Hello,
I hope y’all find peace up there, down there, out there, or wherever you might be now. Hopefully the worst is over.
Some say that ghosts come from spirits who still have a score they want to settle.
If you have the choice, I’d recommend not haunting anyone. It’s useless. I hope y’all take the time to let it go. We got him. Besides, you won’t want to have to go down where that sonofabitch went after he 187ed himself before the cops got through the hotel room doors.
You’ll be known as the Vegas 59 for awhile, and maybe forever, similar to the Pulse 49 of June 16, 2016 in Orlando.
I’d let that go. From your time here you know we’re not much good with things unless they’re categorized and lumped together to be remembered with 3rd-grade level understanding.
If you pay attention to the shit down here over the next couple weeks, you’ll hear a lot of rhetoric.
Stupid rhetoric. Redundant rhetoric, nearly as senseless as what happened to y’all – yet with means of comparison for what you were forced to endure.
Here, I’ll give you the headlines in advance.
Here’s what happened so far:
- The NRA’s GOP pulled their push for looser restrictions on silencers so more can hear it coming.
- Black Friday came early for gun makers
- Folks screamed to the heavens. You probably heard them over your families’ prayers. John Q. Public was almost thinking of you while going hoarse.
Here’s what will probably happen:
- Trump will make off-the-cuff marks to keep opponents on edge and off-topic. He’s still playing chess; his opponents are still playing checkers
- Late Night hosts will keep making heart-felt pleas until Trump says something else to offend someone else, shell-gaming the hosts away from the topic of gun control. See previous note.
- The public will care all the way through the special ceremony that will probably happen during the Bears / Vikings MNF game next week, then it’ll have been a week and they’ll get tired
- Then it will pop up again at a country music awards or a CMT event. There might even be a charity and they might even spend $0.70 of each donated dollar towards a cause. Your families might even see some of it.
Eventually, you’ll fade from the public conscience because the quest to update gun control will be more daunting than the general public will care to hear.
If the the public can’t solve it with a couple protests and a few days’ of Facebook commenting, they’ll lose interest and take the next BuzzFeed quiz in their feeds while they dream of swiping right or left and reading tips on how to improve their selfie game, but you know that. Besides, your story is running smack into the fall television premieres and the Q4 holiday season. No advertiser wants their commercial dollars soured by such a story’s sorrow.
A few will stay, “true to the cause” but the general public will consider them “extremists,” will tire of the stress caused by the anger in their message and the pitch of their shouts. The press will stop adding them to news cycles because other stories will generate more pageviews. Those “true to the cause” will just gear up for the next public tragedy.
Nobody will listen to anyone, again. No one can listen and scream at the same time.
And the pattern repeats back to Newtown and Columbine and before.
None of it will make moral sense. I’d let this go, too.
If it ain’t worth their time, it shouldn’t cost you your peace.
With a little luck, some will take up the gauntlet and use their wits instead of their voices. Even luckier, they will learn to fight the war and not skimp through skirmishes to complete the quest.
They might even start playing chess and stop playing checkers.
Oh what trials our hero would endure. Oh what isolation they would incur. Oh, what ridicule. But, oh, what a hero our hero would be.
Thankfully, it’s no longer your problem.
That’s our burden to bear, now.
If all goes well, there will be infinitely more beautiful, perfect, hoped-for things awaiting you.
Don’t worry about us. We’ll all be there soon enough, mostly from our own stupid devices. And, if I’m right, it’ll feel like we all showed up at the same time. Timey-Wimey and shit.
Enjoy the Hell out of it.
My only real advice is to remember if I’m wrong, and we don’t all see each other again at the same time, and there are seats open next to Johnny and Waylon, don’t sit in them.
They’re for Willie and Kris, but you know that.
Otherwise, here’s to hoping there are no watches, no technological devices, no advertising, and no empty bottles where you are. May the breezes be trade winds and may you see the milky way & beyond from up close. May your old friends be new acquaintances and may your old loves share coffee with your families.
Most of all, may you never have another day of worry, ever again.
Thank you. From a stranger paying attention,
– Finn
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