We Begin Again
He asked them point blank: Why Are You Here?
It certainly wasn't to help him. He knew his place. He was their scribe.
To save the suffering of millions?
That got nothing but the equivalent of a blank stare.
As was demonstrated across the globe millions of times every day, the gods were largely indifferent to the suffering of man.
And then the answer leached through to him over several days; as fantastical as it seemed.
Whether it was true or just another wild vision he had no way of knowing.
These were the items. These were our times.
They might have been indifferent to suffering, but as a kind of royal house of their own, they were great admirers of beauty,
And in this place, in this country, as truly improbable in these humble origins as it would seem, there would be a great flowering of religion, culture, architecture, of artforms not yet conceived, of a civilisation one of the finest ever birthed. Beginning in about two centuries time and lasting for two centuries beyond that. .
"We come at the end of empire."
And that was a future they were very interested in preserving.
No mate, they're not human, not in any way. And the more you get to know them, the less human they seemed.
They settled in that long cold valley edging down to the sea, as they had settled in so many other valleys, the campfires burning low as they soared across a stream of generations, from the herders to the villagers to the conquerors, from the most luxuriant palaces to the humblest dwelling. Quite what a Mesopotamian god, birthed or at least worshiped in those fragrant temples so long ago, on the other side of the planet, was doing here amidst the native spirits of this southern land he did not know.
That's all they told him: "We come at the end of empire."
They were preserving a future which had not yet been; which in this humble time seemed entirely implausible, impossible.
When all else fails, the impossible, the seemingly fantastical, becomes the only path.
Afghanistan had fallen, and it marked the end of American empire. After all their fantastically expensive, utterly failed military exploits of the last 50 years, of the untold millions killed by American bombs and American military might, the next time they declared war, the world would laugh. Another Saigon? Another Kabul. Another world where the greatest military power on Earth is humbled by peasants? Where the feudal lords win despite all your munitions.
In Australia, the same thing was happening. The government had overstepped the mark, had failed to recognise the terrain, had become blinded by their own power, and had locked up the entire state, eight million people who had to show just cause as to why they were outside their own homes.
Ten weeks it had gone on now.
Old Alex noticed the shift, from a kind of determined we must all share the load attitude, to sullen indifference, demoralisation, despondency, disempowerment, despair. In other words, the entire population was stir crazy, the squawking press conference absurdities of the NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian drilling resentment into the bogans with every screeching breath.
Rise up. Rise up.
And they would.
And this shocking government, this corrupt edifice, this dismally dishonest edifice, would fall.
They know not what they do.
NEWS: THE UNENDING MADNESS
https://www.smh.com.au/national/queensland/school-closed-after-students-boasted-about-sneaking-into-state-from-melbourne-20210902-p58o4d.html
Queensland is on high alert after a truck driver was possibly infectious in the community on the Gold Coast for five days, while a school has been closed after students “boasted” about sneaking into the state from Melbourne.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said on Thursday a Gold Coast school was closed after children boasted about travelling to and from Melbourne.
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Annastacia Palaszczuk says she is unsatisfied with research on child vaccinations.
“The family has now been placed into mandatory 14-day hotel quarantine and I urge them to co-operate with authorities,” she said.
“This is very serious. We need this family to co-operate with authorities.”
Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said the family of five, including three children under the age of 10, recently travelled to Melbourne and returned “undetected to the Gold Coast via an inland route”.
“Unfortunately, this family is refusing to be tested and so far is not co-operating with authorities and refusing to reveal where they’ve been,” she said.
https://www.2gb.com/peta-credlin-calls-on-prime-minister-to-declare-australias-freedom-day/?fbclid=IwAR03ZhJxQyqIrGdj_L3WgB_ok858V7-TN-MqIMHPbYYDTffabPWZuQFeqyQ