31 - The highway signs bother me.
joneworlds@mailbox.org
Some years back as the Olds were beginning to
occupy more and more of the quad-cities area, they
put up these signs on highway 6 and other major
routes in. Typical black-on-white road signs, with
text: "WARNING / INVASIVE BEINGS / ENTER AT OWN
RISK" And under WARNING there is this weird image
of a head with one eye and no hair and an open
mouth with fangs and a big pointy ears. It's drawn
in the simple style of those hazard warning
pictures on bottles of solvent and glue and
whatnot. Like the skull and crossbones in an
octagon, or that skeleton hand in the bucket of
acid, that sort of thing. The "harmful shit
within" message.
And those highway signs always bothered me. I
mean, we're still people, we're still in here,
we're living in here. This is our home. We eat
breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And the sign makes
it seem like we're all mean and hopeless,
dangerous and lost. Written off. And I don't just
mean us homo-saps. Olds are people too, and we may
not always get along, but they are just trying to
live here, same as we are. And they aren't like in
the signs, they aren't like scary monsters or
something. Okay well, actually the ogres do eat
children sometimes, and that is very
monstrous. And for that we cull them like
conservation officers on nuisance bears, and I
guess that is pretty awful too. I wouldn't call
goblins monsters exactly, but they do seem kind of
hideous and amoral to me. And all in all I guess
it is pretty dangerous around here. Okay, I guess
it's complicated. But I still don't like those
signs.