#wedf

Dungeon Family

April 16, 2019

NASHVILLE, TN

“It’s not as if you’ve never given a speech before,” he reasoned with himself. “You won the Nobel Prize, for Christ’s sake, you can give a simple presentation to a room of people” he continued, without much luck.

Dr. Stevenson had, in fact, won the Nobel Prize several years ago, awarded in recognition of his “development of anti-Alzheimer’s Disease medications which have broadened humanity’s grasp of the future”. To put it another way, he had synthesized the first successful treatment (he was uncomfortable with the word ‘cure’) for that scourge of the over-65 crowd. Since that time, he had rather faded into obscurity, much to the consternation of the scientific community at large.

Unbeknownst to the large audience gathered in the theater, Dr. Stevenson was not, as the poster promoting this appearance had stated, “making his grand return to the cutting edge of science”. Rather, he was desperate for cash, and this seemed like the best way to parlay his limited fame into a quick paycheck. The technology he was about to step on stage to reveal to the waiting crowd, far from being the next world-changing treatment or life-lengthening procedure, was nothing whatsoever. Dr. Stevenson had no new discovery, no groundbreaking experimental successes. He hadn’t run a successful experiment in over a year. Hence his nervousness. Nevertheless, when he heard his name announced and the crowd begin its applause (tinged with anticipation), he found his legs propelling him through the curtain and into the spotlight.

“Hello” he began, rather nervously. He paused for a moment to gain confidence, self-assurance, and plowed on. “I’ll get right to the point. Ever since I won the Nobel Prize three years ago, I have been asking myself: what’s next? The several months immediately following my win were some of the hardest of my professional life. ‘Is this it?’ I thought. ‘Is this all I was meant to achieve in life?’ Then I answered myself: ‘No!’. So today, ladies and gentlemen, honored guests, I announce that I, Doctor Rupert Stevenson, have discovered a cure for human aging.” Here, he paused to take in his audience’s reaction.

His audience was, to say the least, confused. They didn’t know whether he was having a joke at their expense, but based on the joyful expression the scientist wore on his face, it soon became clear that he was quite serious. They slowly (then quickly, in that way audiences have) broke into rapturous applause. Some may have thrown flowers, if they had only thought to bring them into the theater with them.

“And that’s not all!” continued the lying physician. “Not only have I cured aging, but the cure is something that is not patentable, not copyrightable, not monetizable. It’s something that is all around us every day.”

At this new revelation, the audience became (if this is possible) even more laudatory in their plaudits.

As it happens, I enjoy February. Not only is there a lot to do (indoors, of course), but also it is home to two of my favorite holidays: Groundhog Day and, if you’re lucky, Leap Day. I enjoy Groundhog Day because it evokes in my mind the culture of animal divination and signs from the gods from which we all evolved. The ritual is thus: a brotherhood of men dressed in strange attire (hierophants of the Cult of the Groundhog, if you will) gather in a designated place (sacred ground, Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania) to consult the weather Oracle (a housecat-sized burrow-dwelling rodent native to North America). The strange movements and signs of the Oracle can only be properly interpreted by the High Priest, the President of the Inner Circle of the Groundhog, due to his possession of an ancient wooden cane (acacia wood, to be precise). Indeed, this implement empowers the head worshipper to understand the otherwise incomprehensible speech of the creature (i.e. “Groundhogese”), who explains to the man whether the spring is imminent, or whether the winter will continue for six weeks more. This, to me, has threads of Celtic and Germanic ritual tradition, with even the implication of something more ancient. I like to imagine that, after the collapse of American civilization which must surely be just around the corner, this ritual will be passed on like the high priesthood of ancient Israel in Biblical times, from father to son. This figure may, as seen in empires as diverse as from Rome to Egypt to Assyria, assume a leadership role. Being understood as holding the Mandate of Heaven, to borrow a term, could surely bring an individual great wealth and power during their lifetime, and a place in the immortal legends after it. I can even imagine a not-too-distant future in which these priest-kings are endowed with such power that a stratification of society takes place and the masses are reduced to laboring for the benefit of the aristo-groundhog-ocracy. I’m not saying that the end goal of the Brotherhood of the Groundhog is the reduction to serfdom of 80% of the world population, I’m just saying, have you considered it? Maybe tomorrow when you’re scoffing at the inevitable New York Times headline reporting the findings of an immortal midwestern rodent, you should spare a thought for the future generations who will forever bear the stain of being descended from an unbeliever.

My other favorite holiday is Leap Day. Already, this is an ephemeral holiday because it only takes place once every four years (the rules are actually a little more complicated than that, but for the purposes of clear prose, I won’t be delving into them here). I am in love with the ephemeral, be it a one-time-only art exhibit, a performance piece which is inherently unrepeatable, or a holiday which doesn’t take place every year, but only on those years which have been ordained as holy by that great God of American culture, the Gregorian Calendar. Side note, but this is also why I love rare astronomical occurrences, from eclipses to asteroids. The idea of being able, ever so briefly, to commune with the stars, to get a sense of the vast scale of the nothingness which envelops our bubble of life, is unexplainably exhilarating. But back to the topic at hand- Leap Day. This year, there will be no leap day. February will process through his 28 days, never even for a moment considering, while teetering on the precipice of March, to extend his reign a few more hours. And yet, if there were a Leap Day celebrated every year, I confess it would lose some of its appeal to me. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, some would say. I don’t know that I’ve always found that to hold true, but in terms of leap day it definitely does. To those leap days lovers who feel distraught over the lack of celebration, indeed, the lack of February 29th to exist at all this year, I offer these words of hope: next year there will be a leap day. It will be celebratory, and joyous, and everything one could hope. So don’t despair, prepare for next year.