The World of Darkness

The Raw Nerve, Rene Magritte, 1960

It was an eerie scene reminiscent of some Magrittian surrealist painting of malapropos objects badly juxtaposed. A dusty road racing towards escape on the horizon. In the foreground, just off the dirt road's edge, on its loosely draped prairie grass sagging shoulder strap, stood a podium and a microphone exposing themselves to the broad land's vast void.

Like props waiting endlessly for an auditorium to be built around them; for an audience to fill that unconstructed forum; for someone to take position behind that empty podium and silent microphone, the barren grassland stage waited.

There's a role playing game called the "World of Darkness" about a place separated from the real world we inhabit by a nearly impenetrable barrier known as the "Horizon". The Horizon is a significant obstacle between our world and a realm of darkness where lies subrealms of desolate isolation and the souls of corpses amid horrific ruins. There, in the rubbles of the past, lie the demolished desecretations of Hiroshima, The World Trade Center, Fallujah and others. Shadowy and evil characters live among the acrid debris, garnering nourishment and strength from the havoc they have wrought to the victims of these debris slums.

Fortunately, the Horizon separating the real world from this alternate universe is not easily accessed by many. The ability to transport between these worlds is not a gift so much as a curse of those residing behind that barrier.

And so it was this past Thursday, upon this strange dusty stage with an empty podium and silent microphone, there emerged a black Suburban from the World of Darkness over the Horizon. Arriving within several hundred feet of center "stage" and its lonely props, it stopped on the opposite side of this road and out slithered several figures. After pressing the dishevelment from their clothes and wiping the blood from their fangs, they signalled the cameras to "roll". It was typical Bush photo-op entrance.

Approaching the podium, the main characters became evident: the stuttering, muttering president portrayed by George W. "I'll be the last person to admit defeat" Bush, followed by his truth starved V.P., Dick "the insurgency is in its last throes" Cheney, a burnt out hulk of a Secretary of Defense, Donald, it's "a global struggle against violent extremism" Rumsfeld, and an obedient Secretary of State, Condoleezza "mushroom cloud" Rice--off her leash. Rumsfeld grimaced at having to walk the last 25 yards for the cameras as Rice panted and wagged her tail gleefully, bounding toward the stage.

The president stepped to the mike. He assured us it's a free country where we're all entitled to our opinions, even if they don't agree with his--which he reminded us are always right. We will "stay the course," he again reminded us. Then it was over. As quickly as they'd come, they retreated toward the darkness. The shadowy figures slithered back to their transport and disappeared over the Horizon.

I was left wondering: Where is this "ranch" from which Bush, Cheney, leashless Rice, and burnt out Rumsfeld had come? And what did they return to when they went back? Is there a big party going on over there? And what exactly is this "ranch" we never see, over this Horizon we can never go? Is it a wooden facade braced up by boards concealing an opulent world of castles and decadent misbehaviors? Or, is this "ranch" a rusting, crumbling trailer on blocks? And does the president have a real herd of cows, or is that just some carcass fat he smears on himself to authenticate his phoniness?

In a Magrittian world over the Horizon of the surreal, it's difficult to separate the columns of marble from the facades of cardboard.