To quote Charlie from Lost: Guys...where ARE we?
Where are we indeed?
Things that shouldn't be happening keep happening. Events unravel in ways that even our most gifted fiction writers couldn't come up with. Victories are snatched away. Events congeal for the most unlikely of victories.
Hillary, on her way to clear victory, winning a decisive margin in the popular vote, narrowly loses three rust belt states, and we find ourselves staring into the abyss of the unthinkable - a narcissistic toddler-man now possesses the nuclear codes.
The Atlanta Falcons have a commanding lead in the Super Bowl, only to see it miraculously frittered away in the last minutes. Every play has to break just right for the New England Patriots to mount their unexpected (and for me, undesired) comeback. Instead of the Super Bowl victory going to a young, up-and-coming team, it goes to the same ol' same ol', a team that has had a reputation in the past for cheating.
I have no opinion on the merits of La La Land versus Moonlight, but it was terribly embarrassing and unexpected. Even though the La LA Land people were gracious and understanding, it had to be deeply humiliating and disquieting to think for a minute that you had won, start your victory speeches, and then see it all be snatched away.
So where in hell are we that these things keep happening?
Some scientists have speculated that we are actually in a computer simulation and not reality. That sounds ridiculous, but they are actually serious about it, and when you hear their logic behind it, it at least seems remotely plausible. We are rapidly increasing our ability to create visual reality, immersing ourselves into it to an unprecedented degree. How far away can direct mental implants be?
If so, then something has gone haywire with the simulation we are stuck in. The staid computer programmers have been replaced by Mr. Mxyzptlk, the impish other dimensional foe of Superman, who capriciously alters reality just for the heck of it, just to watch Superman and friends squirm. Some young genius slacker/hacker who just wants to play out unlikely scenarios and see how we react.
Then there is theory of parallel/multiple/infinite universes, that actually has some basis in physics. That there are an infinite variety of universes, and that as individual decisions are made, they spin off into a different reality. In this conception, there is a universe where JFK was not shot, or where the Cuban missile crisis went nuclear. or the Germans won World War II, and on and on. Or there could just be a universe where Uncle Charlie actually did buy "that" lottery ticket.
DC Comics has a version of this where there are alternate Earths where the advent of the superhero age played out different on each one. The main characters that were started in comic's Silver Age (primarily the 60s) are Earth One. The original heroes that arose in the World War Two era are from Earth Two. There are many more, including one where the primary hero is a rabbit known as Captain Carrot. The universe without super-heroes, our universe, is known as Earth Prime.
Marvel Comics has something similar, but there number system is wilder. Earth 616 and even Earth 200508. They may even combine letters and numbers, like Universe XK483.
My theory is that we are no longer on Earth Prime, if we ever were. But along about the time of Trump's announcement that he was running for President, we began to slip somewhere else, and that by the time of the election, we were clearly somewhere else,
We are no longer on Earth Prime.
We have entered a deeper, darker alternate universe.
Welcome to Alternate Earth #wtf666.
Superman was able to defeat Mr. Mxyzptlk if he could get him to say his name backwards. Maybe we cam get the small-handed fascist to say "Pmurt!" Or someone could run up to him and say "Trumplestiltskin!" three times.
It's worth a shot.
After all, nothing else makes sense anymore. Maybe in this new, strange reality, it would work.
If not, let's click our heels three times.
I want to go back home again. Earth Prime, I miss ya already.
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