Glitch iii
Repeating weather events. These are the latest in a series of strange occurrences that suggest something is greatly amiss.
No, I am not talking about “Yeah, it sure is hot all the time.” OR “It sure snows a lot!”.
What I am talking about are repeating instances of the same…exact…weather events… play out again and again (and again).
Them are the odd ones that I cannot account for. At first I thought I was crazy. The third time? Yeah, that has the feel of a trend line to me my friend.
We have a tendency to name large atmospheric events. We name them so we can reference them with ease and faux precision and outsized authority when we talk about them.
And boy do we like to talk about them. “Whoa? See that killer storm coming in? End is nigh nay?” “Hope no one dies!”
So we name them white sounding names. Women names. Names like Nancy Ann or Barbara Sue or Blanche. And then we can say something more than “You know that big storm the guy on tv says is a coming?”; and instead we say something like “You know that Nancy Ann?! She sure looks like a bad ‘un!”
This anthropomorphizing permits us to both distance ourselves from the imminent danger for which we must prepare by rendering a dangerous storm into something more akin to a bit of tabloid fodder. A dangerous storm, say a hurricane could kill thousands. One of them thousands could be you. But Barbara Ann? Hell, you saying you can’t outrun silly ol’ Barbara Ann? Shit, what good are you? Anthropomorphizing something permits us to fall into the depths of spectatorships slowly and naturally. “Let us watch this thing as though it were human.”
It’s a bit silly when you think about it. Arguably nothing is more dangerous to this planet than the Human.
Anyhow, a while back I became aware that I have been reliving the preparation stage for a certain storm for several consecutive weeks. We are not talking about a singular Deja vu event. This has occurred three (update 4…5…???!!) times so far.
I confess, it was not the actual atmospheric event itself that I witnessed and experienced. The only parts I experienced were those related to the emergency broadcast message that pertained to the urgency of preparing oneself to immediately shelter in place. I experienced that multiple times. Never entirely the in the same manner. And I have no recollections of experiencing the actual storm. Let me explain.
Time 1: I was at home listening to the radio. A Storm is on the horizon. We call her Nancy Ann. I know this because while I was listening to an old jazz tune and the emergency broadcast system interrupts what I felt was the best part of the storm. You know the sound. It sounds like a droid unit being kicked in gonads followed by ominous words like “This is a not a test! This is an actual emergency. Nancy Ann is headed directly into your vicinity. It is too late to evacuate the area. Cower in place! Preferably in a basement. I look outside and it is quite dark and obviously true. The trees are a swaying in a bad way and huge rain drops begin to dot the deck.
Time 2: I am in my car two weeks later. I know it is two weeks later because I only drive my car a single time every other week for a particular errand that is too far by bike or walk. I always run that errand on Tuesdays. On this Tuesday I ran the errand at the same time I heard the last emergency broadcast about the same Barbara Ann Storm. (Last time I had run the errand first thing in the morning. This time I left the house at noon, just after I finished a business call.)
The radio runs a 30 second emergency report that implores the residents in my area to plan to evacuate from the area Nancy Ann as that storm will land early next week. I think to myself “I have plenty of time.”
Time 3: One week later (four weeks after the first time the initial storm was imminently expected to make landfall in my area, I am perusing a certain news web page while sitting on my couch at home. There is an article dated with the current date that discusses how the storm- yes, Nancy Ann- will make landfall in our area early tomorrow morning. The article says that any resident that has not left the area yet, is “very strongly advised to do so immediately as they storm surge will likely take everything down around it. I must confess I did not read the article as I had thought at the time “I already know how this.” I realize only in hindsight that was a foolish mistake. But at the time the microwave chimed that my soup was done so I got up and went to eat it. Honestly, the weather didn’t look that bad as i looked out the kitchen window.
Fool me once shame on you. Twice on me. Thrice? The universe is trying to tell me something.
But why can I recollect the news of the oncoming Barbara Ann but have zero recollections of actually enduring such a storm? Why are each of these odd not quite Deja vu’s running away from the epoch of the event?
