I don't know who or what or why it was decided that there would be just five of us in the Pilot's Cabin of the ship where we stood, looking toward New York City, the Home of "Ground Zero." It was just beyond the horizon in the far distance.
We Five were: Vladimir Putin; a young couple in their twenties, or thereabouts; Anna, and me.
Not one of us spoke or looked into the face of another. There was no need. We knew what we would see.
Unobserved, behind the Curtain of our agreed upon Reality, lurked an impatient Violence, awakened from its Dormancy, anxiously awaiting its cue to smash through the crack in the Created Shield of Illusion which restrained it.
There was no warning. The ferocious, all-consuming Blast was magnificent in its Entrance. We all looked on with a strange detached horror as we witnessed the instant explosive dissolution of what was once the Reigning Queen of All the Cities which have ever existed as "World Capital."
We were humbled into insignificance before this Mighty All-Destructive Power.
"Mr. Putin, how could you have done such a thing?" I asked.
"How could YOU have done such a thing?" he responded.
I knew immediately exactly what it was he meant. The thought crossed my mind that those who do not remember History will be doomed by it, but what about those of us who do remember History and are sickened by it?
Yes, in the past, we rallied together as we remembered the Maine, the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin, and 9-11. Now we'll be asked to remember New York City. But there will be nothing to remember. Retaliatory forces are already at work to repeat this scene over and over again, throughout the world.
A Tsunami-like nuée ardente, a pyroclastic flow in the aftermath of the Blast, was diverging from its center. We knew at once that there wasn't time enough to escape the most extreme limits of its deadly destruction.
Putin very calmly walked across the cabin to go below deck to wait for Death to claim him. The young couple didn't seem to really sense the gravity of the situation. I thought to myself that they would never know the joys of parenthood, love growing stronger through the years, sharing life's experiences together, the ups and downs, tears and laughter.
I led Anna to a bunk on the port side of the Cabin where she could lie down. My first inclination was to lie beside her, but I left the ship and began to walk through an apocalyptic scene of charred ruins, burning building structures in grotesque array; tongues of the fire's flames were everywhere. There was no day nor night. I was alone in the midst of Hell.
Off to my left, slightly behind me, I could see that the roiling Pyroclastic Death Cloud was almost upon me. As I stepped off the walkway into the street, my clothes caught fire and began to burn. I was engulfed in a Dante Alighierian Inferno, which was burning away every remnant of the dross which proved my existence.
My material being was reduced to less than the size of a postage stamp, and then. . .
I WAS NO MORE.
Sunday, March 01, 2009
THE END by Steve Savage "King of the Beasts"
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3 comments:
Why New York City and why Putin? Is the destruction of New York a metaphor for a wider calamity? Are the Russians so jealous of New York's international dominance that they feel compelled to attack it, even if it means their own destruction. And what would make you leave Anna's side at such a time? A wide variety of interpretations can be imposed here, but I'm most curious as to what your thinking was when you composed it. As with all your work, I greatly enjoyed it. Chuck
Chuck,
"THE END" is, in a sense, a screenplay. It represents some higher power plucking five cast members, of its own choosing, from out of the sea of humanity, to witness a destruction which would ultimately claim every living thing on the planet. The assumption was made that the reader would be familiar with all of the events which led up to the opening scene, hence the media res.
To continue on a war footing, which is rapidly loosing the support of the people and a willingness to fight for causes they don't understand, it becomes necessary to generate patriotic fervor in order to replenish our fighting forces with soldiers who are not forced to fight, but want to fight.
This requires a rallying point such as "Remember the Maine," "Remember Pearl Harbor," "Remember 9-11," etc. Sometimes this, metaphorically, requires the cutting off of the foot to save the leg.
The "foot" in the case of "THE END," is New York City; the inference being, that it is our own government committing the destruction in an effort to rouse the people from their complacency to defend themselves against an enemy they are unwilling to accept as such.
The Law of Homogeneity is dividing the world into two camps; the birds of a feather are flocking together. One or the other is seeking to be the dominant entity.
Putin is the personification of our collective adversary. When I accused him of being responsible for the destruction of NYC, which metaphorically represents all that is most recognizably America, he responded with his own condemnation of the act as being perpetrated by "YOU," which is the metonym for America.
But it is the sub rosa gathering of forces hostile to America that actually triggered the necessity to destroy NYC, so the fault does, indeed, lie within Putin's camp.
However, there will be no winners because the Nuclear Domino Effect, taking upon itself a life of its own, will ultimately cause the total annihilation of civilization.
Putin realizing that America had been pushed too far, removes himself from public view, "goes below deck," to accept his fate.
The young couple represents what would have been the future of America. In their youthful blindness to their mortality, they mercifully don't understand why this has happened. We are forced to acknowledge their innocence, which will be destroyed. This is our great sin.
Anna represents "Immortality." The moment I brought her to the bunk on the port side of the ship's cabin, her spirit, which had long ago volunteered to find me and be with me, was reclaimed by the One who gave that consent.
I, representative of Mortal Man, the "King of the Beasts," the former Host of Theophilus, God's Beloved, went out into the Nightmarish Hell to die in the manner of all my subjects, the Sons of Man, who, in their death, are freed from servitude to the Evil which inhabited them.
When I stepped off the "Walkway," i.e., Life's Path, the last of my kind, and began to burn, I knew my job was done. Theophilus permitted me to see my end through His eyes until
"I WAS NO MORE."
Steve Savage "King of the Beasts"
Last night, Saturday, March 20, Anna and I went to see the Nicholas Cage movie, "KNOWING"," at the Sony Theater.
The end of the movie is an almost carbon copy of what it is I have described in "THE END."
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