War

So it has begun.

I'm reminded of a car accident I once had. It was while I was in college. I drove an orange '76 Vega (until it died). One day, with my friend Teach in the car, I was headed down Route 10 by the ...nope, can't remember. It's whatever the name of the electric company was in Reading. Anyway, it was summer, and it had rained recently after not raining for a while. So the roads were slick, as all the greasy exhaust that builds up was suddenly hydrated. I was coming around a curve when I went into a skid. I was only going about 40 miles an hour. The car, once in motion, seemed to stay in motion forever, like an enormous, orange figure skater. During the skid, I looked at Teach, she looked at me, we both sort of positioned ourselves in anticipation of the impact. The skid seemed to go on and on and on. Then, finally, impact, catching a parked car. That metallic crunch.

During the past several months, it's been possible to talk about the slo-mo skid into war, to forget about the slo-mo skid into war, to debate and argue the slo-mo skid into war, to wonder if somehow we would all emerge unscathed. Not a chance. It was all inevitable. Once set in motion, it was like my skidding orange Vega. And now, finally, the impact.

In a re-play of the last Gulf War, it's SCUD missiles versus Patriot missiles. We all sort of know the content of this experience, like watching again a movie you haven't seen for a long time. At the outset, you have only the vaguest recollection, but as each scene unfolds, you think, "Oh, right. Now they set the oil wells on fire."

I think I recall Donald Rumsfeld (he totally looks like a kid-toucher, doesn't he? something so creepy about him) saying "In by March, out by June." I hope that's true.

The subway stations are being manned by National Guardsmen. Last night, I heard the droning thuk-thuk-thuk-thuk of helicopters patrolling the skies. Things are subdued.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

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