Extinction Level Event
Page 27
Los Angeles
McCarthy woke up in his hotel room, listening to the morning sounds outside his window. Traffic had started up again. The breeze of cologne, perfume, buses, gasoline, and rubber filled the air along with the talking and shouting of people heading to work. Only three days after the huge midnight riots, it seemed that things were going back to normal. There were broken neighborhoods, and burnt cars in many areas, and stolen items, and missing food. But it seemed that the city was tired, tired of fighting, tired of individuals trying to get their way by force and deceit. People were more interested in working together, rather than each neighborhood and each community having to fend for themselves. People wanted to go back to their normal lives, without checkpoints, food stamps, or curfews. A welcome change in the city's attitude that had occurred only in the past week.
A demonstration had marched through the streets yesterday. But there was no disturbance, no fighting, and very few arguments that had accompanied it. Rather, it was the expression of a collective will, what the people wanted.
Needless to say, a murky view of a bright future.
McCarthy quickly shaves, dresses, and walks the two blocks to the city hall. An aide informs him of a phone call for him the moment he enters office. Picking up the phone, the aide whispers that it is Onassis. "Hello?" "Mike. So have you gotten the memo?" "What memo?", asks McCarthy confused. He leans over, seeing several letters on his desk. "The one from me." Turning over the letters, he finds a memo addressed to him from the Secretary's office in Washington. "McCarthy. . . "Onassis pauses. "There is a job offering for you here in Washington- Deputy Secretary." "Deputy S-e-cre-tary?. . . ",stutters McCarthy, "of what?" "USDA. I'm going into retirement. With the passage of Resolution 1555, the President feels that we should be back on our feet within six months, and completely recovered in a year. I'm stepping down in three months. Your decision, of course."
Overwhelmed yet secretly exhilarated at the same time, McCarthy swallows, thinking through his options carefully. "I have to consider this. But, my many thanks for offering me the opportunity, . . .sir." "Looking forward to your reply." answers Onassis before hanging up the phone.
Why is he retiring? wonders McCarthy privately. Is it the stress? The feeling that the worst of this is over, that he can retire in dignity and with honor? No matter. McCarthy decides to accept the opportunity as part of the many greater changes happening all around him, for the better. I'll take it as a response; as an award to my many months here away from San Francisco, away from my kid, away from my home. Perhaps in the new position, he would be better able to effect change. What is change? Everyone has a different interpretation of what constitutes progressive, beneficial change. Time for making a change in our new world. . . .
EPILOGUE
When in the course of human events, disastrous occurrences pass, people will either be conjoined together in an effort to surpass the new obstacles presented or disjoined and dissolved by the forces at work. It is, ultimately, in the best interests of the species to work together to overcome such potentially divisive and damaging occurrences, be they natural or manmade. Eventually, the realization that the entirety of the history of the species has passed on one small, insignificant rock in a expanse of nearly empty vacuum will soon dawn in the minds the slowly progressing, but still primitive bipedals that inhabit that rock. Inhabiting all six continents of the globe, the species has relied on for a significant portion of its history on the work of other, non-sentient species in order to build a more perfect union. For many Millenia, the species has domesticated a wide and varied range of other species to build the foundations of the their civilization, which arguably has been the invention of agriculture, more than any other technological breakthrough. This breakthrough, more than any other, is the single most potent force in the species development and advancement through the stages of civilization. However, in addition to the domesticated species many other, smaller, and less visible species have contributed to the development, destruction, and rebirth of many of the individual politically, geographically, and socially distinct cultures of homo sapiens across the globe.
World shaking occurrences bridge the gap between the species' cultures. But just as important as unity is to this species, culture has a special place in their hearts and minds. The development of language, customs, traditions, and religions have given the species, bound originally by geographic locale, something special to cherish. It is this individual culture that gives them strength, something to make one of them unique from the rest. Over time, culture has manifested itself into politically distinct units. As the blue rock shrank, politically people have come together, for the first time in the species' history every political unit represented in one organization. But the culture gives them individuality, a strength, a uniqueness well worth to be preserved long into the future, best done through that medium which has sufficed so far; namely geography.
It is suffice to say that the blue rock is becoming inadequate. The species, like their ancestors before them, have become many, and will soon be seeing new lands in which to make their home. This time, let them not look at distant mountain ranges to trek, nor vast murky oceans to cross, but rather to the stars to explore, and conquer.
The species, evolved from their violent ancestors, have always been conquerors. Like their non-sentient relatives, they must acquire new lands and resources in which to build new civilizations. But let the species pause for a moment, think, and reconsider. There is nothing left to conquer on the blue rock. But, by luck or design, if one takes a glance upwards, there are a million rocks ready to be conquered.