substitute: (conrad)
substitute ([personal profile] substitute) wrote2005-09-01 07:59 pm

The Airborne Toxic Event

The enormous dark mass moved like some death ship in a Norse legend, escorted across the night by armored creatures with spiral wings. We weren't sure how to react. It was a terrible thing to see, so close, so low, packed with chlorides, benzenes, phenols, hydrocarbons, or whatever the precise toxic content. But it was also spectacular, part of the grandness of a sweeping event, like the vivid scene in the switching yard or the people trudging across the snowy overpass with children, food, belongings, a tragic army of the dispossessed. Our fear was accompanied by a sense of awe that bordered on the religious...

{...}

It was said that the governor was on his way from the capital in an executive helicopter. It would probably set down in a bean field outside a deserted town, allowing the governor to emerge, square-jawed and confident, in a bush jacket, within camera range, for ten or fifteen seconds, as a demonstration of his imperishability...



from White Noise, by Don DeLillo.

[identity profile] douglain.livejournal.com 2005-09-02 03:22 am (UTC)(link)
You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.

[identity profile] hoyvenmayven.livejournal.com 2005-09-02 03:28 am (UTC)(link)
I just ordered it. Can't wait.

Not an actual simulation

[identity profile] torgo-x.livejournal.com 2005-09-02 04:07 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I've been thinking about that book a lot lately.

Re: Not an actual simulation

[identity profile] torgo-x.livejournal.com 2005-09-02 04:14 am (UTC)(link)
BTW, thank you for suggesting that book to me months ago. It was well worth the read.