Maybe

May 19,  2020

Day 59

The skies are clearer than I’ve ever seen them in new Zealand and that’s saying a lot. After my appointment in Whitianga with my new optometrist I chased a beautiful sunset up the 309 Road and rolled down our drive with some groceries and a new car battery. I wonder where the battery was made?

There’s some sort of weird bookkeeping arithmetic going on in the count today, but for me the real number is the ongoing climb of the ratio of recovered cases to the number of confirmed and probable cases.

There are Zero new cases today, however, “the total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 today increased by four. These cases are people who returned to New Zealand from the Greg Mortimer cruise ship in April and who had all tested positive for COVID-19 in Uruguay. They were classified as being under investigation while we were awaiting information from Uruguay to avoid them being double counted by the World Health Organisation. We have now confirmed these cases were not reported by Uruguay. All four have recovered.” (This from an explanation by the Ministry of Health published today to explain the asterisks. Bookkeeping.)

9 Recovered cases. Ratio of recovered cases to the number of confirmed and probable cases is 95.9%.

The powers that be are talking about 28 days being the amount of time we need to go without seeing a rise in number of infections as being the benchmark for success in our fight against the Covid-19 virus. Level 1 may take place sometime around then. Right now there is still a good deal of social distancing being practiced in businesses. Less so with people. Some are aware and conscious when I stop to let them pass. My optometrist wore a mask, as did I. Cashiers are wearing gloves and hand sanitiser is the new normal, but thing are coming back. Life is returning to the town and the nation. I hope it returns to you.

 

 

There was a time when the world was a quieter, more peaceful place. The dentists were primitive and lifespans were shorter, but there were no cars and far fewer people. No penicillin, but no processed food either. The seas teemed with life, the skies were clear and the moon and stars ruled the night. Trade offs abound and answers are few, but the same span of years that has made me more susceptible to Covid-19 also has given me wisdom to make sense of its place in the tapestry of life. There is serenity in this knowledge.

I know where I’ve been.

I know where I am.

I know where I’m going.

 

Maybe I’ll see you there.

 

Goodnight.

 

 

 

 

The End (I Hate to say I Told you So…)

May 10,  2020

Day 50

2 New cases. 3 Recovered cases. Ratio of recovered cases to active cases is still 91%. This number is going to climb slowly from here on out, but climb it shall.

 

(A picture of the moon out of my window)

 

 

In other news today I found the video report below…

 

…and hope it is not inappropriate to quote Winston Churchill.

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

 

In the meantime Covid-19 burnout continues worldwide. People are tired of there being such an inconvenient thing as a global pandemic and hearing about it endlessly. Because I am sensitive to everyone’s feelings I am going to stop going on about the contagion. We as humans have seen much worse and survived to invent his one. The worldwide economy is reverberating discordantly, the skies are empty of chem-trails and the seas are getting cleaner by the day. Anyone who was reading has nodded off or found better ways to amuse themselves under whatever version of ‘lockdown’ they’re under, so it’s time to move on. If I don’t make it, I’ll send up a flare. If I do make it, you know where to find me, studying Kiwi and Mandarin and watching closely as one era ends and another begins.

Not having Covid-19 to kick around any longer I have decided to branch out into clairvoyance and share some predictions which will come true very shortly. It is my hope that they may help you to plan your soon to be changing future.

1. In response to the collective impotence and lack of vision evinced by the rest of the world and as a follow on of its already stated policy towards Taiwan, China is going to take over the renegade island militarily. It will crush all major resistance within three months of the start of hostilities (which will not be called hostilities) and will commence re-educating the survivors with extreme prejudice. There will be ham-handed attempts by America to intervene through a series of useless U.N. resolutions, vague bluster and empty threats, while China, under the policy of We Own Everything except Covid-19, will shut down all maritime traffic through the South China Sea save for its own commercial and military vessels.
2. A full court diplomatic and economic press will tie the hands of every country on the planet, giving China time to present the takeover as a fait accompli. As the nation of Taiwan will no longer exist (just ask China) the United States will reason, quite logically and conveniently, that it no longer has to adhere to any treaty obligations it had with the former non-nation. They will hoist a Mission Accomplished banner and leave the area before the paint on the new signs at Taipei’s airport has a chance to dry. What once was called Taiwan-sheng or Taiwan province will cease to exist on paper even as it is subsumed by the invaders who will name themselves something innocuous but patriotic. Something snappy like The Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere Forces of Reunification. What? It’s been used before? No matter. Move along please. Nothing to see here.
3. China’s Renminbi, or Yuan, will become a global currency and will challenge the U.S. Dollar for supremacy. https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-debt-to-china-how-much-does-it-own-3306355
4.  China will land men and women on the moon, set up a permanently manned base     there and claim ownership of the Earth’s satellite. https://www.space.com/13331-china-space-race-moon-ownership-bigelow-ispcs.html
5. https://www.china-briefing.com/news/china-proposes-establishing-moon-based-special-economic-zone/
6. China will take over Australia and New Zealand through aggressive commercial practices and strategic purchases of key industries and land blocks.
7. Before item number six happens I will have shuffled off this mortal coil.
8. Before I do that I predict that I will say I told you so.

 

 

 

 

Way Out

May 6,  2020

Day 46

Can you see it? The tiny patch of light green tucked into the hillside in the middle left? The picture was taken by a dear friend servicing one of the trap lines that crisscross the estate. For just a moment the trail opens up near the summit of Totokoroa, the hill we own a quarter of, and she can look down on us as our day, and hers, unfolds. This is where we live, in a tiny bubble of love floating in a sea of green on an isolated peninsula of an island nation far out to sea in the southern Pacific Ocean.

(We’re in the middle of the swathe of deep green near the centre of the peninsula jutting north [to the right] at the bottom right hand corner of this picture of New Zealand’s North Island.)

From a small antenna on our roof we receive radio waves from the rural broadband system and when I hit send on this post, a signal will be broadcast in packets of discrete ones and zeroes and my thoughts and these pictures will enter the ether and digital eternity. I know that’s an oxymoron of sorts, but it will do for now to describe the way we communicate with the outside world. The phone is a VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) one that mimics all of the features of a normal land line except that the internet needs to be up and the power on in order for it to work. Cell phone signal is intermittent so we don’t have one and don’t need it or miss it. Mail is delivered to a box just inside the big iron gates at the entrance to the estate a couple of kilometres to the left of the left hand border of the first picture.

The camera is facing east, down toward Whitianga and the Pacific and the endless blue miles of Oblivion’s Sea. Of the compound there is not much visible. If you enlarge the photo the pixels will get larger but the image will become confused. The white structure is the former kitchen storage container. The main house sits behind the lone tree rising from the centre of the green clearing of our front yard. Nothing else can be seen and in time, with the help of some black paint, even the slab side of the shipping container will be camouflaged and disappear into the hillside. We are one with the forest and becoming more so with each passing day. It’s a good place to ride out a storm.

Today’s weather report says the following…

2 New cases. 14 Recovered cases. Ratio of recovered cases to actual cases is 88%. Zero Zeroes today and another death, bringing this nation’s total to 21. Such a small number compared to our population and to the number of deaths from Covid-19 in the rest of the world, but it matters. It mattered to the person who died, it matters still to their family and ultimately, it matters to the family of man.

 

 

The View from Deep Time

A small postscript, if you will, to put things in a wider perspective. It is easy, and entirely understandable and human to be concerned about Covid-19 and its impact on our daily lives but whenever I see the diagram below I am comforted to know that the world’s going to be fine and that I’ve got time to get it right farther on down the line.

 

 

I’ll look for you there.

 

Stay safe and remember…

 

 

They Are All Miracles

May 4,  2020

Day 44

Zero New cases today! 10 Recovered cases. Ratio of recovered cases to active cases is still 85% (But climbing on the other side of the decimal point.) 211 people still have it.

As the numbers change and morph and fluctuate with time and varying conditions in the nation I see some items of interest (to me at least). I’m going to start watching the ratio of the number of probable cases to the number of confirmed and probable cases. It’s 23% now and we’re looking for this to drop to zero (along with all other possible categories) as we stack up more days on our journey toward a happier, safer now.

Speaking of a safer now…. There is one continent on the earth that is totally free of Covid-19. Never mind that it has no permanent residents and access is difficult to all but the rich or semi-brainy. There is lots of elbow room, free air conditioning in most places, long days for half the year and long nights during the other half. Most unique of all places on earth, there is one point, and only one, where the only direction you can walk is north…..

 

….which is also the place where the phrase ‘nowhere to go but up’ came from.

But that’s another story.

 

Stay safe.

Enjoy each day.

They are all miracles.

 

 

South by Southwest

 

100 words for Friday Fictioneers based on the photo prompt below courtesy of David Stewart.

(Copyright David Stewart)

 

The gate swings slowly shut. I look back a final time and see in places my handiwork, all that remains of a quarter century of love, surrendered to weeds.

What did I give? How hard did I strive? Where is my love buried?

Only I will ever know.

Call on God, it is said, but row away from the rocks.

I place a note between the gate and jamb for friends who might wish to find me. In time, it, too, will fall and fade, but such is the way of the world. Vulnerant omnes, ultima necat.

And I row.

 

 

 

The Windlass of Time

A hundred words for those who are still left and for those who have gone before, based on the photo prompt below. We walk in the shadows of giants. D-Day. June 6th, 1944.

 

(Copyright C. Hase)

 

 

A stooped and wizened man stands behind a bench at the end of a pier, supporting himself with both hands as he watches liberty boats ferry passengers to the beach from a cruise ship anchored offshore. Long years have extinguished everything in his life except the fire in his eyes. Through them he sees soldiers in a maelstrom struggling in crimson surf beneath a dull gray sky.

A car backfires and he flinches, then squares his shoulders and turns to walk resolutely inshore, sure that today will be his last. Another day, another turn of the wheel. Maybe tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

Qui Tacet Consentiere

 

100 words for Friday Fictioneers.

Unlike the many creatures we’ve sent, as W.S. Merwin said in For a Coming Extinction, “…to The End.”, I have returned, if only for this week, because the photograph is mine and speaks to me of teeming seas from a time long past…. No need to comment. I love you all. Aloha, D.

 

(Copyright Douglas MacIlroy)

“And they lived in the oceans?” At three years of age, my daughter was just beginning to get an inkling of the world that had gone before her.

“They filled the seas, Pearl. We were once just a distant rumor to them.”

“If there were so many, where did they all go?”

“To feed us, darling.”

“Every one?”

“Some say a few still live in deep canyons where nets can’t reach, but none have been seen for many years.”

“Will they ever come back, Daddy?”

“In time perhaps.”

“When we’re gone?”

 

Following Seas

I’ve been helping a friend drain a swamp and feel the need to apologize for being behind the curve last week in reading and commenting. Going to fix that now as the swamp is drained and the alligators are all suitcases now.

Mahalo and Aloha, D.

 

100 words for Friday Fictioneers inspired by the photo below from Georgia Koch.

 

(Copyright Georgia Koch)

 

“I could call the Coast Guard.”

“And tell them what? An old man is going rowing?”

He wondered whether he’d made a mistake in sharing his plans. After half a lifetime spent at sea, this last voyage seemed only natural.

“I won’t have you watch me die a slow death in one of those homes, son.”

“It wouldn’t be like that…”

“It’s always like that. They just don’t put it in the brochure because it’s bad for business.”

Ebb tide. The sea beckoned. Time to go.

“I love you, son.”

“Fair winds, Dad.”

Long Time Coming

99 words for Friday Fictioneers, a caravan of sorts. People come and go at will, but their stories remain. The good ones are like rain in the desert.

 

 

After walking for an eternity over endless dunes, he came upon salvation in a verdant glade nestled between green valley walls shaded by long white clouds. Kneeling in reverence and gratitude, he placed his hands on either side of a slick fosse and inhaled the fragrance of moss-furred walls.

When his lips met wetness, warm and tremulous, he waited, savoring the moment. It was a sweet thing to be so close, to feel the wellspring of life tremble beneath him, and to know that he could drink deep until sated.

That night he slept and dreamt of geysers erupting.

 

Riparian Riddles

100 words for Friday Fictioneers.

 

 

“What’s the answer?”

“What’s the question?”

“Why do people litter?”

“Why do they have children?”

“To leave some evidence that they existed?”

“See?”

“So is there an answer?”

“Do you really want to hear it?”

“I’m not sure, do I?”

“You just looking for absolution?”

“As if this is my fault?”

“How beautiful would the world be if we worked for the next hundred years to remove all our trash and then voluntarily killed ourselves?”

“Who would know?”

“Who cares?”

“There’s no hope, is there?”