“I am in the middle of a pandemic. A chimera virus, lab made in Wuhan, has escaped and the world is no longer safe,’ she spurted out her fear. There was a sense of softness and vulnerability about her. She wore an animal skin blouse with black pencil skirt. She kidded herself being dressed like a big cat. She was mostly still a kitten. She walked strong, tough, really, mostly, but sometimes was afraid.
‘You weren’t safe yesterday,” he said, ‘You are not safe today. Security is always relative.” He was her friend. Strong, blond, handsome. Rugged in a way, like a man who hasn’t been to a gym but has been to the north.
“I felt safer yesterday,” she continued.”Today I feel like I’m under attack. I feel that Xi Linping has attacked me personally, my peace, my way of life. I worried about the world ending with that shrill child screaming every time I turned on the news. But the world’s been ending as long as I can remember. Acid rain, ozone layer, computer viruses, every promise of doom and constant demands for more and more money. Meanwhile there was always disease but not this. Not his man made menace.” She sipped her coffee latte, her lips red with lipstick that matched her long nails. She had said she’d found some waterproof red that didn’t smear when she drank coffee out.
He laughed. “You didn’t mind being melted by chemical rain, or boiled by the planets loss of defences or betrayed by robot millennial computer, but admit it you’ve always been a bit of a germophobe. All that cleanliness, the cleanses, the alternative health stores, the regular check ups. This particular threat of death has got to you.” He’d spoke between bites of his benny cut with the razored wood handled blade and lifted carefully to his mouth on the hefty silver fork. She smiled looking at him.
“Don’t try to mock me. You’re not attending any of your meetings and conferences like you used to.” She crossed her long legs and thought how she missed cigarettes after a meal though it had been at least a decade since she’d last had a smoke.
“I’m cautious. I’m a survivalist. I’m taking my zinc and vitamin D. I’ve hydroxychloroquine and Zithromax in case I get a cold. I’ve worn a mask in doors. I’m washing my hands and keeping social distance. I rather like the social distancing and I do like working more from home. All that herding and group gathering hasn’t been that necessary for years since the technology made cities obsolete. Cities are the real pollution. That’s the real evidence of fear. People unable to be alone.” There was traffic in the street. People back to going to work. Cars. Trucks. Cyclists. Motorcyclists. They’d parked around the corner from their favourite morning cafe. Yolks. He paid the bill despite her protest.
“Why aren’t you afraid then?’ She asked as they climbed down into his British racing green mini Cooper. “I suppose you’re going to say, because you have Jesus.” She smiled as she said that. There was no rancour in her voice. She was baiting him a bit. She believed differently from him but they were both washed as the devout would say.
“That’s for sure. I trust in God. Jesus is my friend. My God is transcendent and personal . That latter counts. I don’t feel unsafe. Somehow there’s meaning to life even if it’s arbitrary for comfort. I don’t feel alone. At times I feel even more aware, almost enlightened and I remember that in times of despair. Yes. There is Jesus. But mostly I’m just one person and I take care of my side of the street. ” He shifted gears as they pulled out of the space into the light traffic.
“My greatest comfort,’ she said, ‘is not listening to the fear mongering. The news is like a cacophony of hyenas baying at the moon as if their constant talking will keep it from falling. I’m also working very hard at not thinking of the future or the past. I listened to Father Lynn and really believe it helps to live in the day.”
“Carpe diem’ he said, glancing at her beautiful face as he shifted lanes coming off the ramp onto the highway.
“I admit I don’t trust the government. I don’t trust individual politicians.” He continued , “ I know they have made all manner of mistakes crucifying and genociding. Governments are not to be trusted. If the Communist Chinese government had been caring for anyone but themselves they wouldn’t have bribed the WHO to lie. They would have stopped the virus in Wuhan. But governments never think they’re wrong. They’ve caused the holocaust and the Armenian genocide. They’ve caused wars and starvation. Men and women in groups maximize their positive’s or their negatives yet they always blame individuals. Right now they’re trying to blame Trump but before that they blamed Obama. Frazer’s Golden Bough said it all. We have our sacrificial kings who we ultimately blame if things go wrong while we enjoy the benefits when things go right. The people always deserve the leaders they get.’
Just then,they were pulling into the dog groomers. The bundle of fur was waiting. His whole body wagging to see the two of them. When he put the little guy in the back seat, he licked her neck and quickly climbed into the front to sit on her lap. He loved his mommy. ‘My fur baby’ she called him. She had adult children and grand children but this was the love of her life today. It was easy to see how she loved to spoil the little ones but limit setting was a whole other matter. The little guy, despite having the whole back seat, had wiggled his way into the front on her lap.
They next drove to the park, where the river ran into the lake. He’d brought his camera, the new Nikon P1000, he’d bought for birds. She’d remembered to wear sandals as he’d said they would be walking. Once he’d parked he came around to her side to help her out by taking the leash and letting the dog out first. The blind dog was so excited, knowing by the smells, just where they were. Definitely a happy place of his.
Walking in the woods, she asked,”Do you really think there is a Satan?”
He was picking up dog poo when she surprised him with that. “Not in an anthropomorphic sense.” He said. “I believe God is all but that humans have the capacity for free will and can choose to believe or not to believe . Satan is the experience of the absence of God. It’s a terrifying place to be with just one self alone. Communism is the religion of aetheism. They believe in the State. Ironically democracy believes in the will of the people allowing God to act through the collective. The difference is subtle. The State is man made. Democracy is more natural than dictatorship. I just prefer Pascal’s wager and his thinking, as a French mathetician about life and God and death. Ernest Becker was right about the Denial of Death. That’s what this virus is upsetting. That whole climate change catastrophising about the arctic disappearing and endangered species and give me more and more money. It was a real issue of which industry was taking care of especially with Moore’s law. But this bug is a different thing. It’s not going to kill us tomorrow or tomorrow’s tomorrow hundreds or thousands of years from now depending on which doomsayer makes the prediction. This bug is here today and killing people even as we speak. Not many, mind you, but enough. Of course the Climate Change Billionaires all lied over and over again, the Arctic is still there despite their false predictions. This bug like migration, corruption, regional war and the destruction of the middle class is happening now. The Climate Change Crisis never was a crisis. The language is the thing. These people don’t believe in truth and words are what ever they make them. They’re all marketing students. They sensationalize and frankly lie. Goebbels was their prophet certainly not Marshal McLuhan. Their ignorance and arrogance are almost palpable. That’s what hubris was all about. They make themselves God while denying God. They worship their ideas. They say they love freedom of speech but only when it agrees with them.”
He stopped. She stopped. The dog stopped. His camera came up. A Swanson’s thrush had chosen just that moment to make herself visible on the limb of a spruce tree. He took her picture. She saw him smile. The bird had the sweetest song. “They’re rare to see, you know’, he said. It had flitted away as quickly as it came.
She was holding the leash as again the dog walked ahead of them sniffing the trail and marking his scent.
“I love their song,” she said. “I always love Christian environmental stewardship when it was life enriching not the doomsaying death cry of today’s environmentalism. Christian environmental stewardship was good behaviour. I always thought of it as good maintenance. We learned as children to clean up our rooms and maintain the house and yards. Hiking we didn’t leave our waste behind. My father and mother didn’t pollute like they claimed . People in the city did. But brought up on he farm we learned respect.”
“We did too. ‘ he added with passion.”We were in nature. This high rise city life is parking lots and raves. They rape the land, steal from the rural people and make a continual mess of consumerism and entertainment. Then they point fingers. The governments still pouring the cities raw pollution into the waterways and we’re supposed to trust them to save the planet. It’s always like adolescents to know how to solve the world’s problems but refuse to clean up their room.”
They’d arrived at the lake. The ducks and geese were out in the open water. Near the shore was the marsh and pussy willows. She was thankful for the little wooden viewing deck. Otherwise her sandals wouldn’t be enough. The dog would have loved to have rolled in the muck as well and that would have made the drive home in the little car a mess.
He took pictures. The telephoto let him shoot the wood ducks close up. The Canada geese were big in the view finder. There were mallards and canvasbacks. He liked the wood duck plummage most. Such wonderful colour.
“I believe it could be random,” she said her hands on the wood railing, leaning forward, her long blond hair catching the light. He loved looking at her. She smiled. “I just prefer to believe in God, a great artist and there’s a great team upon team of creators and movie producers and set designers. We’re the actors at just one level in one dimension. I think the atheists reduce things too much. They minimize creation and their idea of the God is way to smalll. “
“They do love their straw dog arguments. Even Hutchens’. It wasn’t always that way. I loved reading the letters that C.S.Lewis in response to what were called the ‘new aetheists’ of his day. His Screwtape Letters were a masterpiece of irony with anthropomorphism of satanic intellectualism.’
“Would he be afraid of the Virus? Do you think?” She asked,
“I’d think he’d be more afraid of the communists. People in his days’ didn’t fear reality. American’s had William James and pragmatism. Like most of the scientists today the learned have been mostly godly men. They cared for the world as much but they worried about their neighbour. The Nazis, the National Socialists, and the Communists, the international socialists, were always at war. As a Christian he didn’t fear the world as much as people who wanted to rule and persecute others. Islam is called the religion of peace but it’s only that when everyone else is overpowered and Sharia law rules. Lewis lived through the great wars. Biological weapons came in the form of gas and later atomic bombs and radiation. Today it’s just viruses and fentanyl and economic collapse. Jesus said, “do not be afraid’ . Lewis was the bravest man until he lost his wife. Engles and Marx knew that. They set out to destroy families for their perfect state because people would rather protect the personal than the ideological. Marx and Engles were cold fish who lusted after women more than loving them like Lewis and Tolkien and that Inklings Group.”
“Do you love me,’ she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said then followed on ahead pulled on by the dog while he stood watching her body move with the sensuous grace he’d come to know so well.
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