The End To Game Of Thrones

And so begins the reign of the broken king Bran.  It's always a curious sort when a near omnipotent being who knows all secrets, see's all futures, and can control the minds of beasts and man alike, some how is accidentally thrusted into the role of supreme leader immediately after all other possible suitors are done suspiciously stabbing each-other and slaughtering the people they meant to support, and yet here we are.  His parents?  Murdered.  All of his brothers?  Dead or in exile.  All of his sisters?  locked away in frozen prisons of their own devices or wandering further and further away into dangerous lands for no discernible reason.  And what of the loving couple who originally crippled him?  They lay crushed together beneath his tower so his very throne may rest on-top of their mangled bodies.

Yes, there are many suspicions to lay out here, yet at this moment no one in the kingdom is quite able to see straight; everyone's been acting all sorts out of character with the smartest man in Westeros fumbling around crypts in the dark and the mother of dragons acting more beast than queen.  A few years ago we would have thought this be madness, but in the lead up to the battle with the Night King, everyone seemed to be acting a bit touched.  And what of the Night King?  the only being in all of the seven kingdoms with the power to stop Bran?  Well for some reason legions from across the seas and desert lands showed up to defend him in the middle of winter....well, they did, and then the ones who survived were slaughtered in oddly obvious ambushes shortly after.

Yes, a broken kingdom is easy to subject, and right now somehow the kingdom is very broken; nearly all leaders of houses have been replaced by odd relatives; House Tyrell, once possibly the most intelligent and influential among them, is being led by a cutthroat.  The Tarly's are being run by a apathetic, sex-crazed thief and the Lanisters have been utterly wiped from existence with the exception of a single drunken dwarf who has proven very useful.  Even the inner council of the king has been left a shit show of adult children who's most heated debates come over arguing which brothel to rebuild first.  The man who can see all laughs to himself when he additionally turns the lights off to a country he's just blinded.

Yes, Bran The Broken has some how, by coincidence and luck, assumed power.  Many know his reign to be unassuming and never question his presence, but then there are those who wonder a little too loud in front of crows...those who do see several fates; some volunteer for castle black, others simply wander into the sea until they are gone and forgotten.  A few of the more vibrant though seem to just barricade themselves in their own room, not letting in family or medicine until they've fully expired.  Know one knows why, but they seem to just hold the door.  Whenever that occurrence is mentioned aloud to the king it is the only time he is known to smile.  Funny thing for a man without want.  Funny thing for a broken kingdom.

What Are You Saying

Today something truly exceptional happened...something remarkably out of the ordinary...Today someone recommended a podcast to me that wasn't about murder!  I was shocked and in disbelief at first, thinking that shirely someone has to die to legally put on a podcast but, lo and behold, there are ones out there that don't include violent acts culminating in the ending of innocent lives.  And people still listen to them!  Really!  Now, for a while there I was worried it was me.  I was worried that every-time someone came up and said "Oh, nick, there's this podcast about serial killers, you're going to love it!" or "Oh, nick, there's this podcast about mass murder sprees, you're going to love it!" or "Oh, nick, there's this podcast about people snapping and killing those that are nearest and dearest to them, you're going to love it!"  that I would, personally, really identify with it for some reason....which I didn't think so and hoped not, but maybe they saw something in me I didn't.  Well, today my preconceptions were shattered as for the first time in as many years as there had been podcasts, someone told me to listen to one with no long descriptions or corpses.  Mind.  Blown.

Life Finds A Way

Well, what a pickle we’re all in.  I’ve heard a lot of words used over the past couple of days.  Weeks.  Months.  But there’s only one thing that makes sense here:  We are currently experiencing a natural disaster.  One you experience less frequently that a hurricane, but more frequently than a volcano.  There are two big differences to this one, though, from your common disaster; One: it’s a disaster that never touches a building.  Never stops the utilities.  Never breaks a dam.  And two: it’s one the whole world has to go through together.  We have cultivated a planet and made it just as small and brittle as we are in kind.  But, this is a natural disaster, and like all natural disasters it will pass.

But that’s the funny thing about this one is that there’s two sicknesses going on here; one that gets into our bodies and lasts around 1-2 weeks…and another that gets into our society and hurts us for months.  I don’t believe people are cruel, but I also think our absolutes are misleading.  Most people know about a natural disaster and never prepare for it…they cut it out of the budget of life, or think of the world as happening around them, never to them…..and as the saying goes if you’re preparing for a storm in the rain then you’re already too late.  So, I don’t see people hurting each-other with intent, but setting each other up for a bigger fall than we would hope.

I think it’s important to remember a few axioms here:  People can be Selfish and kind.  They can be Scared and polite.  They can be caring and thoughtless.  These are not opposing ideas and often they help lead us into worse territories when combined.  That’s what we’re experiencing now, as well.  I went to get tested the other day because I had a cough for five days.  When I was first there they refused to test me until I had revealed I had been to Seattle recently.  Then they told me the test wasn’t mandatory.  I asked them how many people opt out of the test out of the people you’re actually willing to test.  They told me nearly everyone.

And you know what?  I don’t really blame them.  They are scared and they want it to just be a cold.  Which it is to most.  I know about a third of the people in my office have been coughing for the last several weeks.  No one wants to believe they have it.  But we’re all going to probably have it.  I also know no one trusts our healthcare.  Are you going to be put in a bubble?  Are you going to be forced to stay home for months?  Are you going to go broke over this.  That last one is the most likely possibility as we live in a country without any public healthcare and, unlike Russia, China, or Korea, where you can get tested and treated within the hour on the hour…..no one knows what they should be doing here.  Our healthcare providers can fight the disease, but they can’t fight the bureaucracy and they can’t fight a system made to treat health like a commodity at the same time. 

As for my test?  Well that happened on a Wednesday.  They told me they weren’t allowed to test it there.  Not that they couldn’t.  They easily could and would have the results that day.  But that they weren’t allowed to and had to ship it off to a lab in Washington, which was also the only lab in the U.S. that was allowed to test any cases of this disease.  I asked why and they had no answer, only that they receive different, contradicting protocols every single day on how to handle this.  And, again, I can’t blame them…because who’s in charge?  Is it Robert Redfield?  Head of the CDC and the man who helped discover the HIV retrovirus and spent a lifetime studying chronic human viral infection?  No, no it is not.  Is it Alex Azar?  The first pro-unregulated-drug-price Secretary of Health & Human services?  No, it is not him either.  Is it Mike Pence?  The VP and the man neither of the other two are allowed to speak without speaking to him first?  No, it is neither him.

What is driving this ship is what goes on every night between 10pm and 2am on twitter thanks to an Adderall spike.  I remember during our last natural disaster he took a sharpie and drew on a map to let the nation know the state of Alabama know was in danger in his head.  So what’s going to happen here?  Well, it is what is happening right now.  We have a population that’s been told not to be tested.  We have those who should be tested too scared to be tested.  We have doctors having to fight this thing through their organization with no idea what happens tomorrow.  We have a testing system designed to obfuscate results rather than help stop a pandemic.…and GoFundme is our modern healthcare provider IF you’re insured.

 It’s Friday now.  I was supposed to have my results back days ago.  My doctor doesn’t know where they are.  I don’t know if I should leave the house.  But what I do know is that I could have flown to Korea in this time, been tested, gotten the results, and flown back and begun any needed treatments.  What’s going to happen next the rest of the world knows and we don’t.  We’re probably going to find the number of infected is 10x whatever is being said.  States may have to take up the charge where the federal government isn’t because of a lack of consistency and reality….and we’ll all probably get the disease at one point or another.  I am weirdly hopeful that my test, if it ever does come back, comes back positive so that I can be done with it. 

But don’t mistake this for what it truly is:  It is a disaster.  A natural one.  And a failure.  A human one.