When bad things happen to good people

Today I tell a story of apocalyptical battles, unparalleled heroism, and the fall of mighty empires. Storied figures from ages past mustered up their forgotten glory and rampaged onto the battlefield of fury…drumming throngs amassed in anticipation of the looming clash…hearts pounding, feet stomping, salivating dagger-edged teeth ready to taste the flesh of fallen foes. It was a sight that emblazoned itself into the memory of all who witnessed.

As dictated by the rules of proper warfare, Alexander, Caesar, Genghis Khan and Napolean each stepped away from their fortified positions at the four corners of control and slowly made their way to the legendary Circle of Seclusion…here, in the middle of this barren, windswept plain lay a single tent, its flapping, red silken sheets glowing in the searing midday sun. there was to be no talk of averting the travesty ahead, instead, these four honored figures offered their last respects to the towering personages in their presence. Oh how the pragmatic logistics of organizing warfare can baffle your mind….how could it be that four men sat down at a table and divided up the known expanses of the globe into segments of control, wielding the power to determine the fates of billions with the sweep of a hand, the blink of an eye. Yet so it was. The Rumsfelds and Wolfowitzs of the world would hereafter always hearken back to this convergence of powers when deliberating the precedents established for conquering and pillaging.

There were no wasted words. A nod of graven respect was paid by each to each…then they turned on their heels and swiftly made their way back to their respective bastions in order to make final preparations. At the sixth hour of the sixteenth day of the fourth month, the horns blared their deafening call to arms…and so it began. What followed has been depicted in scores of books, praised by the poets of the world and immortalized in song…surely my meager words wouldn’t be so brazen to rival those accounts, instead, I offer a glimpse from the commonman to the commonman.

The mighty mountain fortresses of the Andes, and the fertile river valleys of the Amazon fell quickly, uncontested really, to Caesar’s swarms. Just as today, many parts of Africa teemed with civil war, while East Timor broke its fragile peace, roiled by carnage. Asia remained eerily calm in these early stages…awaiting it’s mounting pivotal power. While Genghis and Alexander tore away at each other in Africa and the southwest Pacific, Napolean capitalized on their distracted attentions and sallied forth through the expanses of North America. Soon a dynasty was born and North America had fallen. Controlling such vast resources, Napolean churned his war engine at full boar. Seemingly in the blink of an eye, Napolean had fortified the northwestern gateway to N. America (Kamchatcka), effectively sealed the southern entry through Panama and accumulated his menacing divisions in Greenland….poised to sail the silent seas and surge through Ireland and Britain. Those seas were sailed and hidden under a cloak of mist, Napolean unleashed his vicious hounds upon the Icelandic snows and let them devour all in their way. Europe itself now lay helpless to his evil schemes and east to west, north to south soon fell under his sway.

Emotions ran high at this point, and the prostrate southern powers of the world convened a conference in Tunisia and discussed tactics to collectively undermine Napolean’s northern empire. Here the author must disclose his ties to the Alexandrian leadership, because interpretations of this summit grossly diverge. You see, I held an elevated post in Alexander’s exclusive cabinet of war ministers during the early stages of warfare, including the days of the Tunisian talks….anyways, Caesar, Genghis and Alexander’s respective camps all agreed that a unified and imminent counteroffensive against Napolean in Southern Europe was the most logical of approaches. Alexander held two of the three key positions (Northern Africa) which would allow such an attack…the middle east lay in the possession of Genghis. To cut to the chase, the talks were ultimately discarded because Alexander felt he was being asked to sacrifice his very existence in order to weaken Napolean, allowing Caesar and Genghis to reap the harvest they hadn’t sown. Caesar and Genghis called for an immediate offensive, while Alexander demanded a brief respite to muster a critical mass of manpower, in order to ensure landing a mighty blow and living to tell about it. Sadly, Caesar and Genghis’ positions were too staunch to allow for productive three way dialogue and they splintered off into separate two party talks.

Let me bring this tome to a timely close…Alexander, abandoned by the short-sighted, unrealistic demands of those whose names we shall not mention again here, suffered the further devastating blow of a malaria outbreak in his central African power region….inauspicious signs, my dear friends. Meanwhile, blessed by an abundant crop and fortuitous mid-battle breaks (an entire division of Napolean’s troops was wiped out while crossing the Urals when a freak summer blizzard swept in), Genghis strengthened in the east. Caesar, finally ready to capitalize on his protracted isolationist stance, soon rose up to conquer the crippled North American Napoleonic empire.

There was a moment when relative parity returned to the lands of this earth, and a harmonious peace could have been struck….but the wounds of battle had penetrated too deeply, the ire and quest for vengeance too permanently lodged in the psyche of these soldiers…nobody was hanging up their shields and returning to pasture…this was a battle to the end. Plain and simple. Crippled by the nonexistent international aid, Caesar worked tirelessly in his laboratory to develop the serum to cure malaria…but alas, time ran out. Napolean capitalized on this last opportunity to use his fledgling northern might…The figurative gates of Moscow fell this time to Napolean as he stormed into Africa and managed to strike the fatal blow to Alexander’s forces… the story goes that Alexander fended off scores of assailants with his own majestic might, ultimately succumbing only to a slimy bit of subterfuge that involved Caesar and Genghis illegally and immorally abetting Napolean’s ferocious offensive.

The rest is history (and boring history, at that). So suffice it to say, that for all Napolean’s gusto, he overreached himself by conquering Alexander. He soon fell. The world returned to a two superpower state that pitted Genghis against Caesar’s isolationist forces in the west. Armed with the insuperable combination of exquisite horsemanship skills and access to Arabian stallions, Genghis swallowed the might of Rome…ironically in a northern showdown that foretells of the pending rise to power of Greenland and Iceland.

….but little did they know…that high above them, orbiting the blue earth in a rudimentary satellite station, sat Alexander….cackling maniacally, and plotting his imminent, terrorizing return