National Poetry Month 2011 Big Time Catch-Up, Day #25: County Fairmageddom

When she handed me my deep fried Twinkie, I saw a vision of the future,
and it wasn't pretty.

The yellow spongecake, in its flack jacket of hardened batter,
under a dark nuclear cloud of chocolate-drizzled whipped cream,
and the impending toxic snowfall of powdered sugar . . .

Surely, this is the end of civilization.

While her lips said, “Enjoy the rest of your day at the county fair,”
her eyes said, “The end is nigh. Run while you still can!”

Because the county fair is the perfect place to train for the apocalypse.

I hadn't jumped on the “we are living in the end times” bandwagon,
until I saw all the shooting games.
Every game at the county fair is a shooting game.
Guns, rifles, bows and arrows, darts –
they MUST be training our kids for something.
Step right up to know for sure!

Yea, isn't this the Armageddon John Conner tried to warn us about?
Caged livestock, the smell of animal feces on everything,
always loud, the roar of unseen generators . . .
What are they powering?
Is that toddler shoveling dung?

Oh, and the rides . . . a veritable boot camp of post-apocalyptic scenarios.
The Gravitron, in case mankind can only survive by exodus into space.
The Sea Dragon, in case radiation births mutant behemoths fit to saddle and ride.
The fun house mirrors, in case YOU get mutated, too . . .
now you'll know what it all looks like.

But it always comes back to the food.
Obscene meats, like yak and kangaroo,
or grilled cricket kabobs,
everything deep fried, as if a searing heat was your way to cook –
isn't this the kinds of stuff you would ONLY eat in a survival situation?
The county fair is training your palette for when ostrich is the only bird left to eat.

So when she hands me that deep fried Twinkie,
my eyes call back to hers,
“Come with me! We can flee the end of times together!”

She answers sweetly, handing me my change,
because I paid three dollars for one Twinkie when a box at the store costs $2.50,
she says, “Don't you get it? I'm not a survivor. I'm a harbinger.
And next week we're going to San Bernadino.”