“Mama, why do we have a big world?”
Three days ago, Oscar Grant was an eighteen-year-old black kid doing his thing in San Francisco. Yesterday two cops pulled him off a train to Oakland. They pinned him down, unarmed, and shot him in the back. Nobody knows why.
And the little boy said, “Mama, why do we have a big world?”
Stoplights, hybrid streetcars, cigarette smoke dot the night. They twist and sing down Columbus Avenue, across the world. Drifting, my mind – or maybe my soul – computes and comprehends. Conveying madness isn’t easy, I tell you. Don’t even know why I’m writing this. Soon enough the planets will align, magnetic poles will be fucked, and this page – eradicated – won’t mean a thing.
All the love, all the magic and art of what it is to live will be gone. Eons of learning and invention, discoveries of world-changing proportions will be swallowed by the greatest unknown. A gamma burst from some not-so-distant star, or four horsemen, or Barack Obama, or this ancient Mayan calendar have foreseen our doom, I’m told. Wouldn’t it be better for the world to end without knowing it? Will God even let us be right?
The beer mat I’ve written this on is beautiful. I mean it. There’s a watercolor multi-tinted bird gazing absently at me with only one eye, perched on some spindly grass that surely smells wondersome. The cigarette I’m about to smoke will be lovely, too, as I wonder in the micro how it will kill me. What difference does it make?
I’m going to write like the world is already ending. Maybe it is. I’ll play along like war in the Middle East and fear of the bomb are new developments. It’s sad that this, these words are so useless. I feel the most terrible need to put them down.
“Hey, man. Hey! Yeah, you. You know the world is ending, right? Just give it up already.”
There’s the bass solo. I’m so sad it’s over.
After this beer I’m going home. Or at least back to my newest hotel room. I’m staining my own writing with this glass. It’s worth it, I think. Will all this hard living destroy me, or should I be more afraid of the stars coming down? I don’t really know which is more likely.
Let’s collectively cry. Weep for days unseen. Maybe for the first time. Rejoice for years spent living. Pity those whose time is cut short. Sons, daughters – I love you, and I’m sorry. But the postman doesn’t know where to send all these unanswered prayers. Mama, where will this big world go?
“I don’t know, kiddo. I don’t really have a good answer for that one.”
Three days ago, Oscar Grant was an eighteen-year-old black kid doing his thing in San Francisco. Yesterday two cops pulled him off a train to Oakland. They pinned him down, unarmed, and shot him in the back. Nobody knows why.
And the little boy said, “Mama, why do we have a big world?”
Stoplights, hybrid streetcars, cigarette smoke dot the night. They twist and sing down Columbus Avenue, across the world. Drifting, my mind – or maybe my soul – computes and comprehends. Conveying madness isn’t easy, I tell you. Don’t even know why I’m writing this. Soon enough the planets will align, magnetic poles will be fucked, and this page – eradicated – won’t mean a thing.
All the love, all the magic and art of what it is to live will be gone. Eons of learning and invention, discoveries of world-changing proportions will be swallowed by the greatest unknown. A gamma burst from some not-so-distant star, or four horsemen, or Barack Obama, or this ancient Mayan calendar have foreseen our doom, I’m told. Wouldn’t it be better for the world to end without knowing it? Will God even let us be right?
The beer mat I’ve written this on is beautiful. I mean it. There’s a watercolor multi-tinted bird gazing absently at me with only one eye, perched on some spindly grass that surely smells wondersome. The cigarette I’m about to smoke will be lovely, too, as I wonder in the micro how it will kill me. What difference does it make?
I’m going to write like the world is already ending. Maybe it is. I’ll play along like war in the Middle East and fear of the bomb are new developments. It’s sad that this, these words are so useless. I feel the most terrible need to put them down.
“Hey, man. Hey! Yeah, you. You know the world is ending, right? Just give it up already.”
There’s the bass solo. I’m so sad it’s over.
After this beer I’m going home. Or at least back to my newest hotel room. I’m staining my own writing with this glass. It’s worth it, I think. Will all this hard living destroy me, or should I be more afraid of the stars coming down? I don’t really know which is more likely.
Let’s collectively cry. Weep for days unseen. Maybe for the first time. Rejoice for years spent living. Pity those whose time is cut short. Sons, daughters – I love you, and I’m sorry. But the postman doesn’t know where to send all these unanswered prayers. Mama, where will this big world go?
“I don’t know, kiddo. I don’t really have a good answer for that one.”
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