Everything is heavy and still, but on occasion a gust of wind brings the scent of water. From the lake, from the sky, from places unimaginable. This water that will soon rain down upon the entire steaming city. This water from which we are nourished, from which we are comprised, from which we were born. How old is it? Is it forever?
Jones hands me a stick.
“Here daddy, this is your stick and this is mine. We will drag them through the rocks!”
We drag the sticks along the sidewalk. Jones is a shark, I am a laser beam. Earlier he was an astronaut robot dancing to Toots and the Maytals. He is a shape shifter. A shaman. A spirit guide constantly forming and reforming, announcing himself to the world in all his various guises.
A young Asian woman attired in perfectly executed variations of pink passes by. Focused on the phone before her, she does not see us. A ghost floating through the humid day. As real as a cloud. Jones drops his stick and runs into some bushes. He is drawn to every green thing. All the branches, all the leaves, all the flowers, all the replicating versions living within–everything different, everything the same. And he rummages for a minute before emerging with three tiny snail shells cupped in his hands. His eyes so blue, so big.
He knows this is a miracle.
“This one is the daddy, this one is mommy and this one is Jonesy.
Something happens to the weather and it begins to spit and we are beneath a tree, the sound of water drops falling on the leaves above.
, you know, the spot where you see www.michaelmurray.ca and type in “ Men can” followed by a space, the autofill will provide you with these five suggestions:
Men can get pregnant
Men can have babies
Men can have babies now
Men can have periods
Men can cook
I then tried “Women can”
Women can fly
Women can vote
Women can do it
Women can do anything
Women can be drafted
I then tried “Women are”
Women are from venus
Women are beautiful
Women are some kind of magic
Women are the future
Women are funny get over it
It’s a little bit of social engineering, this. Google hopes to suggest new ways for us to think about, and shape the world before us. I tried this search for a few other things to see what other suggestions were being made:
Science is fun
Science is real
Science is magic
Science is fiction
Science is wrong sometimes
Japan is attacking
Japan is a radioactive island
Japan is known for Godzilla
Japan is dying
Japan is overrated
Jennifer Lawrence is not your girlfriend
Jennifer Lawrence is talented
Jennifer Lawrence is related to Abraham Lincoln
Jennifer Lawrence is fragrant in ways that cannot be described
Jennifer Lawrence is not scared of ghosts
If you cross the borders and enter into this swamp-nation, you will instantly be transformed into a pitiless ideological zombie. You will be shouting at everything. You will be angry, sunrise to sunset, and then into the night. Even under your blankets and the ominous, blue glow of your phone, you will still be furious, your brain in terrible flames. Twitter knows this and is now trying to encourage civil behaviour, both by cancelling offensive accounts, and nominating “well-behaved” people for “Sainthood.” Sainthood is nothing more than a halo emoji that appears beside your name, but Twitter is hopeful it might catch on and help put out the still burning swamp fire. Here are a few of the people who recently received a halo emoji:
Saint Bobby D of Oshawa
“Somebody had posted a photo of a guy sitting on the subway with his legs slightly apart under the heading, ‘THIS IS AGRESSIVE MANSPREADING!!! SO SICK OF TOXIC MASCULINE ENTITLEMENT!!!!” I was going to point out that the author had spelled aggressive wrong, but she already seemed pretty worked up so I decided not to contribute to the anger storm.”
Saint Heather of Trent
“ I came across a headline on Twitter that said, “Trump’s limo driver of 25 years confirms the President has always been an asshole.” I was just about to Retweeet it when it occurred to me that I should probably read the article before propelling it further into the world, and so I just let it go.
Saint Brad of Midland
“I had been hearing a lot about the Syrian Civil War and the truth is that I really didn’t know much about it. To be honest, I had never even heard of Aleppo, thinking it was the name of a Finnish hockey coach, not a besieged city, and so I read a Vox Explainer about the situation and consequently felt pretty confident of my understanding of the complex predicament. I was about to engage in a robust argument about what was best for Syria and Syrians in general, when it struck me that I had never been to Syria. I had never read any Syrian press. I didn’t speak Arabic. I didn’t even know any Syrians. And geez, I couldn’t even work the new remote we got with our subscription to Crave TV, so it dawned on me that maybe I wasn’t the guy to solve “the Syrian problem,” and I just kept my opinion to myself.