August 24: Slaughterhouse Five, Predestination, Strike

The parade pranced, staggered and reeled to the gate of the Dresden slaughterhouse, and then it went inside.  The slaughterhouse wasn't a busy place any more.  Almost all the hooved animals in Germany had been killed and eaten and excreted by human beings, mostly soldiers.  So it goes.

The Americans were taken to the fifth building inside the gate.  It was a one-story cement-block cube with sliding doors in front and back.  It had been built as a shelter for pigs about to be butchered.  Now it was going to serve as a home away from home for one hundred American prisoners of war.  There were bunks in there, and two potbellied stoves and a water tap.  Behind it was a latrine, which was a one-rail fence with buckets under it.

There was a big number over the door of the building.  The number was five.  Before the Americans could go inside, their only English-speaking guard told them to memorize their simple address, in case they got lost in the big city.  Their address was this:  "Schlachthof-funf."  Schlachthof meant slaughterhouse.  Funf was good old five.

So, we have finally reached Slaughterhouse Five.  The place where Billy (and Vonnegut, I believe) survived the firebombing of Dresden.  It has taken close to two hundred pages of time hopping and flying saucer rides and nervous breakdowns.  The entire book has led up to this building, this moment in history.  It seems sort of like fate, although I don't think that Vonnegut put much store in the idea of predestination.

When you think about it, predestination would make life so much easier, especially if you knew what your predestination was.  For example, right now in the healthcare system where I work, there is a great possibility that the registered nurses will be going on strike.  If that happens, the outpatient surgery center where I work will most likely close down for the duration of the strike.  That would leave me without an income, or healthcare.  Needless to say, this prospect makes me more than a bit uneasy.

I wish that I knew right now about the strike.  It would allow me to sleep more easily.  Let me plan for the future a little more.  Instead, I'm stuck in this slaughterhouse of uncertainty.  I don't know when (or if) the bombs are going to start falling.  Just like every other person on the planet.

I simply have to take it one day at a time right now.  Of course, I'm trying to make some plans, provide my family some stability.  Nothing's really panned out so far.  Now, if I were Billy Pilgrim, I would already know what I'm going to do.  I would know how everything is going to turn out.

Instead, it's all about faith.  A lot of faith.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for his jobs.