Chasing Shadows! A Dream

I feel the earth under my feet shake, and the explosions deafen my ears. Day change to night as the thick dark smoke obscures visibility for hours. And I begin to see death with my naked eyes. But after all the shootings and bombings, the smoke clears at last. And we expect to see seven dead devils: Hatred, Oppression, Frustration, Injustice, Mistrust, Fear, and Enmity.

But there they are—laughing and falling over themselves. And the kings, Sunrise and Sunset, are full of wonderment. What sight is this? they ask. Did not the winged-man in white say to wipe out these devils? Or are these not the weapons that destroy spirits? What are they to do now with all their bombs, missiles, and bullets expended?

When the seven spirits finish their laughters and free falls, Hatred, their leader, comes to address the kings. First, he says that the kings have used the wrong weapons. For neither guns nor bombs can kill the seven deadly spirits. Second, he tells them that these seven deadly spirits that they are trying to destroy live in their various lands. And they are the dangerous parents of Inferno, the terrorist. So he wonders why they had spent time and money looking for their son, Inferno, while he is right in their midst. He then turns it into a question- and- answer section, and demands that both kings reply him.

"Do you not hate, oppress, and frustrate each other?" he asks. "We do," reply the kings. "Do you not cause injustice, and mistrust, and fear each other?" he further asks. "We do," the kings answer again. "Are you not in enmity with each other?" is the next question by Hatred to the two kings. And they answer: "We are."

The vexed Hatred, King of the seven deadly spirits, now asks, "Do you know the meaning of the word hypocrisy?" The kings look at each other again in confusion, and I remember my dictionary a second time. As to this question, there is no answer.

The questions and answers now end, and Hatred makes a long speech beginning with a question:

"Why do you then make war at us with your guns and bombs? You should instead have proceeded to eradicate the political, economic, social, religious, health, and environmental problems that are bedeviling the world. People are fighting for political freedom, some are sick and hungry, and there is racial and class discrimination, religious strife, including land, sea, and air pollution in your lands.

"These are the very things that cause hatred, oppression, frustration, injustice, mistrust, fear, and enmity, which make Inferno, our son, to terrorize you. But remove the causes of all these cankerworms, and you will see that we will not exist anymore, and Inferno will not attack your lands. Then the world will be like The Golden City. It is only then that you will have Love, Peace, Freedom, Justice, Equality, Dignity, and Trust.

"That was what the winged-man in white meant when he said to destroy us. The man speaks in parables. Now, you are chasing shadows—fighting the effect instead of the cause, the symptom and not the disease. Since you did not understand, or refused to understand the meaning of the message, and come shooting and bombing at us—the wrong targets—instead of solving the world's problems, we are going to give you double trouble."

Going on, Hatred tells the kings of Orient and Occident to prepare for the last war. Because they have caused more problems than solutions for themselves with their weapons. Because war is not the road map for peace. And because man himself is the problem, and not the solution.

Then the bombshell! He says that the kings should gather all their cinema, film, and moviemakers, and ask them to suggest apocalyptic scenarios. For the world is going to end with the worst case ever imagined. The world, he says, is now a more dangerous place than it was before Operation Hell Fire and the search for weapons of mass destruction. Finally, Hatred, the leader of the seven devils, says that the belligerent kings, Sunrise and Sunset, have sown wind in the country of the Devil, and must therefore reap the Devil's whirlwind. After saying this, he disappears with the other deadly spirits, laughing. . . .