The Dark Page of Night (feat. Jeremy, Alex, Andrew, Jean)
markcmarino
Alex burst into the room beaming as he announced the discovery of a hidden patch of Internet. A mobile hotspot app on his phone with just about a cupful of wireless left. Jeremy just shook his head at the news. You can try it, but it’s not going to work, he explained sagely, the Internet ain’t like water. Can’t stick it in canteens. Can’t save it up neither.
And then he launched into an illustration by way of a tale, or so we thought…
When the first tourist settlers (T-shirters, we called them) came to Page, Arizona, the Colorado River was flowing like a T1 connection. Raging! And from a quick glimpse at the towering walls it had carved into canyons they realized this river is powerful enough to change its environment and they took that as a sign that they too should change their environment. Despite the beauty of this desert wilderness, the T-shirters were a little bummed because they didn’t have any power to plug in their Kindles and AyPhones and laptops.
One day, little Swoosie-Lynn calls out, why don’t we use the river for power – like Heidegger’s challenging-forth? You know, from the standing reserve? Now Swoosie-Lynn’s parents were a little dumbstruck that their daughter knew German philosophy even though they had only ever read her French philosophy – this is the scary part of the story, by the way. So no one’s was too sure whether to follow her or not – but they at last decide to put their complete trust in their daughter who quickly sets about sketching out the plan on her Etch-a-Sketch. The family dam up the river and create Lake Powell (Still in the top 10 for houseboat hitchin’!) Soon the family has their generator up and running and before too long Page becomes a bustling tourist destination, four star-rating on Tripadvisor, and cities and towns pop up all across the southwest everywhere like so many prairie dogs.
Well, what neither Swoosie-Lynn nor Heidegger fully anticipated were 47 years of draught, with each year gradually their new fake lake draining. For every birthday, Swoosie -Lynn would visit the lake and take a little sip from its waters. On her 97th birthday, she has to be wheeled down to the river and helped to drink through a great straw, but this year, there is really just one little drop left – not as much as you might get from the stamen of a honeysuckle flower. Wow, this is it, says her great grand daughter. But elderly Swoosie-Lynn is confident in her manifest destiny and drinks up that last draught. Unfortunately, that’s the drop they need to power her pacemaker, so its absence sets Swoosie-Lynn’s heart a-beating with wild syncopation. And with all that unregulated energy she got right up and did a kind of spasmodic rain dance – only you just can’t co-opt dances from other cultures and expect them to work. ‘Cept maybe the hokey-pokey. After that dance, she keeps right on at it. Her next and last dance is the Electric Slide, and with it, she electric slides into the long, dark good night of the American Southwest. My, you should see the stars out there. Give Hollywood a run for its money.
And with that, Jeremy grew silent.
Dark tale, said Andrew, as he glanced at his portable water-powered massage chair.
Maybe, replied Jeremy, but not as dark as a land without any light, light enough to leave life alone. That night, Alex drank his hot chocolate cold without even using the microwave. Jean just smiled.
MM