, where the complexity was not found in the solution, was not found in the message and was not found inside the many who embodied a remedy but rested in that lazy part of the brain where something may or may not get done. To dither on what must be done to save a species, to save your own species might be considered one of the great wonders of the world, but here it was gawking at an insect army ready to save a species from itself. To all of this, the cat in the window yawned, in existence for ten million years and hopefully a few million more.