So I'm in the middle of Bones and All, when I drift off. (no comment on the film..it's pretty great. I'm just tired) The next thing I know I'm outside in the middle of the night near some kind of industrial area.
Standing next to me is a huge humanoid figure in a black robe with a hood. So I ask him if he might be the Ghost of Christmas Future, but he can't answer because, as I can see when the sodium light hits his face, he's a skellington person.
He just points at the building like it should have some kind of significance to me, and starts walking toward it.
Now at this point, you know, like, the spirits are my ride, so I walk with him, or it, I guess and we pass through the wall of the building, and it's a factory. They're making what looks like a lot of little green crackers getting packed into boxes like snack crackers.
Suddenly a guy in a neckerchief bursts on to the factory floor, screaming and clutching at his face. Then he screams, "Don't you see? Don't you get it?? Soylent Green is PEOPLE! It's PEOPLE! IT'S PEOPLE."
That guy gets piled on by a bunch of security guards and the GOCF turns and walks out through the wall again, and I go after him.
"Wait a second," I say, as we come out onto a beach. "This isn't even my fucking future. It's not ANY future! That was the end of the movie Soylent Green for christ's sake."
But he says nothing, and points down the beach where what looks like a partially melted Statue of Liberty is poking out of the sand buried to its waist.
Then he turns to me meaningfully, and when I don't start blubbering or quaking with fear he points again, more dramatically.
At this point I just want it to be over so I say, "Oh spirit. Is this the future that will be, or is it only a peculiar retrospective of the mid century work of Charlton Heston?"
And he lowers his hood and shows me that not only is he a skellington person, but he might be the skellington of Charlton Heston.
I let out a sigh, "Okay man. I...I am at a loss as to what your game here even is. Like, I would expect the three of you to kind of build, you know, like, one on the other, with the goal of using trauma re-enactment to force a kind of shock treatment to repair my empathy....but there's been, you know...just a lot of weird shit. And frankly, I think my empathy's okay? Like any problems I have about Christmas are not going to be fixed by this...or, frankly, by anything three spirits are going to throw at me...so can I just go home and promise to TRY and not be a huge buzzkill about it?"
The spirit nods...a little confused, and I wake up again in my chair.
I look down at my dog.
You there," I said, "what day is it? What time?"
And she looks up at me like, "I'm a dog. I don't talk or read clocks."
So I open my laptop and see that it's just about midnight.
"11:59. It's not even technically Christmas yet. These complete assclowns can't do anything right. They did it all before midnight."
So I got up, stretched, skritched my dogs and went and sat on the back porch for a little.
The world's a mess, and it feels like everything in the world is a mess. It's all a rehash of a rehash, and a remake of a remake. Even the spirit world can't keep its shit together.
But it's a nice night, and my house is warm and safe, and even though I don't feel very Christmassy...I'm pretty grateful. Everything's transient in this world. Every moment is like a precious stone you're trying to catch before it hits the floor.
And looking back on my life is like looking at all the different people I used to be, and just a massive spill of moments I never quite grasped.
But they're pretty.
The world is pretty when you step back and look at it, past and present. And the future is impossible to guess, and any attempt is silly and pointless.
Like the entire film career of Charlton Heston.
Merry Xmas, and Soylent Green is people. It's people everyone.