~ salvare
> salvation:
deliverance from harm, ruin, or loss
There's this idea in our society that... well... see... one of the old timers sipping his ale in The Golden Dragon said it better: "Keep your nose outta trouble and no trouble'll come to you." With all due respect to respectable, good, admirable hobbits, the old hymn had it right:
When trouble comes -- not if.
Today, I rode three miles in a machine that uses explosions to move forward. Specifically, if I want to move one mile in the span of one minute, it takes roughly 12,000 explosions to get from point A to point B. In fact, we seek the results of this mathematic equation when we buy these machines, "I just need something that will get me from point A to point B." Something. Anything. The explosion machine is attached to 4,000 pounds of twisted metal and breakable glass and every explosion coughs out poisonous gases -- some odorous and some odorless. Most human beings will die if they fall from a three-story building, the momentum stopped up short at stone will ruin their organs (vital parts of the human frame that boast the fortitude of water balloons). These machines, however, move faster forward than plunges from buildings fall downward and you shouldn't forget that if they run into each other, the speed of twisted metal... doing... doing... what do they call it?... oh yes... crashing into twisted metal is enough to kill any man, however strong or brave or innocent or true. These explosion machines kill 50,000 people every year – including a formerly current student of my alma mater, a student well-loved by his friends, a student who fearlessly prayed and dreamed despite his (and our) mortality. Even young dreamers, young passionate men like Brandon are not safe. After all, the only two things keeping them and us from crashing into one another are a line of yellow paint and willpower.
It's more like what Moody calls... sorry, called... CONSTANT VIGILANCE.
Three months ago, I rode in another machine. This one lights air on fire after sucking it sideways into a pit through a giant fan blade made of real blades -- a pinwheel of knives. This particular machine could crush a herd of elephants -- kill 'em dead -- if it "landed" on them. It flies in the air like a bird, this elephant-crushing machine, up where there's no oxygen for breath -- a crucial ingredient if you're trying to whip up a batch of living human souls. Because of flying where there's no air, this flying, air-burning machine (also formed of twisted metal like the explosion machine) comes stock with plastic bags that may or may not fill up with oxygen if ever its insides bleed all the good air out. Those plastic bags are quite similar to the ones used by the Mafia for an activity known as "the Boston fogger." This machine is dangerous enough that anyone who rides it cannot take more than 3 ounces of any liquid, any sort of stabbing, cutting, trimming, maiming, grinding, sawing, hacking, burning, or other normal household or travel items on board. Why? The owners of the air-burning machines fear that someone may turn it into an elephant-crushing machine or a missile for towers twin and single alike. These owners are tragically under the illusion that such restrictions prevent the machine from being able to crush elephants or destroy buildings, and every year these air-burning machines surprise them by crashing and exploding.
Sometimes even right on top of poor, innocent elephants.
There's a machine in my sink that's supposed to help me dispose of the large chunks of food on my dinner dishes. This machine is made of blades and the switch to turn it on looks identical to the switch that turns on the light in that same room -- in fact, they're right next to each other. Turning on the light while my hand is digging out something that I shouldn't have disposed of (like my wedding ring) may result in fingers that lose the capacity to wear rings at all.
Also death by blood-letting.
There's danger in the streets, especially where there's no streetlamps. And even where there are streetlamps, those streetlamps attract more of the explosion-powered machines, and then you're back to square one (a metaphor taken from the precise moment in board games when your pawn dies).
There's danger as I type, for the roof could cave in and crush me or snap my neck. Does that seem ridiculous to you? It didn't for Chicken Little. The sky did fall.*
Inconveniences Rightly Considered Page 5