!Peace Dividend
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by Anna @ October 2022
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Chapter 4: Normalization
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Eleanor was sitting on the steps of the house of
culture. I'm so glad you're here! she said.
Agnes said, I'm not sure what to expect--
Oh, you'll have fun, Eleanor said, kissing Agnes
fraternally. They masked before entering. Some of
the poetry was awful but the moonshine was smooth.
Agnes clapped loudly for Peter when he got on the
stage.
For my mother, he said.
Waves of sound,
people drown.
Drown drown drown
in the flood stage--
Agnes clapped for Peter's poems.
It lets you say stuff I don't think you'd say
otherwise, Agnes said to Eleanor as much as to
herself. I'm still not sure I like poetry, but I
like knowing Peter better. Did you lose anybody in
any of the floods?
Yeah of course, Eleanor said. The big one was my
dad in '31. He was trying to pull some equipment to
higher ground when a logdam behind a bridge backed
up enough water to take out the bridge. They found
him almost a week later, about twenty kilometers
downstream in a tree.
But yeah like everybody, a dog last year, a couple
friends and relatives. Three the worst year.
I'm glad Peter wrote about it, Agnes said. A
professor from the university spoke at the
aggregate crushers' labor hall last month that we
forget how fast, how hard these things are
happening.
She called it crisis normalization. That doesn't
mean we act like heat waves and floods and fires
and tornadoes are normal. We just sort of forget
they're happening as soon as possible. Like days if
it didn't happen to us, months or years if it did.
Once it's normalized, it's like it didn't happen,
like it doesn't happen all the time.
Peter sat down next to Eleanor. Hope I'm not
interrupting, he said.
No, you're good, Eleanor said.
Yeah, you were great, Peter, Agnes said. How do you
remember the floods?
I don't, Peter said. Every time I say the poem I'm
shocked by it.
