Splash is not at his best on Saturday mornings, which is to say, when he is actually at his best it is better to just let him go where he is going, follow with mild interest, and let him blaze a path into the sort of reality he prefers. Some of us were up early. It had been a big week for all sorts of things. Splash was lamenting the show in the heavens. DeMille waved at the duty Intern, who was busy and a little cranky since most of “their” friends were off for the weekend. There were a stack of them, the Footnotes, that is, not “friends.” The latter would be wrong, while the former are understandable.

The Intern saw that DeMille was ready to start things off and reached for the first Footnote, which referenced the jury decision on a trial held in the Upper Midwest. DeMille shook his head vigorously side to side. The Intern put that sign down and picked up the next in line. It seemed to be about arithmetical progression, the kind where one number is part of a process of other numbers piled randomly atop one another. Or subtracted from one another. The first of these things- equations, really- showed how trillions of dollars equalled “zero.” Other ones suggested $1.9 Trillion actually equals $4.9, or to accommodate alternate analysis, $7 Trillion.

The head shaking around the Fire Ring was vigorous enough to cause movement on the water-smoothed surface of the sitting rocks. Loma raised his hand, and said “We all raised families without any of this stuff, and we could add and subtract without much trouble. Why is it that in a time of uncertainty we are going to spend the most money in the history of the world to provide childcare to people we don’t know? Or free college educations? We didn’t need that. And now they are going to make the savings of our lifetimes worthless, in order to provide free stuff that is so expensive it will ruin everyone.”

Rocket raised both hands. “Stop. It is about that equity thing, and completely understandable. We were raised to think that everyone was entitled to a fair shot at accomplishing something. Now, it is only fair that we will do it in reverse. We will determine what everyone’s outcome is going to be, and then enforce the means to make that happen. Then everyone will be happy.”

“What do you mean “we?” Who on earth would “we” empower to determine what that is?”

“Already done. No problem.”

“Doesn’t the Senate get to talk about that budget stuff? Is someone responsible for telling us exactly what this all costs and who is going to pony up to pay for it?”

“Next stage. Don’t worry about it. I saw an ad that told us the adults were back in charge and everything is going to be fine. It might cause some transitional dislocation, but hey, it is for the greater good.”

DeMille frowned. “I thought we were not going to talk about justice, or budgets, or anything controversial.”

“Well, who would want to read anything that just seems to make sense?” said Rocket. “Why don’t we talk about the big deal. The real one, the show in the heavens?”

There was a universal sigh around the circle, since the matter of the eclipse of the Beaver Moon in November had been a topic earlier in the week. “It only happens every 586 years, and it was Thursday night, right here.” He waved generally in the direction of the sky. “It was a nearly complete eclipse of the nearly full moon. If we had stayed up until three in the morning we would have seen the sky turn a sort of lovely crimson, with the inexorable power of the spheres on nearly complete display.”

“That is nearly completely cool. How did it turn out?”

“Don’t know. The Lady in Red on TV said there might be clouds, so I didn’t set the alarm to get up to see it. She said the average full moon periods are always powerful times of release, resolution and illumination. The one in November is so powerful that even the Beavers retire for the season.”

“I can get behind that. Why don’t we do a piece on the spiritual meaning of the lunar sequence as we approach the darker season ahead?”

Splash sighed and smiled. “Thank God we found something to talk about that won’t cause anyone to feel bad about themselves. In five hundred years all these other problems will be long gone.”

The Intern looked a little nervous, since there was another Footnote sign “they” had not yet displayed. No one else paid much attention. We are old enough to know better than to get more crises laid on before lunch.

Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
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