Most people have heard of P.K. Dick thru the movies made from his stories. Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report and one of my favorites, The Man in the High Castle. Dick was a brilliant writer. His credit arrived about the time he’d managed to completely fry his brain with drugs. His later writings needed a Pharmacopoeia along side the novel, as a student of the Bible might reference a concordance. Psychiatric pharma was in his blood. The Man in the high castle, written in 1962, preceded his copious drug use by a decade or more. What brought this to mind was my meandering strip atop this post. In an alternate universe Steven King might have, may, should, or will, write about the Corona Circus and its scary Clown. The juxtaposition of the elements, the virus, the orange creature, the elephants, confused donkeys, and the sad clown, are the sort of raw material Steven King (in some universe) might make use of. The great Russian writers had revolutions and war and social calamity as background. They made good use of it. But current events, like manure, need to age a bit. When history is hot and still steaming it doesn’t make good fertilizer. That’s going to take years I’m afraid. It’s not going to be over by wishful thinking, the current approach in DC. What makes me think of Dick’s book is its setting in an alternate universe where the Axis, Germany and Japan beat the Allies. The Nazis occupied the USA east of Colorado and Japan took the western US. Dick’s alternate setting had one link to this universe, the reality we were familiar with (until this virus arrived). That link was a book called, “The Grasshopper lies Heavy” and it’s author the man in the high castle, the endpoint of the plot. I have not seen the TV production. I have read the book. The two diverge somewhat. Anyway, the analogy is that somewhere in this pandemic is a book and an author. Maybe King, maybe not, who has (or will) written an alternate story of this time. A story in which rational planning and competent leadership plus a sane majority allows a different path. This timeline is dysfunctional. But in the end I have to paraphrase from another sci fi flick, Terminator….there is no fate but the one we make, collectively. I guess we’re stuck with it.
