Time Bomb

The thing about a bomb is that it is crafted by others, shaped by others, and filled with disastrous potential all by others.  Other hands fill it with destructive force and wire it to explode, and others cut and shape the fuse, and others light it, ignite it, or set it off.  It is a trap.  And it is as unknowing of its own potential and destiny as most anything, it really doesn’t even know it’s a bomb. 

The thing about a bomb is that when it explodes, it doesn’t simply destroy the things around it, it drives them away from it with a raw force, it unleashes back on mankind the very thing mankind put into it transformed from what seemed harmless into the very essence of intent.  The fire and force is actually what mankind knew would come out of it but which most of mankind still does not either expect or understand.  So, not only does it shatter things close to it and upset the entire structure and fabric of its chosen explosion point, but it also pushes things on the fringe away….almost always arbitrarily do certain things remain and others fall apart.

The thing about a bomb is it makes a lasting impression.  People caught in an explosion of any type remember it.  If it is from a bomb than a rage, a confusion, a seeking of answers comes into being and while the first two are foolish little things, the last one is truly almost worth having a bomb go off.  The seeking of answers from people wandering through the world, the seeing of things from people who either are looking in the wrong direction or who are not looking at all is a beautiful thing.  From ugliness comes beauty.  It reconfigures the thoughts of people who had thought that it would not happen near them, to them, or to someone they knew.  It cuts people caught in it, but so it cuts those who are not, for those who see their friends and loved ones hurt are left with the same questions as those cut and burned by it.

The thing about a bomb is, while it destroys itself, if it is a truly forceful bomb, an ugly bomb, it will break apart and perhaps put a piece of itself in others.  It will be gone as a whole, no longer exist, fulfilled to live a new life, perhaps a better one.  Meanwhile, however, pieces of it will remain lodged in people’s souls, scars from it will forever mark that it was there, and it will not go alone.  It will not go alone. 

The thing about a bomb is it will not go alone but it will take things with it.  And in that moment, it will take things perhaps arbitrarily with it but it will take those things and people will notice them now gone and will remember them even though they did not notice them before.  And the bomb itself too.  An inspection of its pieces will note nothing significant or profound.  You would ignore these things apart, throw them away, forget about them….but when put all together, each thing heaped and shaped by time and other’s hands…..it becomes something that you will remember.  And it may even move you.  It will be unfair.  You will not want to be moved in this way, but you will be moved.  It will have done something nearly impossible in today’s world…..especially by normal everyday things.

But the thing about a bomb today, however, is that they are growing more frequent.  They have begun to become mundane.  It is a blessing that bombs do not think or feel or know what they are, for they would see their disastrous potential and also see that their disastrous potential which holds an inherent beauty will be nothing but disastrous now.  The beauty has been sucked clean from it by ignorance and blindness….now rarely can even a bomb seem to phase the world around it.  A thing is destroyed, it is rebuilt.  Scars are plentiful for numerous reasons and now every scar from every thing is a testament and thus all scars are negated their signficance by an ever over-quantifying race.  Blood oozes out but is replaced with new blood.  And Hope springs eternal and much faster than a bomb can utterly negate.

The thing about Hope is that it is not  a bomb.  It is not tangible.  It does not show the world what it really is.  It does look like one thing and is actually another….and it has become tainted in meaning just like a bomb has.  Now a bomb is just a thing that explodes and interrupts the day, it is an inconvenience and contains no message.  As Hope is now a thing used to negate blame, to eradicate guilt, to elevate a dirty, ignorant soul.  Hope is now an action instead of a feeling.  Hope is no longer a symptom of progress, but the supposed proof of it.  That a person can hope is, today, that a person is a good human being who has done good things.  There was a time when hope was what a person fueled themselves with to become a good person.

The thing about a bomb is it rarely can be called a Bomb.  But Hope is often this way.  So what can a bomb to do Hope?  Nothing.  And like all things over time in this world filled with humans, that meaning has changed from being a thing of grace and wonder to a tragedy.  What can a bomb do to Hope?  Nothing.  Because most bombs are not big enough to do anything….they only disrupt a small few who see, but who are then lost amidst the crowd who does not.

The problem with a bomb is that it is nearly never big enough.

*I, as an English major and writer have wondered where to go next with literature to try and maintain its sense of dignity, its sense of art, its sense of profound observation of mankind.  For what has yet to be done with literature that one has not done before?  Funnily, enough, I think I have finally discovered how words and minds are changing.  As historians of the language track it across time they will watch words shift in meaning until this century, where they will find that words shift out of all meaning entirely and become a nothingness, an air.  The reason I do not like words is because once they were wonders and held value, and now they are empty, vacuous, and infuriating.  The mouthes that speak them do not think of what they say, nor do they follow through.  A word is no good without an action anymore….they have become separate entities where once they were symbiotes.  To say something was to do something….or to mean it without a single qualm about doing it.  Now, to say something is to barely mean it when it passes your lips.  It has already been denied and quantified and justified and excused in its failure before it has settled on your tongue.

Lament that I realized too late the disastrous choice of becoming a writer and a reader and an English major in a world where words mean nothing…..I have become an air major….an intangible major…..basically a historian romantic, who must read the old words and pine for days when those words had meaning and moved people.  I believe mine still do, all the more terrible, that we as people have become as thin and vapid as the words have become.

FOR MARIE

Thanks for the call las

t night.  While I was busy online and sort of out of it, and by sort of I mean completely out of it….for reasons I don’t want to discuss….I just want to say that your phone call meant a lot more to me at that moment than I let it seem.  I’m very sorry for that.  I love you.  I love you most because your words still feel meaningful and have passion to them.  When I hear you speak I never question that you mean it.  That is a rarity, almost an oddity for me.  And thank you most of all for never, though you think you do, disproving that…for always fulfilling the words you speak.