Tang In The Air

Last night, Mrs. Orr and our little elderly dog Dixee accompanied Jinx and me when we went for our twilight walk. The sun, far below the horizon and providing just a rosy glow, gave an otherworldly cast to the air. The stars were already visible, little faraway dots of fire, and man and wife talked in hushed tones between the mowed pastures while the dogs scampered and explored.

This morning, when Jinx and I went out into the lightly-frosted world, I was almost in a trance of joy, drinking in the pre-dawn chilled purity of morning, the air better than any drink or drug. I remember as a teenager, taking a long hit on a joint, the harsh marijuana smoke boiling into my lungs, and wanting so badly to cough it out, but holding it, holding it, holding it so that the THC in the JOB 1.5-wrapped wacky tobackky could seep into my blood through my lungs, and then the blossoming of the mild high as the drug took effect. It was something like that this morning as I drew in lungful after lungful of morning mountain air, and I could feel it sparkling inside my chest, and the songs of owls scented that air, and the clatter of stars and planets gave it a tang, and the hay in bales nearby provided a finish, and I imagined that the pupils of my soul were dilating and increasing my ability to perceive, to feel, to regret, to fear, to watch, to plot. To feel so fully alive and to exult in the firing of spiritual synapses, to revel in the terrifying power of the opera of a mountain morning…behold! Gifts piled up in the storeroom of my very senses.

That feeling is upon me again, the sense that something is coming. While Jinx and I strolled this morning, I looked over to the east, where the sun was still about a half-hour from rising, and I saw over the mountains seven airplanes flying from north to south. Fast, high jets, their short trails lit from beneath by the sun still hidden from my eyes, the trails silver slices of fire in the glowing morning sky. They were not together, not in a formation, but they seemed to be linked. How, I cannot say…in purpose, or destination, or strategic placement…but they seemed linked. The presence of these craft in the hour of dawn felt ominous. It felt intentional.

I expend considerable effort every day in avoiding paying attention to or thinking about the current situation in the world, in this country. My spirit feels battered because I realized some time ago that yes, the powerful people really are that evil and corrupt and blackly banal, and yes, the common people really are that stupid and passive and trusting. I watched the church leadership roll over and let the Christ-hating government scare them and cow them and shut them down. I watched big burly men act like little girls in a haunted house, shrieking and running from the Cohgodwereallgonnadierona virus. I watched small businesses driven into the ground, and politicians exempt themselves from their own medical caliphate rules. I watched normal people whisper their completely rational opinions while bestial criminals toppled statues and burned cities and dared anyone to disrespect their loathsome dead saints, in whose holy name they desecrated churches and bludgeoned elderly shopkeepers and boasted about their degeneracy.

And in two weeks, there will be no “winner,” and darkness — darkness such as we have never seen in this age — will cover the land and the silent lamentations will fill the skies (silent because none will dare speak what is obvious, just as none are speaking the obvious now).

I push these thoughts from me because I have made my decisions and settled myself in the course of action I will pursue if A or B or C occurs, and so torturing myself with news or updates or opinion or speculation is wicked in and of itself, because it engenders despair, and I will not despair. I don’t refuse to despair because I am a strong man; quite the opposite is true. I refuse to despair because I hate those who have performed these acts, and I hate those who have allowed them to proceed, and I hate those who sit with smug smiles behind their muzzles and count themselves good citizens, even good Christians.

Because of my love for the ancient Catholic faith, I count myself a spiritual Catholic, though none in that Church today would claim me as one of their own. And my open profession of hatred for the demonic people whose fingerprints are on the bloody knives of the current age disqualifies me as a “good Christian.”

So what am I, then?

I am a Christ-haunted man who wants to follow the Master, a husband whose hand twitches with the desire to decapitate anyone who would ever threaten my wife’s health, peace, or safety. I am a father and grandfather who is watching the little ones be herded towards the abyss of future days. I am an arthritic grumbler who dotes too much on his dog and wants to be left alone to catalog the flora and fauna of his few wild acres. I am a curious specimen of a man who roots for a bellicose New York politician who wouldn’t piss on my family if they were on fire for one reason: his very breathing presence on this earth drives the people who hate my people absolutely insane. And that’s my one pleasure in all this mess.

Who was piloting those planes this morning? Where were they coming from, and where were they flying to? I have no answers, and the rest of my questions are secret ones, held close and whispered into my Friend’s ear when I am looking up into His fire-pricked face.

~ S.K. Orr