7/5/11

July 5th, 2011, a lot of things happened.

I mean, babies were born. A whole raft of babies were pushed out of their mothers into this cold, cold world. A hard labor of 20 hours total ends in a 10am birth while everybody looks on like they've seen this before. An easy baby pops out into the world just a half hour after her mother picked up her cell phone with big bulging eyes and called someone because she knew it was time. A whole goddamn raft of babies were born and their paperwork was processed. Numbers assigned, forms filled out. They got given their names, which they'll mouth tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of times before they get put in the cold, cold ground. And over there the Dad looked on at his new baby, thinking but not thinking of all the prejudices he's going to fill that kid's mind up with, somewhere way behind his eyes.

People died of starvation on July 5th, 2011. There was an old man who died because he hadn't eaten in many days. Everyone left his little town over the space of the last two years, went off because the crops wouldn't come out of the ground and all the animals that could be eaten either were or got too damn smart. They all left the tiny town to go to their sister's husband's brother's shack on the edge of some smelly third world city, but he couldn't follow. His wife was dead, his two sons had been killed in the war, he was an only child, his parents had died decades before, and he'd taken his wife from a town far away against the will of her large family group and never had any connection with them. He hadn't asked for help out of pride and shame, shame at not having anyone, and now he died of starvation alone in his bed behind closed curtains that let in a few small rays of the sun. --/-/-- to July 5th, 2011.

Also do you know that there were bridges christened by big fat smiling politicians, and dangerous automobile accidents on empty rural roads, and somebody got slapped for no reason, and somebody put too much salt on their eggs, and someone played a guitar, and it was too hot somewhere, and someone finally had an important talk with a loved one, and someone's life's work was destroyed?

I mean this all happened on July the 5th of 2011.

As for me, I didn't do a damn thing worth any note.