This morning was not a usual morning in our modest and normally quiet little village of Bunutan. Even before it was light, the fresh dawn air was broken by screams of horror coming from our neighbor’s compound next door. Our neighbor Gabor, had hung himself during the night. Distraught over financial problems, most recently manifested by the reclaiming of his refrigerator by the credit company, my friend and neighbor for over five years decided to end it for himself. In a few hours, we will carry his body to our Banjar cemetery, where it will be interred until our next Banjar cremation.
As is normal in my “regimine dejour,” I put on CNN’s nightly news with Aaron Brown that airs for me at a most convenient 11AM. Still in shock over my neighbor’s suicide, I watched what I thought must be a surreal newscast of what is going on in the US with the elevated terrorist threat. From my own hometown of Hartford, Connecticut, I watched coverage of a man covering his entire house…his ENTIRE house…in plastic wrap to protect its occupants from a biological/chemical attack.
For a few seconds, I thought I had gone mad. But the reality hit soon enough…I had woken up in a mad world. Even in Bali, where as one poster once reminded me, “there are plenty of beaches to stick your head in” this mad world had ferreted me out of blissful comfort, and shaken me to a sobriety I did not desire.
I grew up in the 1950’s “duck and cover” years. I used to think the worse of my living history was McNamara and Vietnam. I thought I was well past all of the phantoms I acquired during those years. Wrong! They’re back, and this time in aces of spades!
As is normal in my “regimine dejour,” I put on CNN’s nightly news with Aaron Brown that airs for me at a most convenient 11AM. Still in shock over my neighbor’s suicide, I watched what I thought must be a surreal newscast of what is going on in the US with the elevated terrorist threat. From my own hometown of Hartford, Connecticut, I watched coverage of a man covering his entire house…his ENTIRE house…in plastic wrap to protect its occupants from a biological/chemical attack.
For a few seconds, I thought I had gone mad. But the reality hit soon enough…I had woken up in a mad world. Even in Bali, where as one poster once reminded me, “there are plenty of beaches to stick your head in” this mad world had ferreted me out of blissful comfort, and shaken me to a sobriety I did not desire.
I grew up in the 1950’s “duck and cover” years. I used to think the worse of my living history was McNamara and Vietnam. I thought I was well past all of the phantoms I acquired during those years. Wrong! They’re back, and this time in aces of spades!
