The universe has a sense of humour. It knows that no matter how many synchronicities it throws your way, you will never heed the warning.
The year before the pandemic, we went on a trip to Asia. I wanted something to read to take with me, so I bought a book called The Dog Stars by Peter Helle. It's a bittersweet tale of the apocalypse. It tells the story of a man who survives the pandemic and his struggle to remain alive in the ruins of civilization. It's a gripping story. Poetic, somber, and human. Also humorous.
Now I think back to that time when I purchased the book. It was my first "prepper" book. The Dog Stars. The title intrigued me. I first heard about the dog star from psychedelic thinker Robert Anton Wilson. Sirius, the Dog Star, is connected to the cosmic mysteries, somehow. Central to that mystery is the concept of synchronicity, the idea that some events are bound in spacetime. RAW even wrote a book about it called Coincidance.
I hold the Dog Stars in my hand and look at the cover page. Then turning it over, I read the blurb on the back.
"Hig somehow survived the flu pandemic that killed everyone he knows."
Synchonicity? CoinciDANCE? I think I can hear Wilson laughing up in space.
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Great book. Very powerul. I love it when an author shakes us out of the here and now imagines a future so frightening and yet hopeful.
I think about that book a lot, as we move through this pandemic crisis. the coronavirus is nowhere near as deadly as whatever took the lives of millions and millions of people across the globe in that book. And yet. Do we want to test it? Are we going to be so glib, that we don't feel responsible for what we do today, right now, to avoid human contact and help to stem the tide.
Great insight @jayna. The story is wonderful and not at all what I was expecting. You're right, the coronavirus is not as deadly, at least not yet. Viruses mutate and if this particular virus comes in waves, then we're in for a long ride. Crossing my fingers that I'm wrong. Thanks for dropping by!
Let's just hope King's "The Stand" will never come to pass.
What a thoughtful and well-written response to a book!
That novel about the ship that sank ten years before the Titanic.... "Leviathon" - is just haunting, the way authors can write an outrageous story that later comes to pass.
This book about a dog is apocalyptic only in terms of the Holocaust and WWII Germany, and displaced Jews, but above all, it is a fun story with a "Forrest Gump" theme (the dog's assorted heroic adventures).
Sirius: A Novel About the Little Dog Who Almost Changed History
by Jonathan Crown
The Stand is certainly a spooky epic. One thing that I noticed in my years of amateur writing is that sometimes what I write eerily ends up happening in real life. Maybe the process of jotting down thoughts allows us to access parts of our mind not normally available to everyday consciousness. Thank you for the book recommendation, @carolkean! I like reading about WW2, so I'll check it out.
You're onto something here - the prophetic nature of writing, the collective unconscious (Jung), the Muse,
*** Something *** out there... we tap into it, we channel it...