There is Nothing to Fear from the Snatchers… Really!
What is the meaning of life? Well, that might be easier to answer than you think. How about, more life? I was thinking about this when I exited my apartment a couple of nights ago. Earlier that day, I had read a related article from a philosopher that I admire.
My neighbors and a couple of visiting relatives were on the common patio that I share with them. They struck up a conversation first about photography which lasted only long enough for me to degrade it into political and philosophical arguments. They were really nice folks. They were also members of a religion that I cannot tolerate, Obamianity. I should always find a quick exit at the first hint that I am in the company of Obamians.
I eventually exited however ungracefully. I had another restless night knowing that I had offended people with my beliefs. Sometimes I truly do feel quite alone. My encounter with those very nice folks had me feeling like an alien in my own country. Or maybe they seemed like aliens to me, I’m not sure which. Either way I could not imagine believing the things that they believed.
Church usually helps me, but not always. But sometimes, for no good reason, I am led to believe that I actually have something of value to say, and this is against overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
So the next morning I went to Monrovia to look up a friend. Jingo is his name and I could usually find him on a bus stop bench near a bank ready teller. He is pushing sixty. I think. He is black and he is all over the map with his views. I like him very much. He was reading the Wall Street Journal one day after the elections when I asked him what he thought. He said:
“It’s all silk purses and sow’s ears.”
“How so?” I asked.
“Well you had the Republicans telling everyone they could make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” he said.
“And what about the Democrats?” I asked.
“They just told everyone they are the silk purse,” he replied….
I wanted to see this man again. Something about him made me feel normal. It’s not that I think he is crazier than I. It’s just that he’s unconventional and pretty much unboxed. I found him reading a week old copy of the Seattle Times. I asked him where he got the paper. He said a friend of Bill Gates always drops one off to him when he is in town. Whatever.
It didn’t take me long, however to notice a change of some sort had overtaken Jingo. He was less adversarial in his opinions. I had come to visit him because he would usually say things that I didn’t expect, but now he sounded like an Obamian. In fact he had now become an Obamiac! I asked him about it. I said.
“You’re now a big supporter, huh?”
He looked at me as if he was wondering whether he could confide in me or not. It was a strange look, kind of far away and focused at the same time. He said nothing for so long that I got up to go. He grabbed my arm and asked me to sit back down. I did. Then he looked around for a moment and said,
“You’ll feel a lot better, afterwards.”
“After what? I asked.
Jingo got up and signaled for me to follow him. We went into an alley about a half a block away. Halfway down there was a recessed driveway leading to a small building. A tree overhung the driveway and tucked under that tree was an old pick up truck. Jingo nodded for me to assist him in pulling back a tarp that covered the bed.
We folded it back. I was astounded. There were these giant pods in the bed. I had seen something like this before. It was in an old Sci-Fi movie. Old Jingo wasn’t smiling as I was used to seeing him. I looked at him expecting him to say something. He was so serious it creeped me out.
“They remind me of an old movie,” I told him.
He smiled. “Where do you think they got the idea?” he said.
This was all a little too much for me to process. “Who is they?” I thought to my self. And what the hell were these things really. And why were they in Jingo’s possession? I didn’t even want to touch them. I remember the movie where pods were placed in people’s homes and then their bodies were snatched by the alien pods. But that was just a movie. By now I was was feeling uneasy.
“All you have to do is sleep, and it will be all over,” said Jingo.
I pulled the tarp down over them and got away from him. I went into the bank and talked to a banker about an overdraft that they had put on my credit card by accident. When I came out Jingo was nowhere to be seen. I was glad. I drove home.
Last night I was restless again and I couldn’t sleep very well. But this morning when I woke up, I never felt better in my life.
I thought it was the fact that I was starting a job today and I would finally bring in some income. I went to load up my tools. I opened my truck bed and there on the bed floor was one of the giant pods! Or I should say what was left of one. It was flattened and dried. But I knew that Jingo had put it there when I was in the bank yesterday.
The funny thing was that now I understood. Now that I had slept I could see more clearly. I am one of them and they are of me. I am different. I no longer have an individual soul. But it is better this way, for now I am a part of the Pod-Body. I am at peace.
I am now an Obamiac. I cannot believe that I couldn’t see it before. I recalled what I had told the folks on my patio when they asked me why I didn’t like Obama. I had said that he was a Marxist Baby Killer. This has changed. So people want to kill babies, I mean terminate pregnancies, that’s their business. And just because Obama was a devotee of the communist organizer Saul Alinsky, what’s that got to do with Obama. Besides the words Marxist and communist are just words they don’t mean anything, really.
You have no idea how much better I feel. I’m no longer upset that after six months of Obama the economy is getting worse and private enterprise is shrinking. That was Bush’s fault anyway. And If Obama tells us we have to sacrifice, I’m sure he’s right. After all he is so smart! He went to Harvard. And I am confidant that all the other Harvard educated Wall Street guys in the White House can turn this around. They were the ones who created this mess with Bush. Who better to help us sort it out?
I no longer fear the rest of the world. They are now our friends because they know that we are all one. They know that we can rely on the Obama to make us all part of the body in time.
I am still having a little trouble with accepting Obama as God like the guy at Newsweek. It must be a hold over from the “Separation of Church and State.” But I am confidant that in time, I will see the truth about this also.
Once you have slept, like Jingo told me, you’ll feel a lot better. The meaning of life changes from a selfish greed of wanting more life, to knowing that like any pod you are just a contribution to the greater movement, a seed to join all the seeds of time.
You’ll understand that individual desires are just wrong. You’ll understand that we need to save the planet and it’s seeds and pods . You’ll see that happiness is just knowing there is an Obama to mind the store properly so that you can be free to pleasure yourself in any way that suits you with no foolish moral nonsense attached. War will be ended soon because we will all be eventually just parts of the Pod-Body. You’ll see! And this will also happen to you. You will see and then you will know.
I feel so much better now. I am no longer angry. I have not lost my country, I have gained Obama! He will be the meaning of life for you too, very soon.
Trust me. There is nothing to fear from the Snatchers, really!