Tomorrow in Terra

TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS
—Michael Ceraolo, S. Euclid, OH

The Homeland hysteria had abated over the holiday
as no actual invasion had taken place

The hyped-up harassment gradually gave way
to the ordinary harassment of the every day;
in fact,
things had come so far back to normal
the fifth of July was seemingly
just another sunny summer day
on the south shore of Lake Erie

Those residents
fortunate enough to still have jobs
went willingly or unwillingly to work,
or had parlayed the day after the holiday
into an extended period of time off
by using one or more vacation days,
or had called off sick from too much holiday

The region and the rest of the country,
if not the entire planet and beyond,
were silently screaming for new ideas

Or for old ideas reasonably well-executed

Or for a minimum level of competence
no matter the ideas

Or for those with the lowest expectations,
something reasonably corruption-free

Good execution,
competence,
and things being even reasonably corruption-free
had been lacking here for decades,
and not even the recent switch
to a county legislature elected by districts
and a single executive elected county-wide,
rather than three commissioners and a half-dozen
other executives elected county-wide
without any county legislative body,
hadn't produced the promised changes,
though given the prevalence at the time
of the pernicious illusion
that only those who "looked like you"
could adequately represent you,
maybe it had produced the intended ones

It was fondly to be hoped that the
Seven Political Dwarfs—
many more than one of each type
and many being more than one type—
Creepy,
Crappy,
Jumpy,
Dopey,
Sleazy, Cashful, and Crock,
had all taken the day off
here and elsewhere

The Seven's politics
(given the above,
a justly-dreaded Earth word)
meant that they did not believe in
what almost all of this time track
considered the King of Kings:
Leadership

A King worshipped by all denominations
and those with no denomination

A King worshipped by this political persuasion
and that political persuasion
and the other political persuasion,
though they might differ greatly on who should lead

A King worshipped by labor and management

A King worshipped by any dichotomy
that had yet been or would be devised

The Seven's belief only seemed alien:
it was the forgotten Terran prophet Eugene Debs
who had once said something on the order of
I-would-not-lead-anyone-
into-the-promised-land-
even-if-I-could-,
because-if-I-could-lead-them-in-
someone-else-could-lead-them-
right-back-out
This was the Golden Rule
on the Seven's home planet of Warren,
but had only been tried in some small-scale
utopias on Terra and elsewhere:
the threat of a good example being set
didn't sit well with most so-called leaders
on almost all astral bodies

But enough of that for now
The Seven for decades had knowledge
of the particular problem
sitting just outside the city,
and they had means to deal with it
not available to Terrans,
but the Golden Rule required they wait
for their help to be requested by a Terran
(an exception was made if the issue
was immediately life-threatening;
that was not the case here)

Such a request had recently been made,
and that was what brought about their arrival here
two days ago,
as noted in part one of this poem

__________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Michael Ceraolo for this section of a narrative poem he’s working on.

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