The Day The War Starts
by
James Brooks
Dissident Voice
March 4, 2003
The
day the war starts, the lady at the coffee shop will wish me a nice day as she
hands back my change. The kids will go to school. We'll drive to work listening
to missiles hit Baghdad in SurroundSound. Wall Street will feel relief as
investors are released from their "terrible uncertainty".
The day the war starts, the
usual gossip and laughs and little digs will course around the office.
Lunchtime drivers will joust impatiently for position. The curious will tune in
the news. They'll wish they could see it on TV.
The night the war starts,
we'll take a walk around the neighborhood. The snow will flicker green from
infrared scenes of the bombing, glowing from darkened rooms. Quiet trills of
patriotic satisfaction will rise in private hearts, relieved to be on a
familiar path to national success.
Down at the park, remnants
of the opposition gather. Together we chant our small protest around the fire.
The day after the war
starts, a rash of strange and deadly highway accidents will sweep the country.
Surviving drivers report swerving to avoid starving Arab refugees trudging down
the roadside.
Two days after the war
starts, Iraqi children crippled by birth defects will be sighted just east of
Denver, straggling down the shoulder of I-70, their hunched backs turned to the
setting sun. By dawn, similar unexplained appearances are reported throughout
the nation.
Three days after the war
starts, the Secretary of Internal Perception will announce that there are no
Iraqi refugees on America's highways. The public should trust in the
"rationality of our common Judeo-Christian heritage." The Director of
War dismisses the link between our weapons and Iraqi birth defects as
"fantasies of the Old Left." The highway carnage continues to grow.
Four days after the war
starts, the flies will arrive. Swarms appear to descend from the skies. Buzzing
black clouds settle over towns and cities, lighting and swarming on exposed
skin, eyes, body openings. The evening news confirms the species: carnivorous
blue bottles and flesh flies, cadaverina, vomitoria, sarcophaga, flies that
feed on the corpses of the dead. Officials promise the sudden infestation will
be "very temporary."
Five days after the war
starts, the fly population will continue to explode. A leading scientist says
this event "would be expected in a place like Iraq, not America." She
is fired from her post. The highway death toll begins to recede as growing
millions of haunted drivers stay home. The Arch Prosecutor warns that failure
to report to work during wartime could aid and abet the enemy. "Rest
assured", he closes, as a blow-fly lights on his collar and crawls toward
his ear, "we have the names of those whose behavior fails to support our
troops."
Six days after the war
starts, rumors spread that flies have eaten babies alive. Most schools close.
Flies darken the sky.
Seven days after the war starts,
the spreading dawn triggers air quality alerts from coast to coast. By
mid-afternoon, a mist of light crude oil has descended upon the nation, gently
soaking every inch. Roads and highways close until further notice. People with
breathing problems begin dying by the tens of thousands. The headlines trumpet,
"Goodbye, fly! Will everyone be a millionaire?"
Eight days after the war
starts, the mist grows to a torrent. The streets begin to seethe with silky
rivers of dead brown oil. Rivulets of blood tremble like quicksilver over the
surface.
Undaunted, Wall Street rings
its bells and trades its shares. Proctor and Gamble continues to outpace the
market. Oil futures begin to tumble.
The day's editorials
question whether all this oil may not be too much of a good thing. Scolding
citizens who have scooped up unauthorized cans for themselves, they urge that
more be done to properly channel and privatize the national windfall. Certainly
by Spring we must be able to tend our lawns.
The following day, The One
True Leader announces that anyone caught collecting "uncontainerized
oil" will be shot on sight. The op-eds hail the splendid success of the
administration's war effort. The word "oil" does not appear.
That night, the crowd at the
park overflows. Every last soul who still shelters some light of kindness or
reason or decency has been driven into the street, maddened by shame, disgust,
and betrayal. We surge together sobbing, shouting, shining with reclaimed
power, until our throats begin to keen as one for the murdered soul of the
Republic. Striking our torches to summon the conflagration, we roar back to the
oil-drenched sky, "Enough! We refuse! It is finished!"
James Brooks of Worcester, Vermont, is an independent
researcher, writer, and former business owner whose articles have been
published by Vermont newspapers and several Web sites covering the Middle East,
investigative journalism and alternative politics. Brooks also serves as
webmaster for Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel www.vtjp.org. Email: jamiedb@attglobal.net