Tue 26 Apr 2022
Everyday apocalypses
Posted by PJ under death, disasters, gods, time, underworld
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Monday’s quote of the day, the one with Hades, was illustrated on Friday afternoon, as I always do them on the weekday before I intend to post them. About forty-five minutes after I finished it, while I was working on one of my novels, there was a tremendous explosion outside, quite nearby. Huge sound, unbelievably loud, with a wrenching metal component and a brilliant flash of light. The electricity went out. Before I had time to think more than “What?” there was another explosion, just as loud and brilliant. I had just another a moment to begin to be terrified when there was a third loud and flashing explosion.
I was really terrified by then, but thankfully there were no more explosions. I sat in a daze, wondering what had happened. Had a plane gone down? If so it must be lying in the street outside. Was it a bomb or a natural gas explosion? If so, again, it had to be very close by. I thought I’d better go outside and see if my house was okay or if I should evacuate, but when I looked outside, everything appeared normal. My neighbor across the street was out in his front yard looking south, however. My view of things to the south was blocked by two walls and some trees so I wandered outside and yelled across the street, “Do you know what that was?”
“It looks like one of the underground electrical vaults about four houses down exploded. I can see smoke pouring out of it.”
My next door neighbor to the south came out and said, “Be careful. There’s a live electrical cable lying in the street.”
By this time we could hear sirens and I thought the best place for me would be back in the house, out of the way, but I was badly shaken. My electricity came back in fairly short order. We have a lot of backup systems in this neighborhood because we’re on the same power grid as LAX. Thankfully, none of the houses were damaged, no people harmed, just the street. But I kept thinking about how we sit atop all of this infrastructure and think nothing of it when at any moment the apocalypse beneath our feet can happen.
And then I thought of that Hades quote and how one shouldn’t mess with him or the domains named for him. It had gotten kind of funny by the time I got around to that thought and I’d calmed down somewhat.
The power company was outside with jackhammers until just before 1 a.m. and massive trucks blocked the street almost all of Saturday. But everything was neatened up. Time to slip back into complacency.
Except that I got a phone call that same Saturday afternoon. A friend is dying of cancer, has only weeks to live, and K*iser Permanente dropped the ball numerous times, delaying diagnosis until it was too late. This is not the first time I have heard of K*iser doing that. They are great for preventative medicine but if you get really sick sometimes their follow through is lacking or disorganized. I am trying not to let my fury crowd out the attempt to find acceptance, but it’s hard. I remind myself it’s not about me, it’s about my friend, and she doesn’t need my anger to add to her own. I remind myself to honor my own feelings, but it’s too early for that, so instead I swallow them, down into the netherworld, deep dark Hades.
April has been an especially cruel month. As I posted here, I got two death notifications on April 2.
All of these are also apocalypses. They happen every day all around the world to millions of people and their families. We sit atop these imminent explosions and must, for our sanity, pretend they aren’t waiting. But when one of them goes off close to home it’s yet another reminder that time is not our friend and we must get busy with the work we must get done.
