Reversal (Camren/Norminah)

Chapter 12: Write to Me Your Nightmares

But lets look at it this way. Forty years ago, the exact same scientists that are pushing global warming now, made the public believe that the earth was going to undergo extreme cooling. They believed we were going to go into another ice age, and that the effects of dropping temperatures would have just as catastrophic an effect on the environment as has the heating. Ages ago, the most brilliant minds on the planet believed that the world was flat, that man evolved from monkey's, and what my childhood hero Phoebe Buffay reminded us, that the atom was the smallest thing.

Here are the essential questions. Is this a legitimate reason to be disputing such a widely accepted claim, or is it just ignorance? When does the line between misinformation and personal belief cross into pure denial? Is there a line at all? Is our society the way it is because there are no lines?

I think there's a line. Denial can come in so many forms, some more toxic than others. Will the actions of 25% of the American population change the fate of the earth, climate change or no climate change?

It's a tough call.

Lauren polished off her glass of orange juice and rolled onto her back. The sun was beating down at full force, high in the sky denoting lunch. It was already noon, and the girl had only read four measly pages of what looked like a pretty packed journal. Shawn seemed to read her mind, bringing out a large pepperoni pizza and a caesar salad a few minutes later. Thanking him gratefully, she turned to the next section of the same book, wondering what the random topic was going to be this time.

My eighth grade art teacher always told us that it took more muscles to frown than it did to smile. I don't know if she was right, and considering she kept a stack of unused ketchup and mustard packages in a cute line around the rim of her desk, I figured she wasn't.

In her class, we would sometimes take breaks from the ever so tedious silkscreening and paint-by-numbers to play games. Consequently, one of her favourite games was team iSpy. It was stupid, but she would split the class up into two large groups, and give us both a massive scanned copy of a page from her iSpy book collection. The first group to find all the puzzles would win a ketchup packet.

One of the iSpy puzzles that I'll never forget, was a scene depicting a dark alley in the middle of a metropolis-like city. The items to be found were as follows.

A woman who was in a brawl,
An empty bottle of alcohol,
A feral cat, an angry rat,
A building and its wrecking ball.

It was a pretty easy puzzle. Only a child could have been stumped by something like that. The rest of it was a little more confusing, but still doable to mid-pubescent eighth graders.

I spy a needle standing on its head, a mattress taken from its bed,
Some shattered glass,
His fists of brass,
A curtain stained the colour red.

I spy a crack that splits the earth,
A raging flame with embers great,
A pitch black room, an empty hearth,
A speeding van that met its fate.

I'm pretty sure our art teacher had some serious issues.

Lauren looked over at Shawn, who was happily stuffing his face and flipping through the pages of a messy book. "Hey." She prodded at him. "Check this one out. This seems like it's an actual narrated journal entry. Do you think it means anything?"

Looking over, the boy put down his slice of pizza and shuffled himself over. After scanning the passage a few times, he shook his head.

"I was in eighth grade with her, and we had art class together. The teacher was Mr. Harcourt, a twenty year old french guy with a moustache and a striped scarf. He never gave us iSpy puzzles. We didn't even do silkscreening until freshman year."