A Camel, The Sequel

It's ridiculous, isn't it, to twitter and preen like a sequel isn't a sequel? Is anyone, anyone at all, fooled by a re-packaged same old dog or a re-branded same old trick, flittering about like a second act of warmed-over muck and over-cooked twaddle, is a redux to crow about?

Come on.

A Camel, The Sequel

There's an ease in the familiar, a comfortable, that feels rooted in something real, a tangible truth, impervious to

ghosts.

~!@#$%?&~

At least, that's what they say, the people who know so little about

real things. 

Who carve up experiences like butchers, who people say, should be asked for their

knowledge, skill, expertise.

*

At least, that's what they say, the people who know all the pocket change in the world, pales in wealth

to their own calloused hands.

Who valorize hard labor, even as they squawk and scrabble for what's

cheap, replaceable, disposable.

*

At least, that's what they say, the people who know there's nothing

but what's in front of them.

Who look neither forwards nor backwards for answers, that people say,

is found

in a deity. Or two. Or three.

*

At least, that's what they say, the people who know believers are literal armies and beliefs are literal

swords and shields.

Who winnow people into nations, that people say, should stand

alone.

*

At least, that's what they say, the people who know so little about

real things.

~!@#$%?&~

There's a sameness to old dogs and old tricks, a slick fix, that feels plucked from the fabric of something known, a telling and re-telling of a

plot.

~!@#$%?&~

Like all things worn smooth by attention, narratives are tumbled through rock grinders until they gleam and shine like found pocket change, priceless and pure.

Though tale telling is hardly... precious.

*

Even little children, like bakers who work flour into dough, punch and bend their creations to their

wills.

Neither overpowering a molecular matrix nor breaking a literary structure is... miraculous.

*

Plots that feature supernatural foes and mystical vigor are no more extraordinary than ordinary yarn spinning by born liars.

*

Reality, in the hands of mortal wordsmiths, is, in the end, as pliable as

magic,

as true as ghosts with no reason to lie, none at all, because revenants are answerable to nothing real and no one alive.

*

At least, that's what born chumps say, the people who know the plot that's everything is

the one where it starts with us

and 

it ends with us.

~!@#$%?&~

There's a smooth course, a path worn by being taken and re-taken, a road that defies every effort to break from what is tried and done, because a crooked way made level

is enough.

Because a fairy tale that tells little children: being crooked is the vibe of the one where the villain is never answerable to the people who shrivel under the thumb of inhuman power

is an object lesson in magical reality narratives that serve what people are hungry for, including acts pretending to be as honest as a camel threading through the eye of a needle...

again.

Notes

(i) "warmed-over muck and over-cooked twaddle" is a phrase from Skulkers and Slinkers (July 20, 2024)

(ii) while "redux" derives from reducere (Latin), which is also the unsurprising word origin for reduce (apropos for diminishing sequels, for example), "redux" retains dux (Latin) -- lending "redux" literary complexity

(iii) "There's an ease in the familiar, a comfortable, that feels rooted in something real, a tangible truth, impervious to ghosts" references Ghosts of Christmas (October 12, 2020)

(iv) "the one where" references the naming convention of episodes from a situational comedy (if you know, you know; otherwise and regardless, its use herein is 'cited' herewith)

(v) "There's a smooth course, a path worn by being taken and re-taken, a road that defies every effort to break from what is tried and done, because a crooked way made level is enough" references Isaiah 45:2 etc.

(vi) "being crooked is the vibe of the one where the villain is never answerable to the people who shrivel under the thumb of inhuman power" references, for example, villain-as-main-character magical reality narratives, though not exclusively

(vii) "an object lesson in magical reality narratives that serve what people are hungry for, including acts pretending to be as honest as a camel threading through the eye of a needle... again" references Matthew 19:24 etc. 

etc.

M