Meanwhile, On Planet Earth
Costello, a Brazilian reef octopus, is having the most vivid nightmare. Tentacles-thrashing, color-changing, ink-releasing in a wild explosion of melanin and mucus.
Meanwhile, in New York, the sky turns orange and hazy because, at the same time, Canada is on fire, coughing out carbon monoxide and particle pollutants.
Meanwhile, on the nightly news, the Air Quality Index becomes part of the weather forecast. We learn that 267 is very unhealthy and above 406 is hazardous. We are happy the next day when the air goes from hazardous to just very unhealthy again.
Meanwhile, a 5,000-mile seaweed blob filled with flesh-eating bacteria heads to Florida for the summer. The ocean like a hot tub, reefs bleaching and boat-battered whales beaching.
Elsewhere, orcas teach themselves to attack invading yachts. Meanwhile, billionaires challenge each other to cage matches, while the average yearly salary in the United States is $60,000.
Meanwhile, have a nice day and leave a tip and take a survey!
Meanwhile, this is the hottest day it’s ever been, until tomorrow. This is the hottest year it has ever been, until next year. This will be the coolest day, the coolest year, it has ever been from now on.
Meanwhile, a woman in Phoenix puts her hand up to her bedroom wall to feel the 110º heat outside burning through, she worries, for how much longer this house can hold back hell.
Meanwhile, 32% of millennials and Zoomers say they believe in hell, while only 18% of Boomers do.
Somewhere else in Arizona, a man falls down on the pavement and receives burns on his hands. Highways buckling, railroad tracks twisting, runways melting. The world like a Dalí painting, meanwhile,
Costello the octopus dies.
In the meantime, a man in Texas re-reads The Waste Land. “What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow out of this stony rubbish?”
Meanwhile, a futurist says, “The world as we thought it was, is no longer there.”
All the while, in the midst of apocalypse, the rest of us go to work, go shopping, go on vacation, go to Taylor Swift concerts.
Meanwhile, apocalypse is no longer classified as a noun, but a verb. I apocalypse; you apocalypse; he, she, they apocalypse. Apocalypse becomes a progressive verb: we are apocalypsing.
Meanwhile, workers at the Acropolis in Greece walk off the job as temperatures reach 118º. Tourists flame and fires faint.
Meanwhile, a PSA: ‘apocalypse’ comes from the Greek apokalupsis, “to uncover or reveal” To uncover or reveal not just an end but an understanding of end, like an eschatological how-to guide
like an octopus dreaming terrible dreams.
Meanwhile, a poet from Pakistan writes, “I’ll follow love into extinction” which reminds us of the New York School poet who wrote, “In times of crisis, we must all decide again and again whom we love”
Whom do you want to apocalypse with?
Some sea life has begun to edit their RNA to acclimate to warming ocean temperatures, And some see life in artificial intelligence, a life that will be race-less, genderless, bodiless, just consciousness, not limited to this intemperate time or place of Planet Earth.
Something will be, future tense, even if it is not the first-person plural.
And, meanwhile, if not, then, I want to apocalypse with you.
Rich Russell (he/him) teaches composition, literature, and creative writing at a community college in South Jersey. He lives and works among the flying squirrels and carnivorous plants of the Pine Barrens. Here, he also hosts yearly zine and poetry workshops. "Meanwhile, On Planet Earth" was first written and presented as part of "Poetry in the Park" (Somers Point, NJ, August 6, 2023). You can find him @rarjr on Instagram and Threads.
Image Source: Photo by Jake Blanchard