Settled.

Like they wanted. Ask and you shall receive.

Mold our attention spans into spent chewing gum and play the long game.

Two weeks of protests; squirrel.

At least I was a part of something peaceful for once.

Probably the last peaceful confrontation I’ll ever know.

I remember one of the happiest times I’d have as a child was going outside after a springtime rainstorm. Back then, precipitation wasn’t always a reason to call FEMA. It was a peaceful time.

I’d go outside with some of my Hot Wheels cars and play in the rain puddles and streams as they journeyed toward the storm drains. This was probably 1979. I can still smell it.

No particular reason for the memory; no point or lesson. I just remember vivid details about a miniscule moment in time 46 years ago.

Think Pennywise and Georgie a decade before their creation. The trippy thing is, the feeling I felt as a kid looking into the abyss of a monsterous drain is the way I felt when I read it and watched it twice in different decades. King nailed that feeling in words.

Does life fuel fiction or does fiction fuel life? A neverending debate solved by a simple epiphany. It’s a full circle.

I look forward to the fiction I’ll consume before dying, fueled by today’s conflicts. The art as well.

If we get to keep such things like museums and movie theaters, that is. To the victor goes the spoils, and we’re all knee deep in something I’ve never smelled before.

Preach truths. Toke jokes, and shoplift Amazon.

I’m sure some of those Hot Wheels were discovered over the decades like remnants of a lost civilization.

It is, actually. Kids don’t/can’t play like we did. They don’t because of technology, they can’t because it’s dangerous.

Culture built technology built culture.

Call it in the air; heads or tails?

That Atari console in my bedroom was Satan according to Grandpa.

AI is my current fear.

I bet his Grandpa thought marbles were influencing children to join the Dark Lord.

Maybe a Satanic Slinky or two.