Ancient Texts and Vintage Magazines

Mystery Box #6 / 2017 / Collage by Russell C. Smith

What kind of rainbow can we salvage from this storm? Storms across the screen, a storm in her eyes on the witness stand. We’re all waiting it out in the same distant land. So much distance in our culture, and in the world – global pain, murder, mayhem, and confusion writ large. A deluge of divisiveness washes over us. We look for signs in ancient texts and vintage magazines. But what can we know for sure, in these days of darkness and thunder, heat lightning, and menacing clouds of unknowing. In times past, we agreed on what was and wasn’t a thing called reality. When the meaning of things is up for grabs, the sands shift beneath our footsteps. Springtime is here, and it’ll soon be gone. I just got a new prescription for my glasses, but the whole damned world is still out of focus. The sand gives way under our feet, like supreme justice made of tattered words left out in the rain. Month-old newspapers, letters and sentences running down the drain. Seems we’ve gotten used to the never-ending storm. Driving ourselves to the edge of a cliffside, parking next door to nowhere. Our daily practice is waking and walking into the sandstorm, goggles secured, going at a faster clip while our abandoned vehicle fills up with sand and grit. Maybe we’ll run into a band of roadside stragglers, lost, yet peaceful seeming. Wrapped in flimsy bed sheets and foolish grins. We’re a long way from the Age of Enlightenment, or even the back porch of common sense.

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