Disposable Mail Carriers and Japanese Monsters

I was thinking today about dispensable people.

It all started because my friend Christopher kindly sent me one of his four camera cords to replace the one I misplaced. It worked out perfectly because we have the same exact camera. However it has been about a week and a half since he sent it and we are both wondering where the hell it is.

I mused about the many goings on in the United States Postal Service and I wondered maybe if my postal carrier had died and the delay was due to a delay during which they are plugging in another carrier into my route and then eventually I will get my package containing the cord with a note on it, apologetically explaining, "Sorry for the delay. Your postal carrier passed on but we're sure you'll enjoy regular promptness with the new one we have assigned to you."

Someone else will drive his truck and his uniform will be cleaned and returned for someone else to wear.

Comcast leaflets will continue to fill my mailbox without missing a beat. The only evidence of his absence: the delay of a package containing a camera cord.

Recent events in my life have made me wonder how easily I could be replaced. After all, I look back and, in many ways I know of several instances where I was replaced and vice versa. It isn't that you don't think of these people occasionally but somehow they disappear from your life whether slowly or suddenly and soon your new daily routine grows over their memory like moss over a rock. Soon no one is aware the rock is even there. Or ever was.

It isn't that we want this to happen but it does. There are small moments we have no idea are contributing to the distance and sometimes there is nothing the other person can do but sit with their hands folded quietly because frankly, it is out of their hands. This snowball has gained speed and they cannot stop it. All they do is hope for the best. Which sometimes is the worst.

Occasionally, we are so caught up in our lives that we do not see the things that are big and destructive, crashing like Japanese monsters through our mutual villages but ever so quietly. Only to one village is the destruction louder than any earthquake and the silence from the other village is deafening. Unfortunately, there is no place to run and hide. It is only amongst the schrapnel and decay that one must stand. One must stand and take it or lay down upon the ground and let things fall where they may. Even the tear drops.

And so it goes. The little things that are the big things.

Be ever watchful.