Alec Degnats
A Lesson Not Learned: Dog Days.
A single fluorescent light flashes in the distance. One light
illuminating this place of dark hope. I’ve been lucky, I guess, I’m
alive. Even though I live in a place that reeks of stale urine and
despair at least I live. I have come back here a few times now from
different homes and have not been sacrificed like the others. This
place isn’t that bad when you think about it. Food, a bed, and
medicine are provided for us. As long as you can look past the bars
it isn’t that bad. As long as you realize this place is void of
hope it is not too bad.
“Wake up mongrels,” a guard yells at us as he walks in. “Damn
mutts don’t even know what we are calling them.”
Walking through our cages they rap on the bars. Some of my friends
cower away deeper into the darkness of the cell. Some yelp. The rest
of us just stare blankly refusing to respond. At some point most of
us growled and snapped back, but we quickly realized it is not worth
it.
“I guess we should get them fed and outside so we can clean these
things.”
They pull and yank at our arms to get us out of these little hovels,
telling us they need to clean them, that they need to feed us, that
we need to get out. They think their bright scrubs are helping us
accept them, but in reality their scrubs are too brightly colored for
this hovel of doom and this place of pain.
“Really Freddie... you couldn’t hold it.... AHHHHH”
The guard screams at me as I rush away with the rest of my group. I
can hear her muttering under her breath about cleaning up after me.
She talks about how bad I am and yet does she really think that I can
hold it for so many hours. What do they expect when they feel they
can not “trust” us to find our facilities on our own. They left
the night before, The night help does not do anything but watch TV
and bang on our cages. I would like to ask them to hold it like they
do us, but that will not happen. They are above us and will never
understand.
Going outside, the sun blinds me. Its glorious light shining through
the overcast clouds deceives us on a day of biting, bitter cold.
Limited blankets and sweaters define our little community as most of
us struggle to stay warm on this frigid day. The guards do not share
our pain. One stays with us smoking a cigarette while the others
escape into the warmth inside. Doing mindless busy work that
accomplishes nothing but extending their pay.
It’s sad. They expect us to run around, to get our energy out out
here in the “yard”, however if they looked around at us for a
second they would see that many of my comrades are lost in their own
minds. We can not get our energy out when we are reliving the worst
memories of our lives. They would never expect that from themselves
or their children. Their sons and daughters or even their own pets
and dogs. Yet they expect it from us. I think it funny how they
advertise that they “tend” to all of our needs here at this
deplorable prison. In reality they refuse to give us the one thing we
truly need and desire: a little love, a little time, a little
attention.
Coming inside from the frigid cold you can see the outcome of
setbacks and cutbacks all around us. I know there are places brighter
than this one. Newer, with more funds and resources. However in the
end, deep down, all these places are the same. You can decorate a
cake however you want it, but if it is cooked with rotten eggs and
moldy flour it won't taste good. Truth be told most of us will never
leave this place or a place like it. These “centers” are simply
an unofficial death row for humanity's discarded.
. .
It’s a fairly slow day. Cleaning, a few “families” stop by to
check on us. Some even take us home only to bring us back most of the
time. Talking about “staring on kids” or needing to “think
about it.” Not having “time”; “money”. No matter what they
say it all means the same thing... It all means that they don’t
want the inconvenience of us even though they helped create us.
They created us by releasing us into the wild rages of war without
thinking or preparing us. From New York to Chicago; L.A. to Atlanta.
Dubai to Athens and Tokyo to Sydney. We inhabited all of these places
and more. We went willingly, thinking we were protecting our
families, fulfilling our duties. Unfortunately this ideal does not
hold an ounce of truth. All we were doing was separating them from
the reality and pain that their lives really cost, not protecting
them from an outside enemy.
By getting rid of us they separated themselves from the reality of
pain that sacrifice requires. The laws that bind us, the values that
we hold dear are easy to follow during times of peace and prosperity.
Show us the cost of the comfort and most of us are not willing to pay
it. They want it to be out of sight so it will be out of mind, so
they send us to pay their debts instead. All of the tenets of this
death row face the reality and pain that sacrifice requires, the
debts we pay for society. Our “families” distance themselves
from us to create a false reality devoid of pain.
“Rodger, come on over... come on over into here....”
Looks like Roger made it back. From the way he walks it looks like
they performed the “sterilization technique” on him. A technique
society required for our release. A procedure I refuse to have done.
They blame us for getting close, for creating a pack, for becoming
inhumane. They tell us our families agreed to sterilize us, that our
society and culture as a whole agrees it is the right thing to do.
They tell us that in our current condition we need it to relax us, to
control us. They tell us that a family will add a burden in our lives
that we can not understand.
“Rodger, just lay down and rest... you’ll feel better in the
morning.... promise sweetie.... promise you good boy...”
They think that by patronizing us we will respond and unfortunately
we do. Not to appease them, but because it is the only way we can
get attention we so desire. The only way we get it is if we appease
them. If we act docile when they are here. They don’t respond to
screams or yelps. They are tyrants who would rather us be submissive
and hide the cruel fate that we all battle. The battle of regret and
loneliness that we all face inside the prison of our own minds.
. . .
The weekend is coming. Even though most of us “guests” are
trapped too far inside our own minds to tell time, let alone days of
the week, you can always tell when the weekend is coming. The place
gets spruced up. We get an extra bath and some extra food. The
weekend is when we get the most visitors by. Some times its old
families coming back to visit us. Many times it is a new family who
feel they can help one of us by accepting us into their home. The
weekend is a time when we will leave for a few days, only to be
unfortunately returned to this dreadful place. Sometimes it takes a
week, a month or even a year, however in the end most of us come
back. When our family or new family realize how much “care” we
take they bring us back. Not realizing that all we want is a little
bit of attention and for someone to listen to us.
Watching the families file in I know no one will visit me today. I
flipped the last time my family was here, simply because they did not
understand me any more. Simply because they did not listen to what I
was actually saying, what I was actually telling them.
I told them that all I wanted was to come home. I did not want the
procedure, I did not want to be sterilized or on medicine, but wanted
to come home. I wanted to see my boys, my family. They did not
understand though and told me all about me and what I took to be
taken care of. They told me about the medications I needed to take
and the supervised outside time I needed. They talked about how I
could not be trusted with myself and if I could not agree to the
procedures then there was no way for me to come home.
In the end they talked over me with the doctors finally deciding that
I would be more comfortable here with my comrades, my friends,
without ever asking me what I wanted. They told me about the threat I
am to the children and to the home. They told me for hours about how
much care I took and as the visit winded on I listened to them
compile reasons about why this place was better for me.
Their words were empty though once you know the truth behind them.
They may say that I take too much care and supervision, but the truth
is that I am a “burden” on their new lives, their new state of
bliss. A state of bliss that I and my fellow Veterans gave them by
fighting in World War Three.
. . .
They used to call it “PTSD” back in the late twentieth /early
twenty first century. It always amazed me that somehow, despite human
nature we managed to hold off World War Three until the beginning of
the 22nd century. Once war erupted technology had created an endless
battle field making every city across the world a potential
battlefield. War fluctuated from city to city, country to country,
continent to continent. Countries were always careful to evacuate as
many civilians as possible before the conflict reached them.
Civilians across the globe were sheltered while soldiers were thrown
into the fray to defend buildings and the values the war was supposed
to represent.
I was twenty when I entered the force. Twenty five when the war
ended. And twenty six when I was declared “unable to re-assimilate
to society due to moral injury.” Moral injury, a term coined a
century earlier in an attempt to raise awareness to the fact that our
own morality was causing regret inside of our soldiers, was now being
used against us as a way to throw us out of society. Moral injury
showed that regret, not fear, spurred our self hatred and problems.
Moral injury showed that maybe it was not human nature to kill one
another. Of course for the vets of the last war this word was twisted
by politicians and doctors into something that could be used to lock
us away forever, to not ruin the newly minted moral fabric of their
society.
“Civilized” society almost destroyed itself in WW3. I don’t
know why it took so long, but once the countries realized that they
all had the same end goal, they folded and went to the table. The
realization that pretty much every philosophy and religion preaches
non-violence and non-killing was somehow discovered in a boardroom,
even though we had known it for generations.
Unfortunately though when the politicians had this epiphany it was a
grand step for humanity. When soldiers across the world showed the
same remorse on the battlefield it was condoned as weakness. Just
like our predecessors who laid down their weapons on Christmas a few
generations previous, were re-assigned and re-trained. Soldiers
finding morality on the battlefield was a liability, finding it in a
negotiation room was ground breaking.
Like the soldiers that came before us we were treated and researched
after the conflict. Over- diagnosis, drugs, and control surrounded
our lives. Some soldiers took their own life, unable to cope with
what they had done. Some took others out with them as they left this
world. Their brains so addled by guilt, sin and reality mixed into
one image within them. These select cases became the norm for “moral
injury” and before we knew it “moral injury” became more
dangerous than aids or cancer had ever been. Fighting ones own
regrets, conscious, guilt and mind quickly became a death sentence to
the people on capitol hills across the world.
“Moral Injury” was introduced the DSM 15 in a flurry and soon
became a mental illness unlike any other. Convicts and soldiers
suffered from it. And in a society with a new-found conscience they
quickly excluded us as damaged. Moral Injury became the preferred way
of shuffling out the “damaged” people in the new society. The
people that reminded the general population of the old society in a
new age of morality and consciousness.
World War Three was the first war in history that was viewed
exclusively as a tragedy. This war was the tipping point that gave
the world the morality it longed for. This gift did not translate to
the vets though. They locked us in cages, medicated, and sedated us
all because we were a “threat” to ourselves.
Sitting here, watching the families come and go I wonder if anyone
here actually realizes what is going on. In the beginning the vets
shared our stories. It was the way that we coped with what we had
done. Now we die alone in our own minds of torment because people no
longer listen.
Society had to overcome slavery, then bigotry, discrimination,
sexism, and discrimination yet again towards gays and lesbians. We
suffered through the same social struggles simply because we refused
to acknowledge and accept the pain that had caused it.
That is what I fear most. I fear that we will separate our morality
from what created it. By not listening, by not learning from our
mistakes we allow it to lose any meaning that it may have once had.
Moral injury was meant as a way to represent and acknowledge our
growth as a species. It was never meant to become a diagnosis used to
separate those who bring hard memories to us.
Our new found morals have begun to lose any foundation they had. With
our stories suppressed morality has become the new orphan of the
world. It is losing any meaning because the new society has lost
nothing to obtain it.
I look out into the waiting room to see kids playing with holograms.
Parents working instead of acknowledging why they are there. A mother
cuddles her baby as the seven month old plays: count the hens on its
individual tablet. I want to be angry, but I know they are a product
of the society we live in.
They are trying to
be responsible, but they simply do not know how. They are the ones
who come to listen to us. The ones who come to hear our stories to
understand the cost of our new found peace, but it is nothing but a
facade. They do not know how to listen or understand. All they know
are their gadgets and what is.
All I can do is shake my head wondering how long this peace can last.
How can it when the people who come to listen are so caught up in
their own minds and lives. IF these are the people who care about us
than what does it say about the rest who have forgotten we exist?
All I wonder is how
long it will take our doomed society to repeat the history we all so
readily try to share with them. Thirty years old or less most of us
are.... Five years removed from the war and we are being thrown
aside, locked away as part of a horrible violent part of human
history and its past.
To today’s
standards we are less developed morally. However we all know that we
are the most developed because we actually struggle with our
conscious. Looking across this room I see what human nature actually
is. Human nature is being too self centered to understand what is
actually going on. So sad that as a species it seems our nature
condemns us to repeat the lessons that we never learned.
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| Photo Credit to: http://avenuek9.com/2009/02/dirty-dog-kennels-have-met-their-match/ |
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