The Future we deserve

Image taken during Fire season 2018 in BC. The way forward is not clear. Where will you draw your lines?

For a moment, the situation seemed inconceivable. A crowd of people gathered around a stage with attendants left and right, the signals of pomp and circumstance everywhere. A lone figure stood on stage, staring out to the crowd. A whisper, starting at the back from cupped hands to ears, reached the front like a soft but inevitable wave, “he’s naked.”

Someone rushed on stage and whispered into the man’s ear with the last cupped hand, his knees visibly shaking. The hall collected a breath as everyone waited to see what would happen, to find out if he was in fact naked and what they should do if he was. They waited to be told how to feel, who to direct their emotions at, and what those emotions should be. Unable to bear waiting, a hand raised and called everyone in closer. They all huddled together to discuss how to react in a moment of palpable, collected,tension.

But, the Emperor, looking at his people debating, knew something the anxious citizens did not; the Emperor realized in that moment it didn’t matter if he ever wore clothes again, for he knew that no one had dared to tell him the truth that whole time. It turned out, no one was willing to risk themselves and his displeasure for the public good after all; it dawned on him he could do whatever he pleased, and as he looked out to the crowd beneath him, past his own pasty, wobbly belly, he grinned. Some in the crowd thought it was a smile of embarrassment. Some claimed they caught him blush that day and that’s what pushed the crowd towards their zenith. It was not embarrassment though, it was barely contained giddiness, childish glee like just before being less loose at a dessert buffet knowing you can never feel full or sick. The ways in which he could take advantage of the situation were almost flooding him too quickly to process.

The huddled crowd, meanwhile, had come to the conclusion that any man that was smart enough to get around the obligations of clothing, while convincing others he was performing his duty sufficiently for months, was a man they’d like to learn from. So, at the same moment the crowd came out of their collective huddle and began stripping, the Emperor, in his height of drunken power did what any leader in that moment would do: He did a Nazi salute. The crowd, mostly with their shirts over their heads, didn’t all see what happened. When it had been verified afterwards in photos, no one could agree on much except that civilization died that day.