An Unveiling From a Creeping Darkness

I open my eyes after a long nights sleep. Groggy, my room blurry. I pat the dog, lying besides me...1 & 2 & 3 times. He, with half open eyes, glances my way followed by a big, goofy yawn, he flops his head back down on the comforter. Obviously, he is not ready to greet this day.

One foot, and then another foot, they both finally plop on the ground below me, and I some how creek my skeletal bones to a stand, so to stumble my shuffling legs towards the bathroom. I am not even really awake, but what do I do? I sit down and pick up my phone to scroll through one of my social media accounts. As usual the information in front of me is brutal. No cute kitties or puppies anymore. Just most of the time, brutal, angry and hateful words... anymore... Headlines of people shooting people down, splash across my pages with commentary by people verbally shooting each other down in response to this daily bloodshed. The violence seems to crescendo to a full symphony as I peruse comment after comment.

Ten minutes after I wake up, my stomach is already churning and my head is already pounding. My anxiety has found it's regular spot in the middle of my chest, and it feels like a bundle with the density of a small rock. I think, "I can't stand this anymore! I got to get off of my poisonous hamster wheel of what seems like a slow dying! I must!"

I sit daydreaming of days I felt full, and nourished to assuage the sickening happening to me. Days I remember smiling effortlessly. In this reverie, my eyes wander to an old copy of Homer's Odyssey, now thrown into my book basket, haphazardly, without care or concern. Apathetically, I run my fingers over the cover of my once loved book, and flip through the pages. The first line - "Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven far journeys, after he had sacked Troy's sacred citadel..."(pg 27) - beacons me back to a thrill and excitement I felt inside my cells when I once clamored to find out what would happen next to the man who sacked Troy.

I ache deeply inside, as this memory floats daintily through my mind. I was so alive and spirited then. A time, not blanketed in these days covered in a dark veil of death. I think, "I must come back! Put this glowing screen filled with hate and rage down! This screen, with ideas and notions most likely created by the scheming's of bots and algorithms, and not really by the minds of humans. Find the humans words that offer love, philosophy, tales, science and adventure to fill my mind with! Do so, because you are dying in this world, do so, because you must find the way to breathe again so you can live!"

My chest fills with grief for all the loss I have felt over these last several years while my cells were inundated by I phones, tablets, androids and social media. To be fair, I am not an innocent here. I chose to avert my eyes from my cherished books and stories, and follow the pull of those tantalizing glowing screens. But, no more! This must happen no more!

I shall go back to the pages of Homer, and Mary Oliver, perhaps Antoine De Saint Exupery, or Daisaku Ikeda, or perhaps Martin Luther King Jr! No matter, there is a world full of libraries, book stores, and kindles to feed my soul with the voices of humans. To fill my heart with the voices of HUMANS!

The musings of a Mariposa