Author: admin

“Where to begin?” Amelia said. “The difficult thing about being in forward time is having to lay everything out in a line.”

“Did you say ‘forward time’?” Jenny asked.

“Well, to you it would just be ‘time’. I’ve gotten used to the other way — the way of seeing things all at once, the before and the after. I’m a little out of practice at feeding information through a straw.”

“That’s ok,” Jenny said. “You can talk about stuff to me in any order. I’ll put the pieces together.”

“That’s very sweet of you,” Amelia smiled. “Well then, perhaps it would be best to start near the end. We are sitting here on this bed, and we are having a very pleasant conversation. So far so good?”

“Um, yes,” Jenny said hesitantly. “That’s what we’re doing. I already know that.”

“Yes, of course you do. But the next part — the part that comes right after that — is more interesting.”

“And what’s that?” Jenny asked.

“The part,” said Amelia, “where I tell you that you need to leave now, and not see me again.”

“Oh,” said Jenny. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Yes my dear, that’s the point. The part you know leads to the part you don’t know. But it’s the part after that which is even more interesting.”

“And what’s that?” Jenny said.

“The part where if you don’t go away after I tell you to, then you and your friends might not exist any more. And then I shall be very sad.”

The captain walked the deck from bow to stern
He waved to all the families ashore
There was nothing we could say, not any more
The ship was sailing, never to return

The sun rose high and soon began to burn
And day had come at last upon the land
A day that we would never understand
The ship was sailing, never to return

For there was nothing more for us to learn
Although we stood aligned upon the shore
Waiting, though we couldn’t say what for
The ship was sailing, never to return

Waves before the prow began to churn
Our loved ones slowly vanished from our view
There was only one thing that we knew
The ship was sailing, never to return

“So now what?” Josh asked.

“Now,” said Amelia, “your girlfriend and I need to talk.”

“She’s not my…,” Josh began, turning red. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. She’s not not my girlfriend. It’s just that, well, um, it’s complicated,” he finished weakly.

“How do you think he did?” Amelia asked Jenny.

“I think he did splendidly, under the circumstances,” Jenny said, giving an approving smile to a now very confused looking Josh.

“Yes, quite,” Amelia said. “Josh, you’re doing fine. But like I said, Jenny and I need to talk. Here, take the dog.” And without further ado she got up off the bed and placed Bruno into Josh’s arms.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Josh protested. “I mean, I don’t think he likes me.” Bruno, meanwhile, looked very comfortable. The moment he was in Josh’s arms, he gave a very impressive yawn, tucked his muzzle into Josh’s left elbow, and closed his eyes.

“Oh look, he’s gone to sleep,” Jenny said. “He could start dreaming any moment. Is that going to be a problem?”

“Oh no, not at all,” Amelia said amiably, “It’s only a problem if I’m asleep. Josh,” she said, looking at Bruno nestled in Josh’s arms, “I think he really likes you.”

Jenny giggled. “I guess we can talk now.”

“Yes,” Amelia said, sitting back down on the bed. “Sit here next to me. You and I have a lot to talk about.”

I had a very strange idea recently. It’s not something I’m ever likely to build, but the concept itself appeals to me, because it seems to illuminate something worth thinking about.

Imagine a multimedia interface in the form of a timeline. Behind this timeline is a massive time-tagged database of pictures of people’s faces, perhaps culled from Google Images.

In this imagined interface, you scroll forward or backward in time. As you scroll, you can see these faces continually morph to be whatever age they were at that moment of the timeline. You can zoom time in to watch a person’s face change slowly, or zoom time out literally watch their life go by.

Significant events, like a birthday, or the very first or very last photograph ever taken of a person, will cause that individual’s face to become temporarily larger on the display. Or you can highlight one or more individuals, and their visage will remain prominent as their life passes before your eyes.

You might think that the sight of someone aging before our eyes, as they lose their conventionally unblemished youthful beauty, would be cruel. But I suspect that’s not all we would see. I suspect we might see something else entirely in some of these faces. A kind of wisdom, or understanding, or dignity — or acceptance — that wasn’t there in the younger version.

And in the process, we might just learn a thing or two about the nature of beauty.

“You and Mr. Symarian know each other?” Jenny asked incredulously.

“Something like that,” Amelia said.

“You could say we have a history,” their teacher added.

Amelia gave him a long look. “Interesting choice of word — ‘history’. I see you haven’t lost that dry sense of humor.”

“I don’t get it,” Josh said.

“Me neither,” Jenny added.

“It’s rather a long story, I’m afraid, and somewhat beside the point, in the current circumstance. Wouldn’t you agree Amelia?”

“Yes,” she said, and smiled. “Jenny, I believe we have things to discuss. Although I hope you don’t mind, I’ve summoned my little dog. He’s on his way now.”

“Bruno?” Josh said, turning white. “You’re going to bring that thing in here, with us?”

“Yes, of course you would have met him. He can be rather a terror at times, but I’m sure he’ll behave himself in front of company.”

Just then there was a high pitched yelp. “Bruno, you little rascal! Come up on the bed and say hello.” Amelia laughed as a little dog jumped up onto the bed and began licking her face with enthusiasm. When he was quite done, he perched himself comfortably in her lap, and regarded the three travelers amiably.

“That’s Bruno?” Jenny asked.

“I remember him as being, um, bigger.” Josh added.

“Yes, I can see how you would. When I am asleep, he can become quite the protective beast.”

Continuing the thread from the other day, this is a good day to take stock on what has happened in this country as a result of the attack upon the U.S. nine years ago today. I think we’ve all realized by now that there is no way for the extremist movement responsible for those attacks to “win” in a conventional sense. They have neither the economic power nor the military might to defeat the U.S. and its sphere of influence in an outright war.

But there are two things they can do: (1) discredit us to our political/economic allies, and to those we wish to be allied with, and (2) create a kind of cultural cancer within in our society that causes us to do that work for them.

In a sense, this method reiterates the attacks themselves, but on a far larger scale. The radical group that drove our own airplanes into our own skyscrapers was turning our very technological power against us. In what to us (certainly to me) was an unspeakable horror, civilian airplanes were turned into living bombs, which were used as detonators to convert our tallest buildings into even larger bombs — with the only victims being civilians.

So it is clear that our enemy, knowing we are vastly larger and more powerful than they are, choose to operate by a kind of Jujitsu. Basically, they use us as their weapon. And if current events are any guide, it seems they are succeeding.

The United States of America, arguably the most powerful and wealthiest nation in the world, is in danger of doing what its enemy does not have the power to do — turn potential allies of the U.S. into enemies of the U.S. That’s the real prize, and it’s horrifying to see our country playing right into this game.

To pick up the thread from the other day, the fact that so many people in this country are mislabeling a community center by pacifist Sufis as some sort of radical mosque is a phenomenal P.R. win for the Taliban and its allies. What better propaganda, what more perfect proof could be presented to the Muslim world that Americans don’t know the first thing about the 23% of the world population that is Islamic? You can almost hear the groans of despair among liberal and moderate Muslims around the world, those who have paid so much, often with their lives, to fight the very theocratic extremists we are at war with.

And on top of that, in what must be a kind of wet dream for the Taliban, we’ve got idiots like pastor Terry Jones wanting to burn peoples’ bibles. If you had to assign a dollar value on how much the Taliban would be willing to pay Jones for doing exactly what he is doing now, how much would it be? Well, let’s think about it. The U.S. is spending, by latest estimates, roughly $133 million dollars per day on the war in Afghanistan. If Jones’ stunt is worth, say, ten AWDs (Afghan War Days) for the Taliban, the Taliban should be paying him around $1.33 billion.

Of course any American citizen idiotic enough to burn islamic bibles at a time like this is clearly not intelligent enough to organize a wallet, never mind knowing how to keep a bank account, to it’s not clear how the Taliban would get the money to that dribbling idiot even if they wanted to. But they sure must be happy to have him on their side!

The best we can do at this point is to stop shooting ourselves in the foot. Cut out the idiotic protests of community centers built by people who hate the Taliban even more than we do. Let the world know, in no uncertain terms, that three hundred million people in this country — whatever their political affiliation — are utterly disgusted by buffoons like pastor Terry Jones.

And come together as a nation on this day of remembrance to denounce those politicians in this country who can’t be bothered to know the difference between one Muslim and another — whether that politician be Sarah Palin or Howard Dean.

“You know who I am?” Jenny asked, surprised.

“Yes,” Amelia said, “I know who you are.” She looked into Jenny’s face. “You have my eyes.”

“It’s true,” Josh said.

“Quiet, Josh,” Jenny said. “Girl time now.”

“Come here,” Amelia said, sitting up in the bed. “Let me look at you. You are so like me.” Jenny could feel the intensity of her grandmother’s gaze upon her face.

“Mom would never talk about you,” Jenny said, wishing she could think of something better to say. “I … I tried to get her to, but she wouldn’t.”

“No, of course she wouldn’t. What could she say? She doesn’t have the power — it visits only every other generation. And always different.”

“Your power is about time, isn’t it?” Jenny said, “That’s why he took you away.”

“Oh Jenny, there is so much you don’t understand. I was very angry at you, you know. At first we … I … thought you wouldn’t get this far.” She looked over at Mr. Symarian. “But once you brought the … once you brought him …”

“Hello, Amelia,” the teacher said quietly. “It has been a very long time, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, ages,” Amelia said, and suddenly she laughed.

The title of this post comes from my friend Andy. It was his wonderful response to a question I raised with him about the story I wrote the other day, I miss you. Why do you have to be such a nightmare?

I had told Andy that I’d decided, after some wavering, to tell that story as a science fiction story, rather than as an unexplained mystery of human behavior. It was a way for me to make the story’s intimations of cannibalism more, er, palatable.

Yet after posting the story, I felt that this choice had, in some important way, let my readers down. Yes, I was providing an easier way in. People could read the story, think about its ideas, and not stress out over them too much. After all, a reader could say, it’s just, you know, aliens, SciFi, X Files and Dr. Who, that sort of thing.

And that’s where it becomes a two edged sword. Yes, fantasy and SciFi give you a way to talk about things that would otherwise be out of bounds. Famously in this country, the TV show “Star Trek” was able to show an interracial kiss in 1968 — a time when such a thing was considered unsuitable for family viewing. But it got a pass because it was “just” science fiction.

Arguably that scene did a lot of good. Within a few years the taboo against interracial displays of affection on TV disappeared.

And yet, something was missing. The science fiction was serving as an excuse — a way of getting audiences off the hook.

And I think I may have done something similar with my story. As Andy so nicely put it, I was using metaphor as a prophylactic for the id. Yes, such a strategy is a way to take people to places they otherwise might not go. But in another way, it doesn’t end up taking them anywhere at all.

A story about people being devoured by sympathetic aliens who look like people may be intellectually interesting, but a story about people being devoured by sympathetic people — well, that forces you to engage much more deeply with what’s going on, and what’s at stake, and what it means to be human.

And isn’t that what literature is for?

It was time. Jenny walked up to the wall clock and began to move the minute hand forward. Slowly at first, and then faster and faster.

“Look,” said Josh, gesturing toward the window.

Jenny turned to look at the window, without taking her finger away from the minute hand of the clock. She could see the first faint gleams of light coming in through the window. She continued turning, now with renewed purpose. The light outside gradually became brighter. She had an eerie feeling that she was moving time itself. And in a way, she thought to herself, that’s exactly what was happening.

She glanced over at the bed, only to see her strangely young grandmother starting to shift, to toss and turn. It was like watching somebody having a bad dream. Or at least a very interesting dream.

“The sun is about to rise,” Josh said, staring intently out the window.

Jenny realized that she had been continually turning the minute hand of the clock, without really thinking about it. She was surprised to see that the time on the clock was now nearly six in the morning. She had moved time forward by six hours!

As she moved the time past the six oclock mark, she looked over at the bed, to see her grandmother Amelia suddenly open her eyes. Jenny took her hand away from the clock. Somehow she knew that advancing time would no longer be necessary.

For a long time Jenny’s grandmother just lay their, her eyes open, staring up at the ceiling. Then suddenly her head turned and she looked straight at Jenny. Jenny didn’t know what would happen next, but she felt a shiver run through her, as though her blood was about to freeze.

And then her grandmother Amelia spoke. “So, it’s you.”

I didn’t seriously think it would happen in my lifetime. Of course you always have those doomsday scenarios in the back of your mind, but it’s different when it starts to become real.

I have lots of friends who are German, all of whom are far too young to remember when that country let itself be killed from the inside. But they are all acutely aware of that death, and the terrible pain of rebirth after such a horror. They will likely understand what I’m talking about more than will folks living in the U.S.

Because now it’s coming here, the death. I didn’t pay much attention when it was just the professional jackasses — the Glenn Becks and Sarah Palins, and other cynical jokers making money hand over fist by stoking hate. You always get that kind of thing in a democracy. The more outrageously the fools on the fringe are pulling down their pants, the more you can be sure your free society is functioning. A free society can tolerate hate, and we don’t feel a need to suppress it because we know we won’t succumb to it.

But then good, decent people, educated people, people in my own family, started turning off their brains and muttering darkly about a “Ground Zero Mosque” where terrorists could gather to plot another attack.

The fact that there is nothing further in this world from a radical Islamicist than an American Sufi seems to be off the radar. I’m not even sure that people realize what a Sufi is. Sufis are to Islam what Quakers are to Christianity. They’re the pacifists, the conscientious objectors, the ones who believe in tending to the poor and sick, who believe in humility and universal tolerance, in reaching out in friendship to people who are different.

That the American people could be tricked en masse into believing that a community center built by Sufis — of all people! — is somehow an infiltration by a radical militant Islamic force, tells me that our nation’s brain cells have started to die. It happened in Germany, and now it is starting to happen to us.

We are on our way to becoming a nation of drooling, blithering idiots, stumbling in the dark and babbling nonsense like “it’s disrespectful to build a Mosque at Ground Zero.” Except it’s not a Mosque, and it’s not at Ground Zero. And that’s not even the most important thing.

The most important thing is to consider the following: Which group of Americans was most brutally harmed by the destruction of the World Trade Center? Was it the Italians, the Jews? Maybe the Irish?

Nope. Which group of Americans essentially got their eyes gouged out, their hearts ripped to pieces, their deepest dreams spat upon and crushed underfoot? Which Americans had to watch helplessly while someone effectively held their own children in front of them, their pride and joy, put a gun to those kids’ futures and pulled the trigger?

If you’re like most Americans, you probably harbor a silly fantasy that you have more reason to hate the bastards who took down the twin towers than anyone else does. But of course you’re wrong. In fact, you have no idea.

Reason to hate is watching somebody destroy everything you’ve spent your life building. Reason to hate is watching your beautiful young sons and daughters, U.S. citizens born in this country, who always believed in its promise of liberty and equality, suddenly finding their friends and community turning on them with suspicion.

Can you imagine anybody with more reason to hate than the American Sufis? And yet, their response is to build a community center open to all, a gesture of peace and interfaith community in the middle of all the hatred.

The fact that we are not even paying attention to who these people actually are, the fact that the majority of Americans — even New Yorkers, I am deeply ashamed to say — are mouthing off hateful idiocies easily refuted by a simple Google search, tells me that it may already be too late.

We’re already half way to wearing the swastikas, and darkly muttering “kill the Jews”, except this time it’s not Jews. We are idiotically demonizing our own peace loving friends and neighbors who are the enemy of the Taliban, and all it stands for, to an extent we cannot even imagine.

I see this beautiful nation melting down, its brain cells failing, becoming necrotic. Much as I would like to blame it on the rancid self-serving poison of the Sarah Palins and bastards like pastor Jones who wants to publicly burn the Koran, I know that would be dishonest. For it is not them, it is us.

John F. Kennedy once said: “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” Yes, I know we are a wounded nation, I appreciate that. But rather than rise to the occasion, rather than face the hard and complicated truth of our circumstance, we are letting ourselves be anaesthetized by convenient myth, and that way leads to the sleep of the waking dead.

Unless we wake up in time. I sincerely hope we wake up in time.