A Climaticide Fable

Let me tell you a story in the present tense.

We're on a commuter train and a six-year old boy starts screaming that his mom is having a seizure and that if we don't do something about the vial of poison that's rolling around on the floor and leaking into the air we're all going to have seizures and maybe die. Everyone freezes at first because the scenario is so outside of their experience they can't believe it could possibly be true.

The child keeps screaming. One of the passengers springs into action and goes to the woman but has no way to deal with the toxic spill. She sees the danger but can do little herself. She calls for help. Call 911!  Tell the engineer to stop the train!

Someone dials 911 but is told that the EMT's need to do more research before they can be dispatched. Someone else calls the engineer, but he says, in a Texas drawl, that he won't stop the train because if he stops the train it will throw all the schedules off and bankrupt the subway system.  But, he says, he will call the EMT's and ask them to do more research. The fireman, a burly tight-lipped fellow, is heard grunting his assent. Other voices in the background seem to be talking in Chinese and Hindi.

As the poison gas spreads through the car and threatens to seep into other cars, some passengers who happen to work for the company that made the poison starts passing out 100 dollar bills to people who are willing to make and wave signs stating that there isn't any poison and that it's all a plot to ruin their commute. A couple of other passengers start to have seizures.

The train car is very large and some people can't even hear the ruckus. Other passengers are so engrossed in their cell phone conversations, PDA's, laptops and evening newspapers that they don't even hear what is going on. Others hear but think that someone can take care of the problem when they reach the station.  

Several passengers have just lost their jobs, a couple of them in the poison industry, while others are about to lose their homes to foreclosure.  They sort of hear what's going on, but are too preoccupied to react. A few big burly guys who for some reason wear camouflage to the office are worried that if the poison gets on their camo they won't be able to wear it anymore and will have to dress like pussies.

Meanwhile the guys with the money keep passing out the 100's. And the signs have changed.  Now they read "We need subsidies for clean poison."

Meanwhile poison has been found in the other cars on the train. In some cases it's leaked in from other cars, but in a couple of the cars they've discovered broken poison vials of their own. In one of the cars the passengers got together and have already started cleaning up the poison. In another car though a fire has broken out and the sprinkler system has come on and the passengers are too busy to pay much attention to the poison.  A number of them have fallen ill.

In the car adjoining ours people are pressed up against the window, screaming and shaking their fists at us.  The conductor's drawl is heard on the loudspeaker as he reassures us that he will not bow to pressure but will keep the train moving so that we can arrive on time.  He tells us that the train company has just paid the poison company a large sum to do research in this area and that they expect to have new anti-poison technology ready by sometime next week. In the meantime, he says the poison company intends to keep making poison until the anti-poison technology is ready. A few of us are now trying to clean up the poison, but most of the passengers who are paying attention just look overwhelmed.

The people with the signs have just changed them again: now they declare that since no one has been poisoned in the last 30 seconds we can conclude that it was all a false alarm due to natural variability in the amount of poison in the air and that the rest of our commute should be uneventful.

And since this is a story in the present tense we really don't know what the ending will be. Any guesses?

[Kudos to AudreySchulman for the original inspiration for this diary.]