Meditate on This!
It was a Tuesday, Tuesday November 6, 2012 to be exact. I only remember because it was Election Day… again. The last four years were a blur, really. Time seemed to be speeding up, so much so that I had forgotten my own birthday two years in a row now. How does that happen, you ask? It’s easy when no one calls to remind you. Some people don’t care about their birthday after their twenties, except maybe for the big ones. I always try to remember, though. It reminds me that I am actually alive and not just dreaming this.
Christmas, now that’s a different story, but one that shares a striking resemblance to the story I am about to tell you nonetheless. There is no forgetting Christmas, especially not now that, well, He’s back. You should have seen his Myspace page, two billion friends and growing. That’s, of course, before most of them disappeared. Still, I’m proud to say that I was one of them, and I’m still here. I’m getting ahead of myself though, and by the time I finish this thought my nails will have grown out again. I have to clip them every twenty three minutes or they start to really interfere with my driving. Not that that’s any of your concern. What is of your concern is the fact that time really was speeding up, and fast. It was going faster than you might imagine, or more accurately, as fast as you might imagine.
The accelerating time anomaly had become a public awareness issue, as someone from the Wall Street Journal had done an outstanding piece on the work of late ethno-botanical researcher and philosopher Terence McKenna. McKenna’s proposal was of a concept called Timewave Zero, which predicted the end of time as we know it in accordance with the Mayan calender, the I-Ching, and some kind of chaos math. For some reason the republished material caught on quickly around the water cooler during the months leading up to Election Day.
By the time things started speeding up, people were ready, or they thought they were ready. With speed comes excitement, and the day after the election the world spun faster than it ever had. The first few weeks went by without much actually happening however, so let’s just jump ahead to next month. That shouldn’t be too difficult, the way things are speeding up around here. The first important detail concerns the Disappearance.
It was a Friday, Friday December 21st, 2008 to be exact. Rumors spread the previous night that President Sarah Palin had declared martial law for undisclosed reasons, and by morning half of the population was just gone. The headlines that ran that morning read “Palin cleans up America,” with a picture of her shaking hands with the great Buddhist teacher, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, outside of a Dairy Queen.
The paper-reading quarter of the remaining population had no idea what the intended message was, but perhaps in an effort to lend an air of authority to the inexplicable, people really got behind it. The consequences were practically instantaneous, the entire country went Buddhist. The anticipated martial law headline now seemed like a bad joke. That is until Christmas rolled around, and time sort of just… froze. Martial law was declared, but not by President Palin because she, too, had disappeared.
Her Vice President was a relative unknown, a man by the name of Kent Z. Coattails. I watched a live Youtube feed on my iPhone as Kent Z. Coattails was inaugurated. His Holiness the Dalai Lama was there, along with what seemed like an unusually disproportionate delegation of Mexican and Central American ambassadors. What was even more unusual was the ceremonial dance the soon-to-be appointed President appeared to be performing. He swooped around the podium, arms spread out like a hawk, and shook his butt now and again in a self-congratulatory manner. The ambassadors had formed a line on both sides of the stage and clapped their hands in unison while he danced. As he approached the microphone, the ambassadors began to cheer and shout “Medite en Esto!”
Coattails placed one hand on a book lying on the podium, and raised the other in the air, as he took his new position in office. Then he picked up the book and opened it. Clearing his throat, he exclaimed "Meditate on this!" As far as campaign slogans go, it was probably the least specific and most confusing political rallying cry ever. Then he began to read. It was a passage from the Tibetan Book of the Dead concerning the many symbolic illusions of life. The Dalai Lama just sat there smiling. Then the Youtube feed buffered for a second. When the broadcast resumed the Dalai Lama was dead. Time had finally caught up with itself.
That was on December 25th, 2008, what would have been four years ago. I sat at a train crossing, waiting as a train went speeding by, wondering how things could move without the passage of time. I sat in the driver’s seat of a rental U-Haul that I had all my worldly possessions in. So this is Nebraska, I thought, remembering a friend who had lived here back when, well, when people still lived here. The sunset spread out over open fields for as far as I could see. It defied probability, but the Disappearance had taken entire states, and had left others completely alone. How did I get so lucky, you may ask? I lived in Kentucky, that’s how. I lived in a little town called Windy Hills, just outside of Louisville. I realized just then that there is absolutely nothing keeping me here, just as there was nothing keeping me there… nothing except this train crossing with its flashing lights and warning bell, breaking the silence of Interstate 80.
I had been driving for what should have been four days, but was actually an indeterminable passage of a substance other than time. I did, however, have the distinct impression it was Christmas... again. Then suddenly it came like a fleeting glimpse of some long remembered dream. There I was sitting by a fire in my pajamas, an eight-year-old wearing a feathered serpent mask, when I heard a train whistle. I turned to look in its direction but there was just a Christmas tree, and Mom holding a mug and a steaming kettle.
“Would you like some tea with breakfast, Dear?” she asked me.
I looked back at myself to see what I would say, but I was already gone. I wish I could say it made me feel something, like it reminded me of home. I wish I could say it was beautiful. Sunset fueled nostalgia often is, you know, but I just sat there and watched this one burn. The train cars sped by one by one, their silhouettes beginning to blur like ghosts in both directions. They twisted lazily for miles, their metal bodies black against the fleeting orange and purple sky. I watched as the last one disappeared into the horizon.
Suddenly, there was a knock on my window, shocking me from my revelry. I hadn’t noticed anyone pull up behind me. As I lowered the window, a pair of sunglasses met my gaze, their reflection bouncing off the dying sky. I instantly recognized the uniform. It bore the symbol of the crowned elephant. Unfortunately for me, it wasn’t my party of choice, but thankfully, he didn’t need to know that.
“Praise be to the 33rd Avatar of Ganesh, Her Lady Sarah. RFID scan please,” the officer said.
I held out my right wrist politely, palm upturned, as he waved a wand over it.
“What’s in the truck?” the officer asked.
“I’m moving,” I replied.
The officer practically jumped back a foot. Looking shocked, his hand went right to his gun. “How is that even possible?”
“I was just wondering the same thing,” I assured him.
He took his hand off his holster, looking vaguely relieved, yet still slightly suspicious. “Where you moving to?”
“Crescent Junction, Utah,” I tried to say as casually as possible, though I could barely believe it myself.
“Why there?”
Because I’m on the run, I thought. Because it’s the only place left on earth to go. Because, Hell, Jesus told me to go there. “Work related.”
“What line of work you in?” The wand beeped and a green light flashed. “Ah, answered my own question. Chaz McMichaelson. Says here you’re Secret Service.”
“That’s right.”
The officer still didn’t look convinced. “Well, Chaz, you look a little too secretive if you ask me. I mean, Christ, look at your fingernails. Where did you come from?”
“Kentucky.”
He seemed to warm up to that. “Kentucky boy, eh? I got sixteen cousins there. Boy was I glad when I heard they got left outta this whole mess. Man, I tell you what though, they drug my ass out here from Washington D.C. Direct orders from the top. Said something big is goin’ down in Nebraska. I’ve been out here every day waiting, but there ain’t shit happening in Nebraska. You know why? ‘Cause no one’s here! You’re the first person I’ve seen since I been out here! Tell me something Chaz, you know what’s going on?”
I breathed a sigh of relief. The officer looked genuinely confused. This guy was stupid, obvious, or both, I thought, then realized that didn’t really make any sense. President Coattails’ administration seemed to make less sense, however. It seemed he had absolutely no idea what to do with his people, randomly sending them on missions to nowhere. Then it occurred to me, what if it was me they were after? What if Coattails’ secret service intercepted my friend request from Jesus and ignored the reincarnated savior’s “Super-Secret” subject headers?
I played dumb because, except for my orders from Christ, I was just as in the dark as he was. Here we were, just a couple of secret service guys under orders, sitting on opposite sides of the same fence, or whirlpool. Whirlpool? I better just stop having thoughts, I thought. “Can’t say that I do.” I finally replied. “Time seems to be speeding up, that’s all. I’m under orders, just like you.” I looked down at my hands. “You think I like my fingernails like this?”
“I guess I’m wondering why mine ain’t doin’ that.” The officer took off his gloves and held up his well trimmed nails. They were coated in a thick, black polish. “Although I tell you what, I bet you could get yourself in Guinness Book of World Records real quick that way. First thing you do when you get to Utah is look into that.”
I had about as much as I could take. “Thank you. I will. Well, gotta go. Orders, you know.” I was just starting to wind up the window when my iPhone beeped. Incoming call. It was Jesus. I ignored it.
The officer tilted his head to the side. “Oh, and Chaz?”
My heart nearly jumped out of my chest. I was sure the officer heard it. No calls allowed since the Disappearance. Why didn’t I wind up the window faster? This was it, I was done for. If he knew who I was working for I was as good as…
“Good luck!” The officer smiled and turned abruptly to go. I just sat and waited for my heart to calm down, until he got back in his car and sped off. As he pulled out past me I noticed his bumper sticker which read “She Disappeared for your Sins” underneath a picture of a young misshapen elephant. The combined disappearance of President Palin and the death of the Dalai Lama had caused some unexpected cross-cultural pollinations. At the great Buddhist teacher’s funeral, President Coattails made some ridiculous speech about how the word Pali in Sanskrit had been incorrectly written in the Vedas, and it was actually Palin. He said how lucky his buddy Sarah was that she had been spared, unlike the Dalai Lama, and that wasn’t Armageddon a funny thing.
Trying to make sense of his speech, an editorial illustrator had interpreted Pali to actually mean young elephant, and went a step further to associate it with the Buddhist good-luck god Ganesh. How this applied to President Palin was unknown, but soon portrayals of her with an extended trunk for a nose, holding a lotus flower in one hand and an axe in the other, started popping up everywhere.
The officer had gone. I was just sitting there, hands on the wheel, staring into space when my iPhone beeped again. I reached down to answer it, but my fingernails got in the way. I looked at the screen. “C’mon! Hurry Up! We gotta save the world!” the text read. God, Jesus was impatient. I took a deep breath, and closed my eyes. In my mind’s eye a picture of the Dalai Lama suddenly appeared, its resolution verging on total abstraction. Yet there he was, winking and giving a big OK sign with his thumb and forefinger. It was the end of the world as I knew it, and suddenly I realized I felt fine. In fact, I had never felt better.
Christmas, now that’s a different story, but one that shares a striking resemblance to the story I am about to tell you nonetheless. There is no forgetting Christmas, especially not now that, well, He’s back. You should have seen his Myspace page, two billion friends and growing. That’s, of course, before most of them disappeared. Still, I’m proud to say that I was one of them, and I’m still here. I’m getting ahead of myself though, and by the time I finish this thought my nails will have grown out again. I have to clip them every twenty three minutes or they start to really interfere with my driving. Not that that’s any of your concern. What is of your concern is the fact that time really was speeding up, and fast. It was going faster than you might imagine, or more accurately, as fast as you might imagine.
The accelerating time anomaly had become a public awareness issue, as someone from the Wall Street Journal had done an outstanding piece on the work of late ethno-botanical researcher and philosopher Terence McKenna. McKenna’s proposal was of a concept called Timewave Zero, which predicted the end of time as we know it in accordance with the Mayan calender, the I-Ching, and some kind of chaos math. For some reason the republished material caught on quickly around the water cooler during the months leading up to Election Day.
By the time things started speeding up, people were ready, or they thought they were ready. With speed comes excitement, and the day after the election the world spun faster than it ever had. The first few weeks went by without much actually happening however, so let’s just jump ahead to next month. That shouldn’t be too difficult, the way things are speeding up around here. The first important detail concerns the Disappearance.
It was a Friday, Friday December 21st, 2008 to be exact. Rumors spread the previous night that President Sarah Palin had declared martial law for undisclosed reasons, and by morning half of the population was just gone. The headlines that ran that morning read “Palin cleans up America,” with a picture of her shaking hands with the great Buddhist teacher, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, outside of a Dairy Queen.
The paper-reading quarter of the remaining population had no idea what the intended message was, but perhaps in an effort to lend an air of authority to the inexplicable, people really got behind it. The consequences were practically instantaneous, the entire country went Buddhist. The anticipated martial law headline now seemed like a bad joke. That is until Christmas rolled around, and time sort of just… froze. Martial law was declared, but not by President Palin because she, too, had disappeared.
Her Vice President was a relative unknown, a man by the name of Kent Z. Coattails. I watched a live Youtube feed on my iPhone as Kent Z. Coattails was inaugurated. His Holiness the Dalai Lama was there, along with what seemed like an unusually disproportionate delegation of Mexican and Central American ambassadors. What was even more unusual was the ceremonial dance the soon-to-be appointed President appeared to be performing. He swooped around the podium, arms spread out like a hawk, and shook his butt now and again in a self-congratulatory manner. The ambassadors had formed a line on both sides of the stage and clapped their hands in unison while he danced. As he approached the microphone, the ambassadors began to cheer and shout “Medite en Esto!”
Coattails placed one hand on a book lying on the podium, and raised the other in the air, as he took his new position in office. Then he picked up the book and opened it. Clearing his throat, he exclaimed "Meditate on this!" As far as campaign slogans go, it was probably the least specific and most confusing political rallying cry ever. Then he began to read. It was a passage from the Tibetan Book of the Dead concerning the many symbolic illusions of life. The Dalai Lama just sat there smiling. Then the Youtube feed buffered for a second. When the broadcast resumed the Dalai Lama was dead. Time had finally caught up with itself.
That was on December 25th, 2008, what would have been four years ago. I sat at a train crossing, waiting as a train went speeding by, wondering how things could move without the passage of time. I sat in the driver’s seat of a rental U-Haul that I had all my worldly possessions in. So this is Nebraska, I thought, remembering a friend who had lived here back when, well, when people still lived here. The sunset spread out over open fields for as far as I could see. It defied probability, but the Disappearance had taken entire states, and had left others completely alone. How did I get so lucky, you may ask? I lived in Kentucky, that’s how. I lived in a little town called Windy Hills, just outside of Louisville. I realized just then that there is absolutely nothing keeping me here, just as there was nothing keeping me there… nothing except this train crossing with its flashing lights and warning bell, breaking the silence of Interstate 80.
I had been driving for what should have been four days, but was actually an indeterminable passage of a substance other than time. I did, however, have the distinct impression it was Christmas... again. Then suddenly it came like a fleeting glimpse of some long remembered dream. There I was sitting by a fire in my pajamas, an eight-year-old wearing a feathered serpent mask, when I heard a train whistle. I turned to look in its direction but there was just a Christmas tree, and Mom holding a mug and a steaming kettle.
“Would you like some tea with breakfast, Dear?” she asked me.
I looked back at myself to see what I would say, but I was already gone. I wish I could say it made me feel something, like it reminded me of home. I wish I could say it was beautiful. Sunset fueled nostalgia often is, you know, but I just sat there and watched this one burn. The train cars sped by one by one, their silhouettes beginning to blur like ghosts in both directions. They twisted lazily for miles, their metal bodies black against the fleeting orange and purple sky. I watched as the last one disappeared into the horizon.
Suddenly, there was a knock on my window, shocking me from my revelry. I hadn’t noticed anyone pull up behind me. As I lowered the window, a pair of sunglasses met my gaze, their reflection bouncing off the dying sky. I instantly recognized the uniform. It bore the symbol of the crowned elephant. Unfortunately for me, it wasn’t my party of choice, but thankfully, he didn’t need to know that.
“Praise be to the 33rd Avatar of Ganesh, Her Lady Sarah. RFID scan please,” the officer said.
I held out my right wrist politely, palm upturned, as he waved a wand over it.
“What’s in the truck?” the officer asked.
“I’m moving,” I replied.
The officer practically jumped back a foot. Looking shocked, his hand went right to his gun. “How is that even possible?”
“I was just wondering the same thing,” I assured him.
He took his hand off his holster, looking vaguely relieved, yet still slightly suspicious. “Where you moving to?”
“Crescent Junction, Utah,” I tried to say as casually as possible, though I could barely believe it myself.
“Why there?”
Because I’m on the run, I thought. Because it’s the only place left on earth to go. Because, Hell, Jesus told me to go there. “Work related.”
“What line of work you in?” The wand beeped and a green light flashed. “Ah, answered my own question. Chaz McMichaelson. Says here you’re Secret Service.”
“That’s right.”
The officer still didn’t look convinced. “Well, Chaz, you look a little too secretive if you ask me. I mean, Christ, look at your fingernails. Where did you come from?”
“Kentucky.”
He seemed to warm up to that. “Kentucky boy, eh? I got sixteen cousins there. Boy was I glad when I heard they got left outta this whole mess. Man, I tell you what though, they drug my ass out here from Washington D.C. Direct orders from the top. Said something big is goin’ down in Nebraska. I’ve been out here every day waiting, but there ain’t shit happening in Nebraska. You know why? ‘Cause no one’s here! You’re the first person I’ve seen since I been out here! Tell me something Chaz, you know what’s going on?”
I breathed a sigh of relief. The officer looked genuinely confused. This guy was stupid, obvious, or both, I thought, then realized that didn’t really make any sense. President Coattails’ administration seemed to make less sense, however. It seemed he had absolutely no idea what to do with his people, randomly sending them on missions to nowhere. Then it occurred to me, what if it was me they were after? What if Coattails’ secret service intercepted my friend request from Jesus and ignored the reincarnated savior’s “Super-Secret” subject headers?
I played dumb because, except for my orders from Christ, I was just as in the dark as he was. Here we were, just a couple of secret service guys under orders, sitting on opposite sides of the same fence, or whirlpool. Whirlpool? I better just stop having thoughts, I thought. “Can’t say that I do.” I finally replied. “Time seems to be speeding up, that’s all. I’m under orders, just like you.” I looked down at my hands. “You think I like my fingernails like this?”
“I guess I’m wondering why mine ain’t doin’ that.” The officer took off his gloves and held up his well trimmed nails. They were coated in a thick, black polish. “Although I tell you what, I bet you could get yourself in Guinness Book of World Records real quick that way. First thing you do when you get to Utah is look into that.”
I had about as much as I could take. “Thank you. I will. Well, gotta go. Orders, you know.” I was just starting to wind up the window when my iPhone beeped. Incoming call. It was Jesus. I ignored it.
The officer tilted his head to the side. “Oh, and Chaz?”
My heart nearly jumped out of my chest. I was sure the officer heard it. No calls allowed since the Disappearance. Why didn’t I wind up the window faster? This was it, I was done for. If he knew who I was working for I was as good as…
“Good luck!” The officer smiled and turned abruptly to go. I just sat and waited for my heart to calm down, until he got back in his car and sped off. As he pulled out past me I noticed his bumper sticker which read “She Disappeared for your Sins” underneath a picture of a young misshapen elephant. The combined disappearance of President Palin and the death of the Dalai Lama had caused some unexpected cross-cultural pollinations. At the great Buddhist teacher’s funeral, President Coattails made some ridiculous speech about how the word Pali in Sanskrit had been incorrectly written in the Vedas, and it was actually Palin. He said how lucky his buddy Sarah was that she had been spared, unlike the Dalai Lama, and that wasn’t Armageddon a funny thing.
Trying to make sense of his speech, an editorial illustrator had interpreted Pali to actually mean young elephant, and went a step further to associate it with the Buddhist good-luck god Ganesh. How this applied to President Palin was unknown, but soon portrayals of her with an extended trunk for a nose, holding a lotus flower in one hand and an axe in the other, started popping up everywhere.
The officer had gone. I was just sitting there, hands on the wheel, staring into space when my iPhone beeped again. I reached down to answer it, but my fingernails got in the way. I looked at the screen. “C’mon! Hurry Up! We gotta save the world!” the text read. God, Jesus was impatient. I took a deep breath, and closed my eyes. In my mind’s eye a picture of the Dalai Lama suddenly appeared, its resolution verging on total abstraction. Yet there he was, winking and giving a big OK sign with his thumb and forefinger. It was the end of the world as I knew it, and suddenly I realized I felt fine. In fact, I had never felt better.