Nolo contendere
By moggi1964
Wed, 15 Sep 2004
- 165 reads
"Order! Order! This meeting has been called to ask a question
fundamental to our way of life: should we continue to fly? It has been
brought to our attention over the past few weeks that a consequence of
our constant desire, no, need to fly is widespread environmental
disasters and I believe it is now time for us to consider alternative
modes of transportation."
style="MARGIN: 0cm -18.15pt 0pt 0cm">"What! Like walking you mean"?came a youthful, dissenting voice from the assembled crowd. The
outburst was met by a series of chuckles, guffaws and, mostly from the
elderly members, disgruntled huffs of annoyance at such
'impertinence'.
He let the hilarity run its course as he knew it
would. Everyone assembled recognised that this was a matter about which
there was little to laugh about but a moment of light relief was always
welcome in a tense situation. "Now then" he said in a 'headmaster with
a sense of humour' manner, "that's not adding anything to the need to
reach a solution is it? We've yet to explore, in detail, the
alternatives on offer but you can rest assured that we will in due
course. As I was saying, the evidence?"
class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm -18.15pt 0pt 0cm">"Whatevidence? I haven't seen any evidence. And who says it's right anyway"?
A female voice cut his sentence short with its high pitched, somewhat
frantic delivery, yet they all knew it was vocalising a thought going
through many of the assembled minds at that point. class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm -18.15pt 0pt 0cm">"Please be
calm, your anguish will not help matters" he almost pleaded. He had
expected a whole range of reactions, anger, fear, resolve, surrender
and yet he hadn't been prepared for the terror barely concealed in her
voice. What came to him later was the understanding that it was an
inherent maternal instinct that drove this venting of feelings, she was
telling him and everyone else that she felt impotent as a mother and
that she worried not for herself but for her family and future
generations.
At that moment though he knew that what he said
from here on would determine the fate of his own and of countless
others he would never meet. "I can assure you all that world experts
have been looking at the available data for longer than any of us has
lived and they have determined that every single flight we make no
matter how short has the potential to cause chaos in parts of the world
we have never heard of and have no hope of visiting"
class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm -18.15pt 0pt 0cm">"Not if wecan't fly anymore we haven't" said an aged Admiral in the front. His
slow, careful enunciation of each word carried with it the weight and
impact such as he had been shouting down a megaphone into a baby's ear
not six inches away. There was no laughter, save for some nervous,
choked chuckles from a few who had no control over such emotion. Heads
nodded in agreement, in a manner that showed respect for the speaker
and the words he had chosen. Brief exchanges between adjacent
listeners, where normally barely audible, knit together to form a hum
that moved in waves across the assembly like a swarm of bees moving to
and fro over their nest. style="MARGIN: 0cm -18.15pt 0pt 0cm">"My dear, dear friends I
understand your concerns and share in your uncertainty about the
future. In my youth I flew to the far corners of the kingdom, enjoyed
sights and smells I could not have dreamt possible. I tasted the
nectars found in those far flung destinations and returned to be able
to tell of my adventures to my children (and repeat them time and time
again I'm sure to which they would no doubt testify in exasperation)".
He scanned the crowd, the older ones in particular who might share in
this experience so many had yet to come of age to and reassuringly he
saw his own weak smile reflected in their faces. "I know that what I
ask of you will change your lives in ways as yet unimaginable. I am
sure that to some of you this will seem like a step back to an earlier
stage in our evolution but we cannot and must not think like that. We
have a duty to adapt to the circumstances in which we find ourselves
and adapt we can and will. I could not go on living the way we do with
the burden of the knowledge that somewhere someone is suffering
terribly because of my actions; I ask COULD YOU"? class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm -18.15pt 0pt 0cm">Heads dropped
in the crowd; he could hear muted crying from more directions than he
would care to remember but he knew he must remain strong for their sake
and he stood as upright as he was able, grasped the makeshift lectern
and spoke as a leader needs to in desperate times:"Go back to your
homes and spread the word: from this day forward my friends not a
single butterfly will flap their wings again. No longer will we carry
the burden of contributing to the chaos and the disasters that befall
the world we share with other living beings. We will do our part, let
us hope that others do theirs".
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