An Inhuman Condition

In the old days they used to believe. Give ten men an ember of glowing fire, and they would shower you with fresh meat, skins, pottery, whatever. In those days they could believe the hell out of something.

They used to believe that when God created being he used one vase to hold all the souls of man. When a child was born, God poured soul into it from the vase. When a man fell in battle against beast, sickness or time, his essence was cremated, and his soul returned to the vase to be poured anew.

The first people were very protective of the vase. They labored intensely to maintain their numbers. If they had too many babies, they believed the vase could not pour essence into them, and some would be born soulless and evil. If they had too few babies, a plague could decimate their human forms and leave them trapped in the vase forever. And so it was for centuries that they lived unwritten in time always birthing, burning, recycling themselves. When a person died just before a birth, it was thought that the soul remained near the top and had not yet mixed with the others, so they gave this new child the name of his fallen ancestor. And so it was that these spiritual accountants lived their lives among the world.

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Here I am on the night of the Kalamazoo City Commission elections taking time away from my busy schedule of reading and consuming to pay attention. I’m stuck chain smoking and clicking the refresh button on my browser faster than a lab rat would click for cheese. I’ve been pondering the votes, assembling my own list of candidate stats and watching what is ultimately a pretty boring show. The incumbents are all far enough ahead at this point to keep their seats, and Mayor Hopewell is in no danger of losing the high throne.

I’ve been watching these results over the last few precincts and only one remains to report. I’ve seen Don Cooney lose the runner-up spot to McKinney by 66 votes, and now he’s down 107. I was hoping that someone as weird as Cooney would see some recognition. I had my hopes for the poor bastard last year when he ran against the Upton legacy for U.S. representative, and now it looks like he’s stuck a plain-ol’ commissioner. The past few elections I’ve seen him take the number 3 spot every time, and it looks like this one will be no different.

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