This Is How Freedom Dies: With Thunderous Applause
Funny how, here, it always rains on the fourth...
"The hunting season shouldn't start for another few months!" thought the geese as they pedaled faster, trying to reach safety to their nest along the shore of the lake. Their nest, nestled among the willow and douglas trees and moss; the lake, nestled among the quiet waving foothills. All around, loud booming shots went off, putting out smoke and strange glowing multicolored lights.
The father goose was only a gooseling the previous year, when the same thing had happened, a couple of weeks after the beginning of summer. He was not too young to remember what his parents had told him then, about people's strange habits around this time of the year; he had forgotten, though, the feeling of fear at hearing all the raucus. So he did what any responsible head of a family with four young kids would do; he brought them all to safety. Except, this year, their nest was no longer the cradle of peace he had hoped for. Instead, more fireworks were going off barely thirty feet away. So, not ten minutes later, against the quiet whining of the sleepy gooselings and the anxiety of their mom, they all proceeded back towards the center of the lake, trying to find a quieter spot that might, perhaps, offer the protection they were so desperately seeking.
On shore, away from the source of all the loud noises, the human gooseling screamed, seeking more sparklers; more attention; more... she had forgotten what she was seeking, now, and was screaming because she was tired, rubbing her eyes with her fists as she tried to overcome the noise and her body's desire to sleep.
The fireworks went on for a while, as in the distance the sun inexorably set behind the mountain. I lay down on my back, immune and impervious to the bustling, the whining, the booming and the crackling, and watched the clouds go by. Almost too inert to move, too relaxed to speak; I could but watch, and listen, and take in the world around me. I felt rain drops caress my cheeks, as the clouds continued to gather, and the sun slowly made way to the darkness of the night, pierced only here and there by the bright, effemeral explosions.
As the first bolt of lightning struck, all around cheered at how nature joined in the celebrations. Had the father goose, now - perhaps - in a safer place down the lake, away from the human insanity, joined me in imagining a different, darker alternative, in which nature had decided to punish us instead?
"The hunting season shouldn't start for another few months!" thought the geese as they pedaled faster, trying to reach safety to their nest along the shore of the lake. Their nest, nestled among the willow and douglas trees and moss; the lake, nestled among the quiet waving foothills. All around, loud booming shots went off, putting out smoke and strange glowing multicolored lights.
The father goose was only a gooseling the previous year, when the same thing had happened, a couple of weeks after the beginning of summer. He was not too young to remember what his parents had told him then, about people's strange habits around this time of the year; he had forgotten, though, the feeling of fear at hearing all the raucus. So he did what any responsible head of a family with four young kids would do; he brought them all to safety. Except, this year, their nest was no longer the cradle of peace he had hoped for. Instead, more fireworks were going off barely thirty feet away. So, not ten minutes later, against the quiet whining of the sleepy gooselings and the anxiety of their mom, they all proceeded back towards the center of the lake, trying to find a quieter spot that might, perhaps, offer the protection they were so desperately seeking.
On shore, away from the source of all the loud noises, the human gooseling screamed, seeking more sparklers; more attention; more... she had forgotten what she was seeking, now, and was screaming because she was tired, rubbing her eyes with her fists as she tried to overcome the noise and her body's desire to sleep.
The fireworks went on for a while, as in the distance the sun inexorably set behind the mountain. I lay down on my back, immune and impervious to the bustling, the whining, the booming and the crackling, and watched the clouds go by. Almost too inert to move, too relaxed to speak; I could but watch, and listen, and take in the world around me. I felt rain drops caress my cheeks, as the clouds continued to gather, and the sun slowly made way to the darkness of the night, pierced only here and there by the bright, effemeral explosions.
As the first bolt of lightning struck, all around cheered at how nature joined in the celebrations. Had the father goose, now - perhaps - in a safer place down the lake, away from the human insanity, joined me in imagining a different, darker alternative, in which nature had decided to punish us instead?