An American does not experience terror in the daily execution of his mundane necessities.
He does not fear, for example, retribution beyond levels of human tolerance should he leave payment of his electric bill for another day. Nor are there runes of violent consequence inscribed in the grease at the bottom of the pizza box he purchased in lieu of a healthier alternative.
No, in general, the punishments he accrues as a cost for careless living are not ones that would threaten to slash the cords that bind his reality, and unspool his sanity and gory bits of personality onto the ground like hot intestine from a butchered pig. Not generally.
America is a place in which a majority of its people are adopted inhabitants, mere fifth or sixth generation descendants, lacking an abiding connection with the land and a co-evolution of culture and space that allows the folklore and mysticism necessary to explain those things we find in life that cause our rationality to fail.
There are no fae creatures in America. There are no things with strange names that come for children at night. There is only the unexplained. Strange noises casually and falsely attributed to the innumerable technologies of modern life. Dark corners where buildings meet outside the pools of harsh arc sodium light. The black gape of an old doorway glimpsed from the highway at night through a stand of trees and it freezes our guts because we know that should a tire blow, there would be no old magic to protect us.
He does not fear, for example, retribution beyond levels of human tolerance should he leave payment of his electric bill for another day. Nor are there runes of violent consequence inscribed in the grease at the bottom of the pizza box he purchased in lieu of a healthier alternative.
No, in general, the punishments he accrues as a cost for careless living are not ones that would threaten to slash the cords that bind his reality, and unspool his sanity and gory bits of personality onto the ground like hot intestine from a butchered pig. Not generally.
But despite all appearances to the contrary, the universe does keep a record, and it is a only a matter of billing cycles and due dates that no one has yet been around to collect.
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America is a place in which a majority of its people are adopted inhabitants, mere fifth or sixth generation descendants, lacking an abiding connection with the land and a co-evolution of culture and space that allows the folklore and mysticism necessary to explain those things we find in life that cause our rationality to fail.
There are no fae creatures in America. There are no things with strange names that come for children at night. There is only the unexplained. Strange noises casually and falsely attributed to the innumerable technologies of modern life. Dark corners where buildings meet outside the pools of harsh arc sodium light. The black gape of an old doorway glimpsed from the highway at night through a stand of trees and it freezes our guts because we know that should a tire blow, there would be no old magic to protect us.
We know that should something or somethings come to close our tab, we would have nothing to do but to pay.
This is the story of what happens afterward, because even the old magics had to start somewhere.
1 comment:
"America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil before the settlers, before the Indians. The evil is there waiting."
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