stagnation, pt. i

A thick fog settled over the city one night, and didn't lift. It blew in from the ocean, according to those who happened to be awake and watching the ocean at the time. And while the city was no stranger to fog, especially in the winter, it was seldom so thick--when I first walked out, I could not see my companion walking next to me in the mists. Nor did it usually linger; either the winds would drive it out or the sun would burn it off after a few days at most. But linger it did. Days passed, then weeks, and we were starting to wonder if it would be months. The fog had rendered travel all but impossible, closing the ports and the old imperial highways, and the city thrived on trade; and if the fog covered the entirety of the coastal lowlands, as my court scholar insisted, there would be no crops in spring (and, of course, no gardens).

The city--my city--was dying, and all I could do was climb to the top of the tower, where the fog did not reach, and watch. From such heights it was almost beautiful. And, I'm told, the people hidden by that shimmering blanket of clouds found some new sense of normal, navigating the suddenly labyrinthine streets to deliver messages and parcels. The system they had developed, my scholar told me, was actually quite clever. She always did find the wrong things exciting. 

But she was the only one of the court who did not insist that it would clear by spring. And she was the one who spent her days (and her nights; I'm not convinced she ever slept) researching, hoping to understand the fog, to find a way to make it lift, if she could. But until her efforts bore fruit, there were no signs of change, and every day as I watched the fog from the safety of my spire I wondered how long we could last, how long before the stagnation finally claimed us and we were truly, finally, lost in the mists.

a prelude for july (scenes from an apocalypse, cont'd)

The fact that we live in a boring dystopia is nothing new, but it's often not emphasized the extent to which it is, in many ways, more dangerous precisely because it's boring. Washington (among other states) is beginning to reopen, and predictably this has led to an increase in COVID-19 infections; there was no reason for reopening apart from the fact that people are bored, that companies are complaining, that the stagnation felt endless. Boredom is also why people have tuned out of the protests, which are still ongoing; it's why there was wall-to-wall coverage of the autonomous zone in Capitol Hill when it first happened but almost no coverage of noted bootlicker Mayor Jenny Durkan ordering it dismantled. Changes happened, some of them meaningful, some of them insultingly meaningless, and perhaps they will even continue happening.

It's July now. It still feels like June, which is to say it's still cool and cloudy with some periods of sun, some hints at the heat to come, but within the first two weeks of July, summer will come in earnest. The clouds clear, the sun comes out, and nothing changes until September. Sometimes there's smoke, sometimes the days are hotter than others, but the key aspect of summer is that it's endless. A time of stagnation, a time of listlessness, a time where the days stretch on too long. A time when you realize that you are in it for the long haul.

So this month's theme will be stagnation, as we watch our dying empire stagnate and fester, as we watch the heat of the summer settle in and refuse to leave, as we hunker down against the reality that our society is not capable of solving even the simplest of crises. There is no end in sight.