This Isn't Real

"If the big bomb didn't happen. If WWII wasn't ended by the hydrogen bomb, you would have seen 'bat bombs' within a couple of months. America developed little single ounce vials of napalm that they attached to bats. Yeah, like, vampire bats. Because when it gets light outside, the bats go find someplace dark. And, you know, Japan, lots of low hanging eaves, lots of darker, enclosed places."

Jamie, my Scottish traveling companion on the road back to Washington DC is telling me all about military flubs over the years. Projects that now seem strange. Vehicles that bled money until they were completely obsolete. Torture methods that defy morality. How American and Britain both passed on buying the original design of machine gun because it wasn't cost effective... and Germany didn't.

"So anyway, the air force would drop a parachute that would open and release the bats and they would all fly to dark places and then a timer would go off and ignite the napalm, and boom. They tested it on an empty American village and burned it to the ground. So, you know, bat bombs. That's a real thing."

No it isn't. None of this is real. The fabric of existence is coming undone so fast that I can't even keep up with it. Nothing seems real anymore. Richmond Virginia is almost totally devoid of life. It's like The Nothing from Neverending Story swept through here. There is a bus station, a gigantic stadium where the Flying Squirrels Baseball team plays (go in through the Squirrely Gates), and nothing else. No shops or gas stations. It's like an abandoned Sim City project.

Now I listen to Trump talk on the television. He claims that his cabinet has the highest IQ in history. Can you just, like, say things that are obviously blurry like that? He says that his victory in the election 'set records, all kinds of records'. What? You can just say stuff like that now? I suppose if you say it with enough confidence, you can. This is reality? This is what we are accepting as the world that we live in? And no one is questioning how all of this stuff is happening? Look, I realize that this is all we have, all we can access through out sense perception, but it has to be acknowledged, at this point, that none of this is real. The reality that we have constructed to keep our minds from totally folding in on themselves is coming apart. It is ceasing to be effective. We are letting the coaster fly from the tracks too often for the rules of reality to do the job that was their original design. The cracks are starting to show. To me, that is actually a comforting thought. Less pressure this way. It means that we can almost detach ourselves from what is happening and just enjoy it for the cosmic joke that it is. This is where my head is at 2:28 am in Richmond. This is the road to DC, where I imagine things will get even weirder.

Suplemental: If you need more proof, Jamie has also told me about a town in Wales called: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch -- This is a real thing? Do you see how few verbs there are in there?

Also, the national animal of Scotland is... A Unicorn. Yup. Google it. Now you tell me that the universe isn't fucking with us.