ūtland

images

PARIJAH DIARIES 1

It’s not very common in conversation, not in its original sense at least. People stick to ‘weird’, which is a whole other story, coming from Old English wyrð, meaning fate or destiny. You generally only see it when some hack journalist has been detailed to put down the latest outbreak of truth from behind the curtain. Such journalists restrict their ‘research’ to thumbing through the thesaurus, of course. Let’s see… bogus, baseless, groundless, unfounded, false, untrue, unhinged, deranged outlandish.

But once in a while I’ll hear it, when Agent Smith takes over the body and brain of one of those close to me in the Matrix. Family and friends, always the first to try to bring you in line, for your own sake, no doubt, to protect you from yourself. 

“These outlandish conspiracy theories…”

Outlandish. Kind of a cool word, actually. Got a northern ring to it, like it comes down from Anglo-Saxon or Norse.

But what does it mean? 

Let’s see…

out·land·ish

/outˈlandiSH/

1. looking or sounding bizarre or unfamiliar. ”Outlandish, brightly coloured clothes.”
2. ARCHAIC foreign or alien.

Origin OLD ENGLISH

ūtland —> ūtlendisc —> outlandish

Old English ūtlendisc ‘not native’, from ūtland ‘foreign country’.

Similar: abnormal alien anomalous atypical bizarre cranky deviant divergent eccentric exotic fantastic far-out foreign freakish grotesque idiosyncratic kooky leftfield ludicrous odd oddball offbeat off-centre out of the way outré peculiar preposterous queer quirky freaky off-the-wall screwy singular strange unconventional unfamiliar unknown unheard of unorthodox unusual way-out wacky weird

Opposite: ordinary, commonplace, conventional, normal

Is that it? So many synonyms, and just four antonyms?

I suppose normal never needs many words.

My thinking wasn’t always ūtlendisc, of course. I was once an inlander too. It was only when I left my country, moving not so far, but across the sea, to Amsterdam, where on a day in early 2002 I wandered into a coffeeshop after work to check my emails, and there on the computer screen was a document left by the previous user when his or her coins ran out: FAA protocols for the interception of hi-jacked planes. 

By that time I’d stopped shelling out six euros a time for imported copies of The Guardian, which I’d read for all my adult life inland. I still saw BBC 24-hour news, and CNN, on the tiny television with a built-in VHS recorder I’d brought with me. The endlessly recycling headlines, slick logos and urgent, fight-or-flight music.

As I stirred sugar into my coffee I scanned the document, thought ‘Hmm, that’s odd’ like an inlander, closed it, and found a website behind it on the screen — What Really Happened, a ‘content farm’ type site run by Mike Rivero out of Hawaii, linking to both mainstream and alternative news sources, with a minimum of editorial. After that I started reading the whole world’s press — and the citizen press which was springing up all over the world. And it took a while from there, but eventually, more than half a year after I left my country, I arrived in ūtland, and here I am, a million miles from where I started out. 

Though very much inland in the physical sense — landlocked, even, here in Isan, North-East Thailand. There are people around me who have never seen the sea. But that’s OK — there plenty of people who travel the world and never set foot outside their In-land, it’s so strong in them. I’ve known them and worked with them, and fallen out with a few.

Me and my outlandish ideas.

Now the world has shut down, and of course I have some ideas about that, too. Relatives write to me, asking how things are here. As soon as I open my outlandish mouth, of course, they go a bit quiet. If I do it again, they start to get annoyed with me.

Things here are fine. It’s hot. People still eat with their hands. (Spoons are for soup.) Nobody here is worried about a virus, just as nobody here puts any credence in first-world delusions like global warming. Here it’s always hot this time of year, so they get up before dawn to work, and sleep soon after dark. And there’s always drought, though it’s getting worse, but that’s because government officials block the springs to make it worse. Why? Because drought creates a big aid budget, and we all know where most of that ends up.

Of course things have changed. Thirty years ago, when she was a child, Red tells me, there were huge flocks of birds that could block the sun, horizon to horizon almost, and you don’t see that any more. People went hunting in the hills, and clouds took recognisable shapes against skies of blue, or monsoon enveloped the visible world.

Well, the past is another country. 

As for me, I can’t imagine ever getting home, now, or even where that is, any more. Some place where people think like me? Not England, then. Bohemia, perhaps, or Erewhon. Some fictitious country where I can live with my outlandish thoughts and an outlandish cat, eating funny-looking fish and weird outlandish leaves. 

That’s my wyrð. An Anglo-Saxon word, meaning, as a noun, destiny; as an adjective, supernatural.

I’ve been self-isolating for years as it is. I know my outlandish ideas are dangerous, and I don’t know how or even whether I should expose family to them, given the unlikelihood, at this late stage, of being able to make them see what I see.

They’ll never know what hit them, the inlandish on their little island, as the tsunami comes rolling in from an ocean they never dreamt existed.

The truth is, I don’t know if I can ever set foot there again, since I will not be participating in this New Normal. Phone apps and micro-needle patches and QR codes. Contact tracing and social distancing. A swab rammed up into your third eye. And the whole dreary masquerade. 

It’s not really a decision, it’s just knowing.

I can’t see myself doing any of that.

In any case, the borders are closed until further notice. 

 

3 thoughts on “ūtland

  1. ” Been here before ? ” said a friendly Brit as the red roofs of Bosnia appeared on the way to Sarajevo airport ” . ” No , my first time ” ” You’ll find it is not like what you heard ” . He was right . Jetlagged from the flight back to Japan , sleepless and thinking of people I might not see again , I turn on the TV . George Clooney saves NYC from a Bosnian terrorist with a suitcase nuke obtained from bad Russians . Touche . I was feeling sad , otherwise I might have laughed at the irony .
    After the big quake in Japan , I used to pull out my letter from Eric Dollard , tell visitors about the 48 hour early warning he received by his telluric antenna . I don’t show it any more to just anyone , as apparenty people thought I was a bit nuts . Scientists would know etcetera . If Eric is a bit of a crank , I certainly empathise with him .
    ” ‘Tis new to thee ” says Prospero to Miranda at her surprise at the novel . A phrase relevant to the Novel virus and the ‘ social distancing ‘ Prospero endured , now imposed by the authorities .

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *