Story-A-Day #345: Imprints

IMPRINTS

Most of us worry about the imprint we might leave on our world.  I used to.  I used to worry about the imprint I would leave on those around me.  Would I be viewed as an honest man?  As a warrior?  As a thief?  Would I be viewed as a clown who never had the capacity to take things seriously?  Would I be viewed as a man who took all things seriously - even those moments of levity that had no right to be considered within the realm of seriousness?

Those things used to concern me, and then they dropped the bomb.  I know, the bomb?  It's so nineteen eighties, and yet, that was the glory of the plan.  No one even knows who it was that initiated the attack.  There are rumours that the whole thing is a smokescreen to divert our attention from the state of the world and the rapidly collapsing global economy.

Seriously?

There must be a better way to prove a point, a better escape policy.  For them to just drop the bomb and assume that we would turn towards them for salvation and guidance as to what we should do next is both ridiculous and inhumane.  It is, right?

I've been living in an old cold war bunker for five months now and today, I decided I would venture out into the bright, wide world, and you know what?

I have not encountered any resurrected dinosaurs.  I have not encountered any demented tattooed and pierced pillagers of this dead earth.

The only thing I have encountered is the imprint of a dead leaf.  Death always leaves an imprint on us though, so I am confident in saying that this was not the message "they" aimed to deliver.  Their message was one of fear and chaos, and yet, if all that remains is a message of beauty imprinted onto this paving stone, then the message has not been delivered.

I used to want to be so many things, but I now realize I only want to be salvation for a global population that has spent far too long living in fear.

The bomb was a lie, and through that lie we can find our salvation.  Join me on the surface and reclaim what has always been ours - life, prosperity, and a better way of being.

This is the time for us to reclaim what has always been ours: Happiness.

Happiness has only ever been our salvation, and a communal, global sense of happiness will be our only salvation.

That is what I learned today in the wasteland.  The only waste we incur is the waste we cling to,