by your dedicated rogue correspondent Sh0n Grub (reporting for the Oscillating Oculus)
hand-drawn illustration by yours truly, Sh0n Grub
Well here we are steeped so deeply into the unfolding technological singularity as to effectively have rendered all but the most tenacious of us iconoclastic individuals haplessly dumbfounded and staring at the event horizon through the haze for the hidden flock cameras and ubiquitous surveillance grids virtually and on the verge of independent devastation, well not I, let me assure y'all however ineffectually I may, because although stripped of my stumbled-upon, happy go lucky career having found myself dog paddling without a chain for the past nine months, feeling as if I'm about to be borne again as a stillbirth into the new paradigm of the machine, luckily for me (and my stalwart readers out there, you know who you are as well as I do) I yet retain that paradoxical nature of the beast, the ability to keep my nose above the waterline even as the global floodlines rise, billion dollar industry AI corporations such as Anthropic buy up millions of used and discarded books in bulk from wholesalers, only to cut off their bindings and strip their spines with hydraulic machinery to scan the printed pages, and then pulp the remains for recycling into compost to feed their AI data algorithms and justify the production of countless data centers planned for the Down-winder desert territories to establish Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses, and of course the current administration has targeted the parched and toxic valley alongside the Wasatch Mountain range in Utah as the perfect location, and with utilizing a devious leverage through our sycophantic governor Spencer Cox, always willing to sell out not just the land itself but our people along with it to the overtly corrupt ministrations of our newly overhauled and most incompetent governing body since our country's inception, all in mutual allegiance to the almighty dollar in the name of an (un)holy war against the nefarious adversaries of the mind, those wicked middle easterners with their patently transparent so-called "nuclear capacity and intent to destroy" as we surreptitiously sail on over the line melted in the sand like the pre-ghostly echo of a Lost Ship already stranded far beyond the capacity to return into the Dead Sea of Souls hell bent on leaving behind their mutual revenge served cold in exchange for a new deal to serve it up Steaming Hot on a platter of Oblivion.
How's your day going so far? I hope all remains well with you and your world, and see there's the crux of the biscuit, isn't it? The world's really an amalgamation of a multitude of worlds, infesting and pervading, spreading through and swarming over with hope and loss and tragic beauty spiked with sudden deaths interlaced in a heaving tapestry of primal, burgeoning births and mass executions while entire colonies of dispossessed humans flee their wartorn former homes in search of neighborly harbors that might take them in. Meanwhile, our own gifted statue of bigotry remains (for now) standing at the foothold of Manhattan Island (future private prison from which none may escape) holding aloft her war torn Torch of faithless uncertainty, her inscription suffering from delamination and effacement, our own self-inflicted Damnation Memoriae if you will, and even if you won't, I'm afraid that's all she wrote.
I feel my duty as a diligent reporter of the facts, in trying to uncover the hottest story of our times, lingers across the viewscreen of my mind in an alluring manner, as if displayed by the magic of twenty-four frames per second, flickering against the silver screen of my innermost dreams with a haunting suggestion, a beckoning call if you will, not unlike the Sirens of old, but with an inverse significance, as if this song summons my attention toward an escape route, through a labyrinth of strange coral formations uprising from this sea of madness we all find ourselves in, to lead us through a mysterious delta which harbors a passage to one of those electrically charged worlds we're all tangled up inside, which if only we could draw a bead on, and calibrate our own body's electromagnetic polarity with, would lock us into it, and draw us slowly in deeper, onward and into its otherwise impenetrable confines, until we might find ourselves gradually absolved from the hectic nightmare of the technopolis gathering strength as it mutates into it's multifaceted and malignant form.
Where may such hidden passages as that, typically occluded from us, possibly remain hidden? Or should the question be when might such a portal present itself to each of us? My investigative instinct tells me it's a matter of circumstances and opportunities. We must each keep our senses honed sharp, our eyes and ears out for them, as they might occur and present themselves at virtually any time of day or night, and at any place we might happen to stumble upon, throughout our various excursions in this craven metropolis that has been apparently damned with the expanding virus of fear. The very thing our 32nd president warned us about ninety-three years ago.
So remember one thing, if you can summon the willfulness to do so. Do not succumb to the fear! Stay brave, stay true, to yourself and your loved ones. Stay alert for whatever opportunities might come your way. Somewhere along the line ahead of us, there must be a remarkable pathway about to unfold, analogous to a sort of parting of the Red Sea, a miraculous moment shining with rainbow ferocity, with unsettling mists refracting impossibly, which grabs your attention and demands you react.
It's up to us, the few and far between, the lost and struggling loners, the disillusioned and devastated, the wrecked and broken, the sullen and hopeless, whose brightness may have been dashed out of our eyes, whose former certitude or optimism may have been nearly eroded away, to cast aside our blinders and addictions to the world wide web of lies, to put down our smart phones for just a few moments and reclaim our right to be wise, to shut off the noise being piped from online into our collective hive mind. To awaken to the recurrent possibilities of the moment, and recapture the essence that has kept us alive.
Follow me for more tips and tricks in surviving the oncoming zombie holocaust, and maybe we'll see you on the other side of this divide.
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