AFTER THE PLAGUE
By Thaddeus Howze [@ebonstorm]

It has been said in
many a public place

“After the Plague
Came the Renaissance.”

Pithy, toothsome.
Rolls off the tongue.

It might have been
the truth once.
But that time is long past.
Alas, we haven't had
nearly enough plague
for a Renaissance.

The world will
return to normal
in a couple of years.

Then the return to
the race
to the bottom.

Where pampered,
“first world nations”
lord it over a world
Kept poor and struggling.
While their corporate masters
decide which elements

of our collective Humanity
to sacrifice
in the name of progress.

A world where nations wield
the Four Horsemen
like golf clubs.
Laying waste as they move across an ever-changing map of false borders, playing through, with devastation and lives lost, the score.

Who resists?
More and more often
The will has been worn away.
The populous, little more than
pleasantly distracted cattle,
fatten at the corporate trough,

Slaughtered in the ICU.
Regrettably,
at great cost.

Stripping away the
last vestiges of
your illusion of wealth.
Held hostage, In a society designed from birth to death, to extract value from your presence, taxing you, to mine your very existence, the way the gemologist finds the precious gem and carves it to be of great value, to him.
We are shaped to be used. Not freed.

We aren't ready for Renaissance because we haven't suffered enough to change our ways.

We haven't been scared enough.

We haven't been collectively desperate and connected in our misery enough.

Plagues do that.
They remind you of how alike we are and how alike is our suffering and how mean our mutual deaths can be.

We will need a bit more of that I'm afraid, because we are only going to change when there's no place to go back to.
When you can only go forward, freed from your preconceptions of what was possible, having seen and understood the outcome of not choosing.

Death and dissolution.
Or the Renaissance.

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More from @ebonstorm

8 Jan
Hey Twitter! It's been a while. I used to write here all the time hanging out with #scifichat, #comicschat, #litchat, talking about #science, #tech, #autism and a dozen other topics which broadened my horizons and let me share my diverse interests in almost everything.
Then my life got incredibly busy. My son went to high school and coupled with his #autism, our lives became super-complex. I lost my job and my car gave up the ghost after four years of @Uber. Then the unthinkable, my wife experienced #renalfailure.
4 years ago, she underwent an operation for #peritoneal #dialysis. This form of at-home dialysis would let her take care of her renal needs at home avoiding the need for external #hemodialysis centers. In hindsight, this may have saved her life.

texastribune.org/2021/03/30/pan…
Read 26 tweets
5 Sep 21
SHOULDN'T SUPERMAN INNATELY BE GOOD AT COMBAT?

The Answer-Man's mailbox runneth over this week. But only one question caught my eye.

Another variation on
• Can Superman actually fight?
• Isn't he just a brawler?

Let's deconstruct this:

@MarkBrooksArt #DepoweredSuperman
Q: Shouldn't Superman innately be good at combat?
A: Who says he isn’t?

Is it the fan who wants to say Batman is a better fighter because he’s been training since he was a teenager with his vaunted 127 martial arts?

Cool story, bro.
Or another fan who says that Wonder Woman is better because she’s been training to kill gods on Themyscira since she was a child?

Superman is a better fighter than both of them.

There. I said it.

Why? Because his mind is better than a Human one. He has total recall.
Read 19 tweets
2 Aug 21
My Matrix of @Marvel's Magnificent Martial Masters
It's not perfect. I'll need to make two of these. One for heroes, another for villains.

This is my short list of everyone you should avoid pissing off in any visit to the Marvel Universe.

#YMMV #comics #martialartists
S-Class: Exuding martial mastery, watching them fight is to stand transfixed by their perfection; they are the impossible done effortlessly. No army can stand against them. No army wants to.

Shang-Chi, Iron Fist, Black Panther, Mantis, Moondragon, Fat Cobra, Karnak the Shatterer
A-Class: These martial masters train and hone their abilities constantly. Combine their enhanced abilities and their Olympic-level physiologies, they are the finest fighters ever seen on Earth.

Captain America, Black Widow, Electra, Bullseye, Blade, Daredevil, Psylocke.
Read 10 tweets
28 Jul 21
SPEAKING THE UNSPEAKABLE

I despair of being free of the coronavirus.

Not because we lack the tech, but because we lack the will.

Things which make no sense to me, things which seem cruel or outright monstrous and I am forced to ask: why?

Welcome to #SpeakingTheUnspeakable.
• The #pandemic hasn't ended.

#Governments, due to corporate pressures, are forcing people back to work.

• You may be #vaccinated, but you are NOT safe.

• The #coronavirus will last longer, cost more & kill millions more people worldwide.
@FoxNews's #disinformation efforts have proven to be more effective at misleading people than our government has been at leading them.

• Unchecked #misinformation and #socialmedia have been integral to developing the failed rhetoric on the vaccination effort.
Read 18 tweets
24 Jul 21
A SEVEN DAY RECOMBINANT MIRACLE
#FlashFiction by Thaddeus Howze

Every seven days they evolved, passing through us, a liminal fire.

#amwriting #VirusBedTimeStories #SciFiFri
By the time we understood, they drank us, a thousand lives a month, nonstop; by the time they achieved perfection at their apotheosis, we died in the millions.

The recombinations continued. New keys into newer locks.

(Art by Nathan Wyburn)
We could do nothing but watch. We had the knowledge. The Apple had given us everything. What we lacked was time.

We weren't ready.

We had been warned. We ignored the legends, the visceral loathing built into our very genome. We feared them, intuitively.
Read 23 tweets
8 May 21
Everywhere I look, I see #companies complaining about a lack of #workers.

Their solution: Blame the workers because they don't want to rush back into the #workforce.

Can't say I blame them, since technically, the workforce threw them to the wolves at the start of the pandemic. Image
Didn't whole industries (let go, furlough, lay off, or outright fire) their staff at the start of the pandemic if they couldn't do their work remotely?

Didn't they let them go without any concern with how they were going to pay their bills, maintain their healthcare & the like?
Companies just said: "Bye, Felicia," like it we were breaking up at summer camp, not entering a worldwide pandemic which we were not ready to navigate, lied to by our government, and lacking a dedicated healthcare system, ill-prepared to weather.
Read 26 tweets

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