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Godzilla, and the terrible, no-good, very bad day
By dwray in The nature of things
March 30, 2011

Once upon a time - so, okay, it was yesterday - I was having a terrible, no-good, very bad day.

The kind they write books about.

The kind that lead children to throw themselves down on the floor, red-faced with arms flailing, screaming so determinedly you know nothing is going to shut that kid up.

The kind that can turn a perfectly nice person (me) into Godzilla. Or Sylvia Plath.

I snarled, and growled and would have happily taken out a whole bunch of tiny villages with my giant Godzilla feet if I'd had the chance. I probably wouldn't have kicked a puppy, but the cute cuddly things in life needed to stay away from me.

There's nothing so satisfying as wallowing in it, is there?

Image

That's when a very wise friend turned to me and said one word: "Japan." Complete with a pointed, kind-but-judgy look. (Yeah, now you know where I'm going with this.)

I wanted to continue stomping around like a mutant lizard, but it's hard to do that when you realize that somewhere out there some kid is googling "Godzilla" because all of a sudden radioactive mutant monsters doesn't seem entirely outside the realm of possibility. Maybe that's why we've all been googling for Godzilla, like NPR says.

If you don't want to read the article, it's just a report about how internet searches for "Godzilla" have risen exponentially since the Fukushima Daiichi crisis began three weeks ago.

Despite the pictures and the stories and the fact that the narrative of the world just got wacked with a croquet mallet, Japan still feels about as real as Godzilla to us. And by "us" I really mean me, of course.