Some cultures place emphasis on certain numbers as a way to explain the universe, and also as a way to try and game the system for one’s own personal benefit. For some folks, either currently or in times gone by, the number 2 might have some significance. For others, it could be 3, 4, 5 and so forth. It’s usually those singular prime numbers of course, but perhaps there is a culture out there that really goes gaga over the number 47 as a way to explain the unknown in a quantitative manner.
Two is an easy one to land on, for it represents duality, the basic understanding of all ideas, forces, conditions and elements of life having a corresponding oppositional value. That’s what we all thought anyway. It might have been true at some point, if anything can be said to be true at all.
Lately, it seems that relationships have been a little topsy-turvy in our neck of the woods. Pieces that used to easily fit together seemed to have a little modification to their size and wouldn’t quite match up so neatly, which led to a lot of frustration all up and down the streets and avenues and, in fact, throughout the valley and all the way up to the craggy rocks sitting on top of the ridges that formed a natural border to our particular landscape:
Physically- through its geography and geology;
Spiritually- through the metaphysical effects of the light and shadows;
Socially- through the community that had developed organically in this here valley.
That’s what everyone thought and bought into that concept of duality until things went a little sideways. The frustration level, collectively, seemed to rise a little more each day with all of the supply chain disruptions and supermarket empty shelves. Touchstones of our past were no longer valued, and even basic economic necessities like bills, receipts, and invoices, words and numbers, the basic building blocks of our language and social relationships became more and more distorted and untethered.
The tension led to a rumor going around about certain beings coming down out of the sky at night to plunder us of our connections, values and beliefs. Yes, these beings, said to descend from above holding umbrellas over their heads, these umbrella men plundered our land in the wee hours of the morning and then somehow used their umbrellas to get back up and away to whence they came.
As the weeks wore on, it became crystal clear, through anonymous social media postings, that what was happening was a pillaging and plundering on a massive and frequent scale, very consequential and damaging indeed, much like you would hear stories from the Old West about nighttime cattle rustling and stealing horses. The Umbrella Men were similar but also completely different as they did not take our animals. They did not take our money or our things of value- gems, textiles, paintings, vehicles and such. They took everything else, all the glue that holds a society together but has no material tangibility: thoughts, customs, ideas, beliefs. These belongings were being packaged up and lifted out of the zone by the Umbrella Men.
Of course, there was no need for any real packaging. I only use that term as a reference. In the end, we still had all of our money and jewels, but we had nothing else, no way to relate with one another or make sense of the world around us. That’s when some of the populace found each other in a hidden cave beyond the lake at the edge of town to come up with a plan for the Restoration of the Collective Soul.
THE MOSSY BOG 