Tense, Future and Present

Here’s what I think. A paramilitary team of you-know-who’s will raid a poorly guarded nuclear missile launch facility in Belarus. Faced with certain execution regardless of his course of action, the young soldier who holds the launch key and codes will feign obedience, reaching for the handset to call his superior, keeper of the second key and the remaining set of codes. With deft precision, the young soldier will remove the knife from his ankle sheath and will plunge the weapon into the nearest thigh before two bullets in his brain will end his heroic ballet maneuver. Switching to Plan B, the terrorists will gun down every soldier at the facility, and will move their technicians into place for the removal of a warhead. However, their movements will alert authorities. More soldiers will surround the facility, and the terrorists will ready their explosives and demand that the soldiers retreat unless they want to be responsible for the complete destruction of a large portion of the continent. I don’t know what will happen next.

But I do know that, while digging out from the current snowstorm, my shovel discovers a man lying under the snowpile at the bottom of my driveway.

“Leave me alone!” shouts the man. The stench of beer and vomit escapes from his beard like fumes in a gas leak. Patches of white and blue punish his cheeks, and there is blood on his dark forehead.

“Man, you’re frostbitten!” I say.

He waves me off, and plunges under his snow bank. With his big hands, he piles snow onto his hair. “I deserve this,” he croaks. The rest is muffled under snow.

“What?” I say, “Look, maybe you do deserve this. I don’t know. But I can’t have you freezing to death on my property. So either crawl into the street and get it over with, or come inside for a cup of coffee.”

Slowly, his shrubby snow head rises and I am standing in the shadow of a broken Donovan McNabb.

“Let you all down…” he mumbles as I guide him toward my front porch.

“Yeah,” I say. “But this should be a learning experience.”

He sits heavily on the glider, sloughing snow from his sweatshirt. “Said dat lasht time…enough learnin’ eshpeeryensh….” He leans back and drops his chin onto his chest.

“Stay with me Donovan!” I try to move him into the house, but he stumbles and drops to the porch floorboards. The wind has picked up and I abandon the big man for a moment. Kicking the door open, I run to the telephone to call for help. At that moment, there is a crash outside. I turn and watch as my front porch, the columns, furniture, and Donovan McNabb are hoisted above the street and out into the blizzard.

A Shield for Cinderfella

Hey, another one of our 85 million dollar missile defense tests failed yesterday. Well, don't worry. North Korea is probably bluffing about their weapons capabilities. Just like we are. Oh wait. That's not good.

So, after September 11, 2001, I was prepared to pitch in and do my part in bringing the murderers and their masters to justice, and to help prevent another assault on the US. Since I'm not a trained warrior, I thought I'd be most useful providing resources, perhaps in the form of revenue generated by, say, a gasoline tax, to fund our military and intelligence efforts, to provide education and social programs here and abroad, to develop alternative energy sources. I lined up behind the President and my fellow Americans, supporting the removal of the Taliban, the search for bin Laden and his followers, and the rebuilding of Afghanistan. I believed Bush when he said that we'd all need to do our part. Well, he's about to ask Congress for another 82 billion dollars, most of it for the war in Iraq. Except for a couple of checks wasted on the DNC's failed attempt to unseat the greedy neocons and their inept puppets, I haven't done my part. I haven't paid a dime toward improving the chance that humans might survive, safe and free, for another generation. I haven't been given the opportunity. Yes, I should do something about that. However, by blundering into and stumbling in Iraq, by robbing the Social Security surplus to pay for tax cuts for the rich, by raising the debt ceiling and increasing the deficit, the Bush administration is forcing that "opportunity" on our children.

But the really crazy thing is that Jerry Lewis is the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee...providing some explanation for our improved relationship with the French.

Sun humming

Wednesday, February 8 or 9 (the date on my watch is inconveniently unreliable and often changes mid-morning or later in the day) -

For the first time in 2005, I feel the warmth of the sun on my face. I am surprised by the sensation! While famously enamored of winter and the cold, my skin receives these several and pleasantly whirring molecules of hydrogen, and my brain returns the favor with an autonomic smile. I am smiling at the sun as I turn toward the woman who stands nearby. She is wearing headphones. In a respectful gesture, I had been avoiding her eyes since the moment her hum-along vibrations had registered in my ear. Now, I find that I am receptive to camaraderie. Who will share this moment, this awakening of the fifth sense deadened by so many weeks of arctic temperament? Sadly, she does not indulge in my ebullience. The train arrives and I shudder in its shade. Standing in line behind the woman, I listen to her song, and then we shuffle inside the glossy, white car, where, alone, I will squint and shield my eyes from glorious sunlight.