In the Before time
In the Before time, every evening the news god spoke.
every evening
the news gods spoke:
Edward R Murrow, Huntley and Brinkley, MacNeil and Lehrer
intoning through their electromagnetic waves.
My parents worshipped nightly,
offering up their own opinions
as if in call and response,
drinking the cocktail of communion.
On Sundays they attended special services
of Meet the Press.
News today would kill them
if they weren’t dead already.
Khati Hendry
Characterizations:
right on!, well written
Yes indeed Khati, mine too!
Too bad our parents didn’t know each other. They could have been friends.
Great Flash, Khati. Communion is a worthy metaphor. I may be stuck in that land too, as I don’t watch any cable news, still watch Meet the Press every Sunday and the nightly news on CBS. Today’s news is horrific. My husband humors me, but plays games on his phone while I watch. He tuned out after the 2016 election.
I admit that I have been indoctrinated into the ritual myself, but try not to watch obsessively—of course have had to get into the Jan 6 hearings.
Very clever, and how true. It’s a very different world today, Khati.
I’m glad we still have the memories we do.
Perfectly and precisely said. I have written the same thing about my own parents, but for another (future) prompt, and far less eloquently. And dare we wonder where news will be after we’re gone?
Every time I think about future news, I feel apprehensive. Some combination of denial, realism and zen seems to be required to contemplate that.
Perfect RetroFlash, Khati. You echo my feelings about our miserable cable “news” and how glad I am that my parents didn’t live to see this mess.
Sad but true. So many things that seemed unthinkable have happened, and no coherent communication. Onward.
Khati, I like your images of the newsgods and the cocktail of communion. I don’t know if my parents watched the news or not, I have no memory of it. And I have not watched the news since T became president in 2017. The line about how the news would kill them if they weren’t dead already applies to mine too – probably all of ours.
I think many of us have had to moderate how much news we can stand in order to carry on.
Wonderful, expansive metaphor, Khati. The Great God Broadcast News. And now, how we suffer at its punishing revelations and tremble with the anticipation of horrors to come.
Thanks. And yes, you are correct. The legendary tree of knowledge and it’s permutations may be our undoing indeed.
Khati, your invocation of the news gods who ruled the before time is quite effective. It brought me to the sad spot of grief at the loss of the national unity, and the insurrection of know-nothingism.
Yes, a sad spot indeed. The news gods weren’t perfect, but made some attempt to adhere to journalistic standards, and a common narrative does help unify. God knows (ha ha) we’re in a pickle now.