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Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
April 28, 2007    File under: Alabama , Information Technology , Lomography / Photography

This morning a stranger tells me my digital camera is a sign that the end times are coming. He quotes Daniel: knowledge shall increase, and the people will run to and fro. Knowledge increases. Older women walk to and fro from one end of the pier to the other and back again. Seagulls, purple martins go to and fro. And I am trying to capture one of them before the end times come, before Jesus arrives. The stranger makes it more explicit: Oh yes—this always makes you comfortable doesn't it, the Oh?—Jesus is coming soon. And then: Do you know Jesus? Of course you know Jesus, he continues, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation, and I'm guessing he means that if I hadn't have known Jesus Jesus wouldn't have lead him to me, though my guess would be that it would be better for the mission if Jesus had lead him to someone who didn't know Jesus, or at least it might have made for better conversation, but I would want to be an observer of that, not a participant in it, but about that time he moves on, to the end of the pier and then back toward the shore, and everyone is going to and fro, and the end times may be coming, but now it's time to go to the conference, so my time at the pier is at an end, but the martins and gulls continue to circle while clutches of men, the ones who's names are not yet carved in the benches' wood, are casting their lures deeper into that metallic water.

Posted by Jake Adam York at April 28, 2007 8:38 PM



COMMENTS

Honestly, it seems like the end of the world to me. Remember when the Challenger blowing up was like the biggest news for a year or two? Now that sort of level of destruction is commonplace. However, I think in the Civil War, WWI and WWII the world seemed to be falling apart even more than it does now. I guess if I lived in any of those times I'd feel like it's the end of the world then too. As for the Bible's apocalyptic books, they are like big inkblots that people can read all sorts of things into.

Posted by: JSR at April 30, 2007 10:55 PM