c. 2020 Rod Ice
All rights reserved
(4-20)
Overnight.
My favorite time for
creative work comes when the sun has vanished, and most of my
neighbors are lost to slumbering away daily fatigue. Cloaked and
comforted with this pause, I feel revived. Safe to approach the ideas
that have percolated in my subconscious mind during regular hours.
I was at my desk in
the home office. Coffee and my Black Lab offering companionship. The
morning had been quiet so far, except for a light rain that teased at
our windows. I was reviewing material for the local
newspaper-of-record, the Geauga Independent. A task faithfully
executed each day, as editor and publisher. Puzzlement stalled my
dedication, however. I fretted over choosing an appropriate story for
the front page. The Maple Festival, in Chardon? Spring awakening
thoughts of leisure activities on the horizon? No… not now. These
things had vanished.
In our current age
of challenges and changes, they did not exist.
My company phone
rang while I pondered. Its screen announced an anonymous number from
Burton, Ohio. This made me sit upright, and take a deep breath. The
device sounded three times in succession. Finally, I accepted the
call.
“You have reached
the Independent. May I help you?”
A cough and static
filled my ear. “Rodney! This is Zeb!”
I rubbed my eyes.
“Who?”
There was more
static on the line. “Zebulon Byler-Gregg! Brother of Ezekiel and
Lemuel! Have you forgotten me, young man?”
I laughed out loud.
The caller was a trusted friend, brother of a fellow newspaper editor
and also of a vagabond journalist who had moved from the Midwest to
the Virgin Islands.
“Zeb! Zeb!” I
laughed. “It is five o’clock in the morning!”
He growled like a
bear. “So, you’re an understudy for the rooster now?”
“Wait,” I
complained. “You called me, sir. Despite the early hour...”
“Rodney, I know
your habits,” he said.
I nodded silently.
“Yes, they haven’t changed. I made coffee almost two hours ago.
Are you working on a feature for the Burton Daily Bugle?”
Zebulon huffed with
indifference. “Brother Zeke hasn’t run any of my features in over
a month. He’s obsessed with our pancake breakfasts being canceled
because of the Coronavirus.”
“Right,” I
reflected. “We’ve all experienced a shift of epic proportions. I
wonder when we will find our way home to normalcy...”
He lowered the tone
of his voice. “That’s what I wanted to discuss, Rodney. Being
normal. As in me thinking that you haven’t been very normal,
lately.”
I was unprepared for
his comment. “What??”
Zebulon sharpened
his thoughts. “You used to be a good Libertarian. An independent
thinker, an arbiter of truth and justice in print. I liked that,
liked reading your work. You were a good kid.”
I had no response.
It seemed better to let him ramble.
“Governor DeWine
and Dr. Acton have thrown down a gauntlet for citizens from
Cincinnati to Cleveland,” he said forcefully. “A violation of
liberty like we’ve never seen before. Not in our generation. Not in
many generations. Not since the days when the Confederacy challenged
our national unity.”
I took a deep
breath. But still said nothing.
“It’s time,”
he declared. “Time for citizens in Ohio to stand up for freedom. To
stand up for our state and our nation. To stand up for our way of
life!”
I slumped in my
chair. “Zeb, get down off the soapbox.”
“You’ve sold
out, brother!” he shouted. “What happened to the man who idolized
Lysander Spooner? And William Godwin, Josiah Warren, or Max Stirner?
And could quote them all, including Henry David Thoreau? Who voted
for Dr. Ron Paul? Who used to have a porcupine bumper sticker on his
pickup truck?”
“Zeb,” I
laughed. “You are getting carried away. I’m not a scholar. Just a
small-town writer. Though I did have the porcupine sticker, until it
faded.”
“I’ve read your
material in the newspaper,” he continued. “It isn’t the same.
Urging people to follow CDC guidelines. The worst of big-government
edicts!”
I sighed heavily.
“Zeb, we are fighting a worldwide pandemic...”
“Horseshit!” he
shouted more loudly. “This is opportunism. A political move!”
I leaned over my
desk. “It’s a response to danger. An effort to rescue our
society.”
“Traitor!” he
yowled. “You’ve gone over to the other side! To socialism, to
partisanship, to thought-control and submission of the masses. We
might as well live in North Korea now!”
I couldn’t take
any more of the rant. “ZEBULON! STOP IT!!”
He groaned as if in
pain. “Rodney, you disappoint me.”
“Sorry Zeb,” I
apologized. “This is pragmatism at work. Platitudes won’t help
fight a virus. They won’t protect us from an invader like COVID-19.
We need scientific analysis, and perhaps, a bit of luck...”
My friend went
silent for a moment.
“Intellectual
sparring is fun,” I added. “In normal times. An academic
exercise, entertainment for political geeks like you and me. But not
now, not today. Not when thousands have died and more are slipping
toward oblivion. Gagging on their ventilators.”
Zebulon had grown
angry. “You’re a turncoat!”
I shook my head.
“I’m a pragmatist. Like my father. Conservative? Yes. An
iconoclast? Maybe. Even a dedicated Libertarian? Yes, yes. My
heartstrings reverberate with those tones. But I want to live. I want
you to live and our neighbors to live. I want our world to live.”
“HYPOCRITE!” he
bellowed.
I stiffened in my
chair. “Sorry, brother. I won’t simply be a mouthpiece for the
protesters. Though I defend their right to speak. I defend their
right to be ignorant. But I won’t help them to wallow in darkness.
I won’t will them to be uninformed.”
My cohort grumbled
audibly.
“This is our creed
and our mission,” I concluded. “To present the evidence. Then
readers can decide. Freely and fortified with information. That is
our tradition. To educate. To cast light where it is needed. To
inspire analysis and debate...”
Zebulon wheezed like
a door being shut. He hung up without another word.
Daybreak filled the
window above my desk with brightening blue. The coffee had vanished
from my cup. My dog was snoring.
Now, it was time to
finish my writing project, and return to bed.
Comments about
‘Words on the Loose’ may be sent to: icewritesforyou@gmail.com
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O. Box 365 Chardon, OH 44024
