Globalization Part VII

A flat world
forwards agreement
towards naked existence.

Its institutions-
secular and sacred-effect
the leveling process of contagion
on the wings of false data.

Existence reduced
to "me".
~~

It was well past midnight.
Chad had lost track
of time.

The evening lay still and quiet
uncharacteristically absent
the comings and goings
from the coffeehouse
below Chad's flat.

The smell of hollyhocks, planted
along the sidewalk, loitered
in the heavy, summernight's air,
also having lost track of time
to curiously waft its way
through the open panes
of Chad's window.

Oddly enough,
Chad had not noticed.

Outside it was pitch black,
the moon off on furlough
and streetlights still out
having not been replaces
because of budget cuts
from the recession.

Chad sat at the small table
next to the window,
spellbound to the book,
squinting into focus each line
from too little light given off
by the energy-saving bulb
of the table lamp
he'd disrobed
of its shade.

Yet, Chad couldn't
put down the book.
Realization after realization
to unanswered questions
popped to view.

They were simple answers,
but nonetheless suppressed.

A passage read,
"If it's true for you,
it's true."

Suddenly, the words
grew bigger and brighter,
as if the moon had returned,
or the streetlights were changed,
or the nightmare had ended.

Chad felt different, lighter,
as when a burden's lifted
from the shoulders.

The lyrics of a song
of freedom flashed
to mind: "See me! Feel me!
Touch me!"

He realized he was
his own Truth.

Uncontrollably,
tears streamed
from his eyes.

He felt enthuiasm
not known since
his youth.

Lost dreams cascaded
before his eyes,
the ones he'd compromised
to a flat world-
the purpose to help others
supplanted by greed
for self, buried
beneath the mire
of cynicism.

"How perverted I'd become",
he said aloud as if to beckon
forgiveness that the moon
might shine its light
through the opened panes,
and the scent of hollyhocks
he'd now come to smell
would feel welcomed
to while away
in the darkness
of his flat.

Chad braced himself
against self-abasement
for his arrogance,
for turning his back
on the person he was
to become niggardly
and fawning
to a flat world.
~~

A flat world
is robotic.

In a flat world
we do not miss
the moon.

We do not see,
nor do we smell
lonesome hollyhocks.

We live without streetlights
to light the way
through eternal
darkness.
~~

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels