31 - The highway signs bother me.
joneworlds@mailbox.org

Some  years back  as  the Olds  were beginning  to
occupy more and more of the quad-cities area, they
put up  these signs on  highway 6 and  other major
routes in. Typical black-on-white road signs, with
text: "WARNING  / INVASIVE  BEINGS / ENTER  AT OWN
RISK" And under WARNING  there is this weird image
of a  head with one  eye and  no hair and  an open
mouth with fangs and a big pointy ears. It's drawn
in  the  simple  style  of  those  hazard  warning
pictures  on  bottles  of  solvent  and  glue  and
whatnot.  Like  the  skull and  crossbones  in  an
octagon, or  that skeleton  hand in the  bucket of
acid,  that  sort  of  thing.  The  "harmful  shit
within" message.

And  those highway  signs  always  bothered me.  I
mean,  we're still  people, we're  still in  here,
we're living  in here.  This is  our home.  We eat
breakfast, lunch,  and dinner. And the  sign makes
it  seem   like  we're  all  mean   and  hopeless,
dangerous and lost. Written  off. And I don't just
mean us homo-saps. Olds are people too, and we may
not always get along, but  they are just trying to
live here, same as we are. And they aren't like in
the  signs, they  aren't  like  scary monsters  or
something. Okay  well, actually  the ogres  do eat
children    sometimes,    and   that    is    very
monstrous.  And   for  that  we  cull   them  like
conservation  officers on  nuisance  bears, and  I
guess that  is pretty  awful too. I  wouldn't call
goblins monsters exactly, but they do seem kind of
hideous and amoral  to me. And all in  all I guess
it is pretty dangerous  around here. Okay, I guess
it's  complicated. But  I still  don't like  those
signs.