BabbelOn was happily and industriously mowing his lawn this afternoon when a woman called to him from the footpath.
“Look up there” she observed, pointing to the sky. BabbelOn approached her as one would any passer-by looking for a chat.
“See those clouds?” The sky was indeed cloudy.
“They’re not normal clouds. They’re chemtrails.”
Something told BabbelOn this was no ordinary passer-by.
“Did you see that plane that just flew over? That’s the 40th one. They spray chemicals and viruses on us. People have been coming down with exotic illnesses. Sixty years ago they said everything would be barcoded and we would have a cashless society. Now look, everything is barcoded and we are nearly cashless.”
(More so than last week, BabbelOn wished he had noted.)
BabbelOn looked at the woman. She was in her 50’s, not unkempt and was cradling a white poodle. She appeared for all the world like a normal human.
“God told me to investigate. Last Monday at 12.30, I don’t work on Mondays”, she noted helpfully, “I googled chemtrails and I nearly fell off my chair. Since then, I’ve been warning everyone. I was hanging out my washing the other day and I looked up just in time to see two of the planes, flying close together with one just behind them.”
At this point, BabbelOn was torn between a desire to help this poor creature with some sage advice and the temptation to shock her with the truth. Fearing for the fragility of her mind, he chose the former.
“You shouldn’t believe everything you read on the INTERNET” BabbelOn offered. (The fact that BabbelOn was moved to utter such an obvious falsehood indicates just how serious the situation was becoming.)
“I have done 500 hours research and it’s all there” she retorted. Sage advice proving inadequate, BabbelOn tried shock tactics.
“You believe that the government is trying to kill us?”
“You are mocking me” she re-retorted.
“I am not mocking you. I just don’t believe you.” Surely such candour would cause something in her cranium to click?
“Google chemtrails, you’ll fall off your chair. The first ones in Australia were spotted over the Gold Coast. Look it up on youtube, it’s all there. ” She was indeed an INTERNET savvy nutter.
Feeling that the conversation was reaching something of an impasse, BabbelOn prepared to resume mowing and, in a belated concession to the social conventions, said ”I like your dog.”
“Yes, she’s a sweetie” said BabbelOn’s newest acquaintance as she turned away.
BabbelOn might have dismissed the encounter lightly, filed away in the experience drawer with the lovely old Jevohah’s Witness who used to pop round for a chat about the impending doomsday, except for what happened next.
The woman crossed the road and climbed into the driver’s seat of a dark green pantechnicon, shouted something incoherent out the window, and drove away. The vehicle was like one the CIA would use to house surveillance equipment, in this case big enough to monitor the entire southern hemisphere. Did she live in it? If so, it was the perfect vehicle, both physically and metaphorically, in which to pursue a life of paranoid obsession. It was as if she was the Lower North Shore equivalent of Howard Hughes.
And what of her claims?
Up next: “The Chemtrails Conspiracy”
