Moths in the rain

Sylvia Shawcross

I am left now with only Frederick the racoon at the window. He has stopped scratching at the handle for my attention and instead is catching little white moths with his agile little fingers. Once he has caught them all, he settles down there, his plump bum pressed up against the glass.

He will not go away entirely. He is where he wants to be. I accept his presence and work hard not to feed him.

Do not feed him. Do not feed him.

Feeding one led to feeding 24 and absolute chaos. Because of one raccoon. Do not feed him. My heart does not agree. So many times in life our heart does not agree with our head.

When the sun rises over the river I can see him silhouetted there. My gaze follows the frieze of trees down to the edge of the property where fog disperses above the pond below. I wonder if there are enough frogs there to help feed the children of the night I have loved all this time. I don’t know. Today there is a sunrise but it is blinded by the dark rain. The hard rain that falls. The hard times that come. For the children of daylight.

They are still sleeping at dawn, lost in dreams, waiting for the alarm that jolts them into their life for the day. They who have neither time for heart nor head but only for the herd. Herd into buses, into offices, into the machine. Herd together or at least pretend. Herd into the lineups. Do as others do. Say as they say. Believe as they believe. Go where they go. There is safety in numbers. Follow the herd. It is that time. Now. Is it?

Even with this rain I can hear the husky buzzing of motorcycles on the highway going too fast. Too fast. And why? Because some days nothing matters. Nothing at all. And we see that more and more. Nothing and nobody matters. The social niceties tattered by trauma now gone. Just fight the way through the day. Find the money to pay the bills. Find a place to stop worrying if only for a few moments. Don’t pay any attention to the people around you. They don’t matter. Now. Ride in the rain as fast as you can.

There are still some who believe in kindness. They are overwhelmed with others’ needs. They are drooping in the rain now like the maple leaves against a grey sky. They are tired. They keep on going until they don’t. How much heart is enough? Where is the end to this time? This pressing want and anxiety?

The hard rains that are coming will sting bitterly. It is said this will be worse than the Great Depression by those who study such things. But we don’t believe that. We can’t. How can we? A human cannot live without hope and that sounds about as hopeless as can be.

We aren’t prepared for much of all this. Perhaps however, it will be easier on the “colonialized” countries of the west because we are closer to the time when pioneers did everything from scratch, living without the luxuries, having to build everything they needed, building up countries that ironically are now being dismantled as if all that toil and dreaming of better lives meant nothing.

There are still some who remember people who lived the early days. Many of them now have cottages far from the city without electricity and conveniences so they can live the pioneer life. Aside perhaps from fond memories of times past, such endeavours make me wonder why now. Perhaps it was a better life. There is the hope. It might just be a better life all round if we can get there from here and leave the madness that we’ve seemingly created behind.

And this would be fine. If there weren’t those who will not allow such things now in charge.

We are to be put into boxes in the cities where we will be provided everything we need. The chickens and the cows and the wood stoves gone. A button on a wall. A machine making meat. AI as our friend and neighbour and the dark framed glass buildings our new history.

But no one is in awe of a box of glass. It is not a cathedral. It is not soul searing catch at the heart. It is pragmatically utilitarian. Perhaps that is what we are to marvel at? How cost effective. How efficient. No. We do not. We will not. It is head not heart.

No tourist of the future will come to marvel at the architecture. Did they who build such ugly things think they would? They who are in charge do not understand that in the windows of the glass boxes there will be no raccoon catching moths in the rain.

And that matters.