As soon as he got the word that the whole East Coast was going to be flooded, he headed inland. It didn't much matter whether the rumors would pan out. The pictures on television were scary enough. The whole Caribbean laid waste. Death and destruction as far as the television cameras could see. Whether rumor or fact didn't matter any more. Sci-Fi was proving more Sci than Fi. Reality, whatever that is, could be deadlier than any fiction. It was definitely time to get out of Dodge City. ASAP.
For old times' sake, he had chosen the train, which once upon a time had been as fashionable as air travel. Oh, for the old 20th Century Limited straight out of the LaSalle Street station in Chicago. The hiss of steam, the snow softly melting on the train's way South to Dixie. There were still porters who stood ready to meet a traveler's every want for a slight tip.
You take Mayor Daley the First, now there was a guy who knew how to run a town. And not just steal an election in Chicagoland but nationally. Vulgar he may have been but he was great at running a city, convention or any other political machine. What a piker he made this Donald Trump look like. They didn't deserve to be mentioned in the same halting breath.
This age of Trump and the Trumpeteers seems petty indeed compared to the era when John F. Kennedy's father could parlay his kingdom in bootleg booze into a place at the Court of St. James--even if he used it only to urge the Brits to surrender while the surrendering was good. For the German war machine, as anybody who knew anything well, was invincible. What everybody knows, it seems, isn't knowable at all.
The mists of time parted as our traveler did what any sensible citizen would do in these circumstances as warnings filled the air: Head west, young man. Into the land of the past perfect, where all was bright and alluring.
How similar to the sordid scenes playing out in today's news: Rubble everywhere. Bodies being dug up out of the ruins. Hospitals overcome with garbage and sewage. The survivors, if they were unlucky enough to still be among the living, all camped out in front of what used to be their homes. Was this today's Haiti and Dominican Republic? Or London during the Blitz, and does it matter when the living can only envy the dead?
By some estimates, Hurricane Matthew had already accounted for some 800 dead, but who counts any more? In just one section of Haiti it was like some medieval depiction of hell, and there was no forgetting the all too real scenes. Buildings became splinters. Farmlands leveled. The once picturesque scenery gone, along with hope itself.
"I had never seen anything like this before," to quote a retired New York guidance counselor in a place where guidance was no longer possible. The only guidance that made sense just now was: Flee for your lives! The whole region's sugar plantations, its acres of bananas and mangoes, all were only abstractions now. "I watched," she continued, "thinking, 'When is it going to stop?' " The question was purely rhetorical. There was no arguing with this disaster named Matthew.
Haiti's government, what's left of it, had given up trying to count the dead and dying. It insists on visible proof before acknowledging the extent of the disaster. Why linger while the same fate awaited anyone foolish enough not to flee while the fleeing was not just good but imperative? Or so it seemed.
All of which explained why he was sitting here in his compartment waiting for the train to pull out for parts all too well known when the stranger came along and sat beside him. "You look familiar," he said, flinging his cloak over a skeletal frame. "You needn't bother with any formal introduction, for I'm sure we'll meet again."
He was so sure, his demeanor so suave. This much was clear: There was no arguing with this not so mysterious figure, for he carried himself with the assurance of an old friend. Or was it an old enemy? No matter. He could have been named Mr. Inevitable, though the name scarcely mattered. And you knew that if you fled an appointment with him in Samarra, he would just meet you in Baghdad. All of us all have an appointment with him sooner or later, and some of us cannot help but wish it were sooner. For we'd love to pull out of the station and head for the next one, the stop named oblivion. If that is the unforgivable sin called despair, then may God forgive us for that, too, for isn't He all-powerful?
Contradictions abound in this life, and in this death, too. Get used to it. It's a life sentence.
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Paul Greenberg is the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer and columnist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Editorial on 10/12/2016