I'm just one lone whisperer in the valley of shadowed echoes. When I scream, there is still a dampened whimper that cannot seem to reach past the winded, stifling silence.
I am a nobody -- a mosaic of molecules that formed into a creature that formulates thoughts and moves through a determined time. I am a crystalline structure that will dissipate into misted elements to be tossed to distant suns.
And yet I presume to matter more than matter.
You might ask why I am presuming to matter to you, Al -- to someone who is busy saving a planet from extinction. What could one lump of cells mean to one who is trying to save entire species from ruin?
My deflated arrogance inflates my importance and encourages me to try to reach you with one more desperate wail.
I have searched for some kind of idea, some formulation of words that might convince you to run for president. But I tire of such manipulation and I have not much strength left. So I will just tell you of how one mass of nothingness feels when contemplating the history of nothingness.
I want humankind to mean something. I want that all generations should have hope. I want a future for the world that continues to mature into better civilizations that worship philosophy, art, and kindness -- or at least that people may have the chance to experience those wonders and hopes.
Instead I see disintegration and I despair.
There are Ryder trucks full of ballots on a Palm Beach highway that are overturned by a twister making its way out of Washington, DC.
There are tortured souls that cough up the wadded treaties that have been shoved deep into their throats.
There are banners that are banished to faraway corners of ragged obscurity.
There are concrete dust piles that serve as tombstones to courage.
There are hollowed halls of justice that are entangled paths of perplexity.
There are beaten bodies piled on superdomes holding signs of mirrored warnings.
There are booming shocks of awe that reverberate the delta enough to waken Gilgamesh from depths of stone.
There are falsehoods that seep into every cistern and choke the thirsty throngs.
There are coffins draped in blood and filled with tissue that wrapped America's hope.
And I am too spent to be angry. I have flailed my limbs until my joints have twisted into knotted wood.
Do not tell me, Al, that it is enough to choose from options that present themselves in primaried packages. My cries are but an incorporated pixel flashed on a measured jumbotron inducing halftime waves of crowds.
You are not responsible for my despair, nor is it your duty to remove it.
Falling buildings do not leave me quaking. Instead, I fear the stealth of the disease that will feed itself on the likes of me, creep past your efforts to save the world, and stand triumphant on the emptiness that is left.
I stand not on the shoulders of giants to see far away. I am buried in the gloom of what lies hidden and my small voice seeks one more scream:
Run, Al, Run.