So nerds around the world have beaten the whole Thanos snap thing to death. There’s probably something to be said for the whole “Went for the heart” vs. “Should have gone for the head” thing… I may have to ponder that more– or at least Google it.
But by now, if you’re a Marvel fan or know one, or if you’ve been paying attention to any kind of social media over the past few years, you’re aware of this scene from INFINITY WAR:
Oh, you didn’t see it? Sorry about that… but tell me, how was solitary confinement in a Super-Max penitentiary?
Anyhow, not going to beleaguer this tonight. I’ve had my fill of #SaferAtHome, feeling trapped and abandoned and lost and very WTF about everything. “Surreal” doesn’t capture it. Incredulous, maybe. Despondent? Yeah, that.
When Thanos did his thing, trillions of living things disappeared (I think the movie said billions, but you gotta figure that with ten quintillion insects alone on Earth (that’s 10,000,000,000,000,000,000… or ten billion billion) we’re talking about some serious 50% figures, here.
And it dawned on me, particularly in my “what the fuck happened?” phase I find myself in, that there were probably lots and lots of living things that just didn’t matter to anyone. Some soulless brine shrimp swimming around an alkaline lake in the middle of nowhere probably wasn’t mourned by anything or anyone; and those god-awful pigeons that line up to shit all over urban cars and passersby? No one bothered to do any kind of avian census, I’d imagine.
And people? Yeah, well… you know damn well that there are millions of people on this planet that are disconnected and disconcerted. They dwell in shadows and half-nightmares, they gave up on looking, and don’t feel like anyone is looking for them.
Pity, then, those who did matter to you, or those who matter to me, wondering and hanging lucid wishes on some kind of Dufresneyan HOPE that there’s more after this Hell I find myself in.
Because I was found, connected, content. I existed on multiple planes, maybe, but I thought I mattered in those places and spaces between spaces and places.
And then, somewhere out in the Cosmos, maybe, sitting at her supercomputer programming the Universe Simulation we all call Reality and Existence, the Great Programmer decided to sever the ties, to cut the cord, with nary an explanation or a fare-thee-well. Just lost data. A few bytes, a little memory, a virus, even.
Got Thanos Snapped, I guess… and never even felt myself turning to dust. Or maybe, the other me– the one that dabbled in “The Life we Live with After that” (vs. the Life we Learn With)… I guess he’s dead? Or lost? Or forgotten? Maybe he never existed in the first place… maybe there was no one to snap into oblivion. Maybe memories of growing up or growing wiser, of dead brothers and lost friends, or lives lived and lives decidedly not-ruined, of love and compassion and GETTING IT and being alone and being together… maybe none of it ever actually happened. Is this insanity? Is this my Hell? Is this my punishment? Do I matter? Am I here? Or is that astral, higher latitude part of me dead?
Which begs the question: What are any of me still fucking doing here?
El Gigante Picante del Monte 