Where's the Pony?

”Write what you know.”

That is so simple. It’s true. Simple. Real.

But what if? What if everything you knew to be true just, just… isn’t anymore? If all you were certain of dissolves into space dust and dream fragments and nothing seems true?

How do you write about what you know when your mouth is full of despair and your mind scrolls endless question marks?

Falling off the side of Reality Mountain my arms pinwheel and fingers scrabble for Roots of Truth to grasp and hold, only to slip further down as the threads stretch and snap.

How much further will I fall? How much more can I lose? When will the words once again form true stories with a beginning, middle, and satisfying end? Right now? Right now I can't get no satisfaction.

Right now I struggle to understand what is true. Until I can do that how can I write what I know?

~

After several intense days in a different time zone I caught up on what passes for 'news' only to see what looked to me to be a public kidnapping splashed across some social media.

Zip ties, unmarked security, off-duty police officers.

Dissenting woman called a 'little girl that spoke up but doesn't want to deal with the consequences" by the moderator that stated her voice was meaningless because he had a microphone and could talk over everyone.

Three men that refused to identify themselves grabbing and dragging her across seats and along the floor. One tells her she can make this easier by cooperating, and still refused to identify himself as she screamed "who are you?!"

The clip above is from YouTube, and there are others of the Kootenai County Town Hall in Coeur d'Alene Idaho.

What did I notice?

People cheered and clapped... and stayed in their seats. They took photos. They watched, some holding their coats just a bit tighter so that the stink of dissent wouldn't taint them, perhaps?

She was calling out- absolutely. As were the people in support of this roughhousing woman-handling... but they weren't reprimanded.

There's more... and please take your time to research and form your own opinions.

But what I am trying to follow is the terror of this moment. That her voice.... my voice... our voices are 'meaningless'. That I write this on a platform called 'Vocal' seems apt. This is me being Vocal, using my Voice.

Lifting up that voice while I still can. Speaking and writing my way through things and trying to find the truth in there... somewhere.

There is a story: Once upon a time there was a happy fool. So happy, in that never-stopping way that can irritate people, that eventually he was brought to the king for judgement on disturbing the peace.

No matter what anyone in court said, the fool kept smiling. The King had the fool muck out the royal stables with a rake, but at the end of the day the fool still smiled.

They gave him a table fork and spoon and sent him to another stable to clean it out, but at the the end of that day he still smiled.

They locked him into the dungeon and shoveled manure through the windows until just a small pocket of air remained and then left him there over night.

The next day the door was opened and the fool was paddling through channels he had dug in the manure- smiling ear to ear.

Incensed the king cried out and demanded to know why the fool was so happy.

"Great King!", cried the fool, "How can I not rejoice? Surely with all of this shit in the room there must be at least one healthy pony! I have been digging all night and just know I am close to finding the pony!"

~

That fool was sharing what he knew- there had to be a pony amongst the shit.

That fool was far more certain than I regarding the state of affairs. I can't write what I know because I can hardly bring myself to believe the things I swim through these days. I'm not sure we have anything right now but a load of shit.

Comments welcome.