I dreamed that a billionaire had donated his mansion to be used as offices by an organization fighting climate change. I was one of the many volunteers working there. All around me people were bustling, appearing to be working very efficiently and effectively, but I was distracted by the house. It was very fancy. I kept staring at the floors, which had a very great variety of surfaces. I was especially fascinated by some granite squares bordered by strips of matte-finished metal which appeared to be a nickel-copper alloy.
Eventually I shook myself into somewhat greater alertness to the task at hand. Someone pointed out an impressive-looking white-haired gentleman in a very handsome suit, and suggested I offer to join his team. I walked up to the white-haired man and said I wanted to work with him. Right away he asked me whether I had been in the military. I said no, and he waved me off, dismissively, clearly considered the question settled.
I walked away, but then a moment later I approached him again, and told him that the reason I had not served in the military was that I had been raised in a very strictly pacifist Pietist Protestant denomination, and that although I was no longer strictly pacifist, the Pietists among whom I had been raised had for centuries bravely faced various forms of persecution for sticking to their beliefs, and that it was a heritage I could be proud of. I said that it his business who he wanted in his crew, but that he shouldn't get the idea that I was some sort of coward.
The old guy thought for a minute, then smiled, nodded, shook my hand and welcomed me aboard.
I followed the boss around the mansion as he busily networked with others. He and I and most of the other volunteers were wearing suits. I could see that the boss' suit and his shoes and watch were all much more expensive than mine. Likewise, the others in this particular crew, and most of the people we were meeting with, were very expensively dressed. I felt self-conscious. I wondered what the others thought about my appearance.
The boss got handed many pieces of paper. He handed some of them to me. Soon the stack of papers I was carrying was so big that I needed a backpack to carry them. Getting that backpack was as simple as calling out, "Hey, anybody got a backpack I can use? Big and roomy would be perfect." And just like that, a big and roomy backpack was tossed my way.
Was the entire organization, everyone in the mansion, wired that tight? I wondered. Or just this boss' crew of a half dozen men and women quite a bit younger than he and I?
Most of the pieces of paper I was carrying contained color photos of people. "Hey Boss," I asked, waving some of the paper at him, "who are all these people?"
The boss laughed and replied, "Few people would recognize them. Few people have heard their names."
I took a guess: "So these are the 'fools' names and fools' faces' crowd?"
"That's right. They pull strings behind the scenes. And the ones in those pictures are profiteering from pollution. They're death merchants, no two ways about it. And we're going to take them public in a big way."
No comments:
Post a Comment