Tyranny of the emphemerati

It's no good. No matter how incessantly the word Tranquility flashes at me in green neon, I do not feel tranquil. Across from my living quarters I can see a range of neon signage at night, but this tranquil one is the most enigmatic and perplexing. It's like an infant bedazzled by a game of peek-a-boo. Does the feeble creature actually imagine that the person hiding behind hands just inches from her own nose has actually disappeared? "Where in god's name did mother go?" inquires the infant. Equally bizarre is the brief emblazoning of the night sky: Tranquility before dissolving back into nothing a moment later. But what's this, the timing switch has triggered the mechanism once more and the previously untranquil space is again reminded, Tranquility.

Who would imagine that such an abrasive and gaudy green thing would actually induce the mindset which ridiculously pulses in a steady rhythm through the night? Is there a neon sign factory which specializes in new age meditation slogans? "Be the change you want to see," "Eat, Pray, Love," "Always got time for Tim Hortons." I mean, do they understand something I don't? Perhaps vacuous electrified imperatives are another sign of the times which unfortunately escapes my ever-backward looking gaze. Perhaps vague concepts such as this one don't occur to people unless it momentarily flits in front of their eyes. "I'm so busy, I've got so much to do," says a man before seeing the sign, Tranquility goes the sign, "Oh yeah, I really got to slow down and take life as it comes, thanks neon signage, you flash the truth." As always I am reminded of the noble goat who disturbs the morning silence with an optimistic bleat, perhaps to call the herd's attention to greener pastures up ahead. Her throaty tones cause the others to lift their heads and wonder for a moment if perhaps there isn't something more to life. "Perhaps there is greener pasture up ahead," a young buckling might think, assuming he had a working knowledge of English.

Here it is, I've found it. The proprietorship which has the sign mounted on its premises is actually a little bit skeptical, just like me. It's owners and managers are being ironic. They've deliberately selected a means of conveying a message precisely opposite to the sign's declared motive. They're trying to offer a biting lampoon of contemporary urban life under the guise of peddling new age cure-alls. And they've succeeded! I laugh in shared insight with my unknown neighbors, tipping my hat in kudos at their brazen criticism of the meaninglessness which has cluttered our time and place. Like a neon sign flashing "Life" in a graveyard, they have sought out a vague slogan of mail-order meditation and subversively foisted it upon any hapless onlooker who might happen to walk by and have its absurdity flash on her rods and cones, mostly cones. "Ha! Nice one neighbor, I get it. You're saying Tranquility is impossible if one expects it prompted by a beacon of electric light! That's great, so clever."

So I guess the sign has achieved its aim, for every bleat of Tranquility I am plunged into an anxious gloom. At least it's green though, so we can rest easy knowing that ecological concerns are not far from the minds of those who employ a little electricity to mock one and all deep into the night.