The Day the Police State Lost its Head

Whilst thinking aloud upon walking back from the town I realised that some of the place names in Yorkshire are named after the Norse God Thor. I had been aware for some time through reading that the word "Thorpe" pertained to “village” in old Danish, but I had yet to make the connection that the ancients had named their villages after Thor. The people had lived in the body of one of their Gods. 

 

I had lived in Wrenthorpe as a child, which was next to Alverthorpe, and my grandparents had lived at Hall Green, which was next to Painthorpe, and nearby Chapelthorpe, and Kettlethorpe. I was also familiar with Snapethorpe and Gawthorpe, and there was a village outside of Wakefield that was simply called Thorpe. 

 

The wife and I had been shopping in Portland city centre, we bought clothes and books, and on the Max train on the way back, flocks of people filled the carriages at the stop next to the stadium where I knew Portland Timbers played their home games. I looked at the shirts and the badges the people were wearing and I saw they weren't Timber's shirts and badges, but instead read Portland Thorns. Then I noticed Portland Thorns written across scarves that some of the people held in hands and some wore arched around their necks.  

 

"The team are called Thorns?" I asked my wife. 

"Yes," she responded. This seemed quite amazing to me, I only had the realisation earlier that very week. We had Thornes Park in Wakefield which pertained to the Norse God and I had also thought about Thornton's chocolates and even Thurston's the bakers which were Yorkshire based companies. 

 

On the Thursday I posted a sequence of images onto my public Facebook page consisting of town names and signs that included the word Thorpe, and Thorntons, and Thurstons. Most of my Facebook friends were from Yorkshire and I thought I would teach them an etymology lesson. I had never been formally taught this in school and as it was a new idea it seemed fascinating to me as new ideas can often do. 

 

In the evening when the sun was on the wane and the sky had become darker, a storm broke out, and there were huge drops of rain, like one sees in rain forests, and the skies boomed with tremendous thunder, lighting up, all-electric. I stood sky watching with the door to the apartment open, feelings of awe and wonder, and also fear ran through me. It has been said that the idea of God may have come down from ancient people who lived in caves with a fear of thunder and lightning. Forked lightning struck down in the near distance and again and again. I had strayed out onto the balcony, and after a few minutes came back inside closing the door  and I realised that I could square off the etymology lesson by posting an image of the Norse God Thor. I ran a Google search and found a graphic design of the God flying upwards into clouds, his hammer leading the way, and the clouds breaking with streaks of lightning striking down. Whilst the storm was breaking over the city and thunderous sounds resounding around, I posted the image onto my public Facebook page. I then followed this post up with the badge of the girl's football team, Portland Thorns. 

 

The following morning I woke up and showered and clothed and set off down to the supermarket when after walking across the parking lot toward the gate that leads onto the footpath around Pacific University's playing field, I noticed around twelve girls sitting on the grass embankment in a ring behind the fence. What are all these girls doing here? I thought to myself, are they students? 

 

I walked down to the supermarket and bought breakfast, an evening meal, and a gram of flower, and as I neared the completion of my journey home, walking back along the footpath around the sports field, I could see that the girls who looked young, fit and healthy were still sitting there in a ring as they had been over an hour earlier. 

 

I opened the gate onto the parking lot of the apartment complex and let it go, it abruptly shut behind me, clanging loudly. I hadn't meant to let it go so freely and I saw one of the girls looking perturbed with a countenance that seemed to register rudeness. I hadn't said "Hello" either, and they had come out this way especially to see me. 

 

I think in memory I got back into the apartment, fed the cat, poured a glass of iced-coffee, rolled a joint, smoked a joint with music playing in the background, when after an hour or so I went online to check my Facebook and I saw the very last image that I'd posted the night before which read, Portland Thorns. I immediately recognised what had transpired, what an idiot, I thought. What a fool! I blamed my asymmetrical extremities, if only I had a quicker brain, if only I were smarter, although I hadn't known at all what the girls looked like and I had never seen one of their performances. I typed into Google, "Asymmetrical Girl". I found that there was a paucity of pertinent images and so I used the best that was available, it was of a woman with asymmetric draw strings dangling from her shirt collar. I posted the image to Facebook, however I soon realised the photograph stopped at the neck of the woman, one couldn't see her face, and so I typed into Google, "Heart-Art". I wanted a love heart that looked artsy, but these images too seemed in short supply. I found one, it wasn't great, but I thought it would convey the general idea of a friendly apology and convey acknowledgment at least that I had finally realised who the girls were. I left the apartment and walked into town to see if I could see the girls, I wanted to say "Hello," and apologise for seeming rude, but I had been too slow, and too late. I came back to the apartment and drank iced-coffee and smoked marijuana. 

 

I was sitting with the cat on the sofa when my wife came in from work, she said to me, "Did you hear about what happened in Portland?" 

"No," I said, "What?" 

"A man walked into a local store with the severed head of his mother!" I immediately felt revulsion and fell into introverted pondering that maybe I shouldn't have moved to America, what a sick and awful country this was, how deeply disturbed and disgusting the people were, never in all my years have I ever heard of such depravity. "How truly awful," I said. I was renewed into thinking about leaving the country and returning home to England. 

 

The following morning I had gathered the foodstuffs for the day into the basket and queued for my turn at the self-service checkout and the former military vet who presided over this section of the checkouts was looking at me like he wanted to vomit, he was almost dry-retching. I wasn't sure why, but I recalled the disturbing and horrific news of the previous night and wondered if that had something to do with it? He thinks I'm mentally ill; he's American, a TV watcher, maybe he thinks that's how one acts if one has a neurological complaint? I looked back at him nonplussed and paid for the goods. I bought a gram of flower from the wooden cabin around the corner and when I got back to the apartment, drank iced-coffee, smoked a joint, and listened to music, then I looked on my Facebook page and saw with complete horror what the former military vet had seen! They had taken the night's news from my Facebook page! I deleted the image of the heart, looked at newslike media articles, and I saw that the photograph of the man alleged to have performed this sub-human act of degeneracy was made to look as though he had asymmetrical eyes. 

 

The paranoid police state had thought I was a headhunter! "Joshua Webb," was the first police profile before they invented "Jeremy Christian". When they had "Christian," talking about "decapitation," this was the event the week prior to the so-called Portland Train Attack the police-state were alluding to. It made the person that "Jeremy Christian" was a media front for appear truly disturbed before a pseudo-intelligence community. They had even feigned that "Christian" wanted to "chop the heads off little babies". This sounded to me like war propaganda employed domestically to justify having a man executed by the state without a fair trial or legal representation. Nobody had actually had a conversation with me at all; it had been an interpretation that some police-state "expert" had arrived at from studying my online social-media imagery.  

 

Another event soon followed. 

 

President Trump confederate and trophy hunting comedienne Kathy Griffin put in her claim for the male anatomical aspect  by making the headlines for the international newslike media with a photograph of her holding a fake severed head of the President. This was in direct response to the fake newslike media coming out of Portland. I thought this act too was inappropriate, totally gross, and deeply disturbing as much as I don't value the President. She later went on to name her comedy tour, Laughing Your Head Off. It was the police-state that had lost its head.