Let’s face it, in today’s harsh political climate, our nation has never been more divided. And, due to our increasingly divergent social and cultural norms, it often feels like there are multiple, completely different Americas out there.

See, on the one hand, we’ve got “rural” America–a spacious countryside where salt-of-the-Earth blue collar workers share traditional values with their fellow man.

Then, on the other hand, we’ve got “urban” America–a bustling metropolis where socially-conscious city dwellers espouse a philosophy of progress and liberalism.

And finally, on the third (and equally-important) hand, we’ve got “Shadow-Land” America–the twisted, ethereal hell-plane that all of us will one day inhabit when we die: a wretched graveyard of lost souls and withered ghouls who scream senselessly into the void with their wide, toothless smiles and shrill, cracked voices that roar in agony for want of an escape (or even respite) from their never-ending misery.

Those are the three Americas out there, folks.

All of these places are real.

And yet, sadly, in today’s modern, toxic environment, these three Americas have never been more at odds… See, in “rural” America, many inhabitants are simply written off as being ‘intolerant’ or ‘backwards.’ Similarly, in “urban” America, its inhabitants are frequently described by outsiders as being ‘immoral’ or ‘out-of-touch.’

And, worst of all, in “Shadow-Land” America, all too often its residents are falsely (and rudely) mischaracterized as being, quote-unquote, “wicked ghouls who gaze unseeingly into the eternal darkness before them with blind, palsied eyes that have long forgotten the feel and warmth of sunlight… They are the damned. No, they are the ghosts of the damned, who remember neither the joy nor the burdens of owning a corporeal, breathing body. And so, in their unending purgatory, they must drift aimlessly through the nightmare that surrounds them: slavishly searching for an answer to a question that has yet to asked–a question that will never be asked. And so they scream. (Oh God, how they scream). Yet, paradoxically, it is a scream which they themselves cannot, and will never hear, for they, the damned, no longer retain the ability to hear noises, after spending countless millennia trapped within the never-ending carnival of terror that they call ‘existence.’”

Seriously… Can you believe that people even say stuff like that anymore?

I know, crazy right?

But see, that’s the problem with our country right now. Currently, we are living in an incredibly divided era where it’s nearly impossible for huge swaths of our trifurcated nation to converse with one another. 

And yeah… obviously, I realize that the inhabitants of “Shadow-Land” America, can’t converse with anyone anymore (due to the mold and dust and madness that has eaten their minds and corrupted their souls and has turned them into roving, spectral, human-shaped husks who no longer lust for the physical temptations of the mortal plane).

But that’s no excuse for the rest of us.

Anyways, I feel that this kind of article has the potential to come off as “preachy” or “pandering,” so I’ll wrap things up. But, just remember: until we can figure out a way for the three different, equally-valid parts of America to overcome their differences, shake hands, and have a civilized conversation (without yelling at one another about gun control or immigration or the unending burden of nothingness), then I truly worry for the future of this proud nation, and for all of its inhabitants…living or otherwise.