And the Children Shall Lead
"... And great shall be the peace of thy children."
--Isaiah 54:13
For months preceding the arrival of Rosewell's Comet, scientists, doomsayers and religious fanatics made startling predictions that included the likelihood of another Ice Age, Armageddon and the second coming of Christ. Yet despite the cries that the end of the world was near, most people remained calm and level-headed. This was not the Middle Ages, after all, when ignorance prevailed and superstitious minds believed comets were bad omens and harbingers of catastrophe. Although its origins were still unknown, Rosewell's Comet was nothing more than a collection of ice, dust and rocky particles traveling through space.
Consequently, on the morning of September 1, most people went about their business as usual. Some went to work, but since it was Sunday, the majority had the day off. Those of faith went to churches, synagogues, mosques or wherever else they worshipped. A number of curious individuals gathered in open areas such as parks, farmlands and meadows to see the comet cross earth's orbit and create a solar eclipse.
In Manhattan's Central Park, crowds of New Yorkers were having comet parties. Vendors were hawking wares such as Rosewell's Comet T-shirts and special glasses that could be used to safely view the eclipse. Meanwhile, wild-eyed zealots paraded down Broadway carrying signs proclaiming REPENT: THE END IS NEAR.
Erica Boyd, a free-lance journalist, was walking through Central Park, hoping to observe the eclipse, when the first sign of Rosewell's Comet appeared. Like everyone else, she put on her protective glasses. The reporter was looking up at the sky, when she felt something brush against her leg. She removed the glasses and looked down to see a small boy walk past her. In the growing darkness of the eclipse, the journalist could see dozens of kids heading toward 5th Avenue. She turned, expecting to see an ice cream truck, but all she saw were more children heading out of the park.
"Where are you going?" she asked a twelve-year-old boy in a Jersey Devils hockey shirt.
The boy walked past her as though in a trance. Curious, she followed him out to 5th Avenue where he and his companions turned right, heading southwest, and merged with hundreds of other youngsters walking in the same direction, none of whom looked up at the comet that was about to eclipse the sun.
Erica followed the ever-growing throng of children to West 57th Street. She estimated they were at least a thousand strong when they turned right onto 1st Avenue and walked toward lower Manhattan. At each intersection along the way more youngsters joined them. Fascinated by the odd occurrence, Erica began snapping pictures, capturing the fixed, determined stares of the children and the startled, questioning glances of adults.
The youngsters kept walking until they reached the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, where they were forced to stop because the road ahead was jammed with people ranging in age from eighteen down to two- and three-year-old toddlers, who were accompanied by older siblings. There were tens of thousands of children, far too many for Erica to even guess the number. Grown-ups stood by and pointed, never having seen so great a gathering of unsupervised minors in one area.
What are they doing? What do they want? Erica wondered.
United Nations security guards were joined by New York City police officers and concerned parents.
"This is really weird!" Erica exclaimed to no one in particular. "It's like something you'd see in a science fiction movie."
Neither the police nor the security guards had any luck breaking up the crowd, so a handful of U.N. employees came outside to speak to the children. As the diplomats approached the large gathering, one little girl, blond-haired, blue-eyed and barely three feet tall, stood up to greet them.
Erica tiptoed through the people that lined United Nations Plaza in order to hear the exchange.
"Why have you all come here?" a statuesque South African woman asked.
The little blond girl's eyes looked up into the tall woman's face, and she replied, "We have come to ask for peace, and we will not leave until we get it."
This would make a hell of a story, Erica thought and reached into the back pocket of her jeans for her cell phone.
She quickly scanned the contact list on her iPhone and selected the number for Gabe Hogarth, her friend at CNN.
"Hello, Gabe," she said excitedly. "I've got a story you guys might be interested in. I'm here in front of the United Nations Headquarters, surrounded by literally thousands of kids who ...."
"Did you say you're at the U.N.? That's Ground Zero!"
"No," she corrected him, mistakenly thinking the senior news correspondent was referring to the site of the former Twin Towers. "That's about five miles south of here."
"I'm not talking about the World Trade Center, I mean Ground Zero of the Children's March."
"You know about it already?"
"Are you kidding? This movement is global. Young people are congregating in cities, suburbs and small towns around the world, meeting in front of town halls, municipal buildings, state houses and embassies. There are armies of kids at the Hague, the Kremlin, the White House and the Palace at Westminster."
Interestingly, of the billions of children who were taking part in the demonstration, only one child had spoken thus far: the little blond girl who had asked for peace in front of the United Nations Headquarters. And Erica was the only journalist who had been able to get close to the scene.
"Listen," Gabe said, "I'm going to try to send a cameraman out to you."
"I don't see how anyone could get through this crowd."
"I'm going to send him by motorboat down the East River. That'll put him right in the U.N. Building's back yard. Until then, I'll patch you through to one of our anchors. I want to go live with your phone-in report."
After apprising CNN's television audience via Anderson Cooper of what was going on in Manhattan, Erica ended her phone call. While waiting for the cameraman to arrive, she tried to interview the little blond girl, but she got no response from her or any of the other youngsters.
It was close to forty-five minutes before Riley McNaughton, a CNN cameraman assigned to the New York metropolitan area, made his way through the multitude of young demonstrators. When she spotted him at last, Erica immediately phoned Gabe Hogarth. It was time to let the world see what was going on at Ground Zero.
* * *
"For CNN, I'm Erica Boyd at the United Nations Headquarters. Back to you, Anderson," the free-lance reporter concluded after updating the audience with as many details as she had discovered, which unfortunately weren't many.
"Have you ever seen anything so bizarre?" Erica asked the cameraman.
"I don't think anybody has, but I'd like to shake the hand of the child prodigy who cooked up this shindig."
"You think a child organized this protest? It's not very likely; the movement is worldwide."
"So is the Internet. Some kid probably posted the idea on Facebook or Twitter, and the next thing you know someone in England or Russia decides to do the same thing, then another child in Paris or Rome agrees with the idea, and so on and so on. The message goes viral and everyone shows up."
"You can't be serious! What are we going to call this movement then, the Tweet March?" the reporter laughed.
"What's your explanation, then? How did so many young people become involved?"
It was a question leaders across the globe were asking themselves at that moment. Psychiatrists, child psychologists, military brass and intelligence agencies were all eager to learn what was behind the sudden mass movement of minors. There were many theories, most of which were more absurd than Riley's social media theory: a terrorist plot, a CIA brainwashing experiment gone awry, mass hypnosis, a dangerous psychosis brought about by violent video games, subliminal messages in television programs and rap music, an ergot-induced episode similar to the one that allegedly caused the Salem witch hysteria and brain damage resulting from the use of iPods and cell phones. Regardless of the cause, though, the children were resolved to remain sitting at their posts until armies around the globe laid down their weapons and world peace was established.
The hours passed, and the demonstrators had neither food nor water. The Red Cross and other charitable organizations arrived at the scene with refreshments, but the youngsters remained still as statues.
The following day was not the typical Monday morning. Not since the aftermath of 9/11 had New Yorkers seen such a disruption of traffic and business. With only minimal trading on the Stock Exchange, both government officials and financial analysts began to worry about the already struggling economy.
"These children must go home," the mayor demanded in a live press conference held on the steps of Gracie Mansion, "so that business can return to normal."
Parents were urged to remove their offspring from the streets, using physical force, if necessary. Fewer than a thousand demonstrators, mostly small toddlers, were carried away, however. The rest kept their silent vigil throughout the day.
* * *
"It's getting curiouser and curiouser," Erica said Tuesday morning after waking from a quick nap on the esplanade.
Riley McNaughton was holding two cups of coffee, courtesy of volunteers from the World Peace Organization.
"Here you go, Alice. This will help bring Wonderland into focus."
"Have the kids eaten anything at all yet?" she asked, gratefully accepting the coffee.
"Not a thing. They haven't slept either. It's more than curious. It's downright eerie."
"Eerie as in Children of the Damned eerie?" Erica asked.
Riley sipped his coffee and gave her question some thought before answering.
"No. More like religious miracle eerie."
"Now you lost me. I don't do religion."
"Are you an atheist?"
"Not exactly. I prefer to think of myself as an agnostic. What about you? Wait! Let me guess. You're a Catholic."
"Nah. I was raised a Methodist, but I have no religious leanings one way or the other now. Still, seeing all these kids here ...."
Riley's voice trailed off as he considered the enormity of the situation.
"Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God."
"The Bible?" Erica asked.
"The Gospel of Matthew."
"I really don't think quoting from the scriptures is providing any answers."
"What if this is some sign from God? This mass demonstration coming on the heels of Rosewell's Comet—the two events must be connected."
"Don't tell me you're going to turn into one of those lunatics crying that the world is about to come to an end."
"Who knows?" Riley replied with a shrug of his shoulders. "It just might."
Erica downed the last of her coffee and ran her fingers through her uncombed hair.
"Enough speculation," she said. "Let's get back to work."
As Riley watched the journalist walk toward the row of blue porta-potties that had been brought in by the City's sanitation workers, he mumbled to himself, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
* * *
Throughout the day, demonstrators around the globe remained seated at the foot of the world's seats of government. It had been more than forty-eight hours since they had eaten or slept. In addition to the people who were concerned about the effect the civil disobedience was having on business and the economy, there were now parents, medical personnel and social workers who were worried about the children's wellbeing.
In every country, kings, queens, presidents and prime ministers met with their advisors to discuss a solution to the problem. In the White House, the president met with his cabinet.
"Above all, we must remain calm and not resort to force," Mitchell Corbin, the current head of the Department of Homeland Security, insisted. "For God's sake, don't call in the Army or the National Guard and have them drag those kids out."
"We might consider putting sleeping pills in bottles of juice and water and handing them out to the little tykes," the vice president suggested. "They must be getting thirsty by now."
"Sounds too much like Jonestown, if you ask me," the Secretary of Agriculture interjected. "And this being an election year ...."
"What do you suggest we do, Mitch?" the president asked. "This situation seems to fall under your department's domain."
"Homeland Security was meant to deal with terrorists, not kids. But I do have an idea. We've developed a mild gas, completely harmless. If we can spray it over the youngsters, they'll be sedated in a matter of moments. We can then send in local police, firemen and parent volunteers in gasmasks to remove the sleeping children."
"Are you absolutely certain the gas has no side effects?" the president asked.
"It's as safe as baby aspirin."
* * *
"Don't come in too close," Erica warned the cameraman. "I must look terrible."
"No worse than the rest of us," Riley laughed.
"Well, you can look bad. You're behind the camera."
The journalist glanced at her watch. CNN wanted an update in another fifteen minutes.
There's not a hell of a lot to report, she thought, looking out over the sea of young faces that showed all the animation and emotion of department store mannequins.
"I don't suppose the Red Cross is serving breakfast," Erica said with a laugh.
"What did you have in mind, eggs Benedict?"
The two turned their heads at the sound of military helicopters approaching.
"What are they doing here?" Erica asked.
"I don't know, but it reminds me of a scene from Apocalypse Now. All we need is Wagner's 'Ride of the Valkyries.'"
When the choppers began spraying the gas on the demonstrators, Riley McNaughton, who had spent six months in Iraq, quickly covered his mouth and nose with his Yankees baseball cap and urged Erica to use a makeshift filter as well.
Despite the gas, Riley did what he was paid to do: he turned on his camera and began filming. Erica, however, could not remove her blazer from her lower face to phone in a story. She could only peer through the man-made mist and watch in horror as the children's eyes rolled to the back of their heads and their bodies slumped over. When the helicopters flew away, she heard the sound of vehicles in the distance. She saw men and women, in diverse uniforms and gasmasks, pick up the sleeping youngsters and carry them to waiting trucks and buses.
It's finally coming to an end, she realized with relief. Soon I'll be able to go home and shower.
The crews worked for more than an hour, yet they had managed to remove only a small fraction of the boys and girls from the group.
It will take them all day to get these kids out of here, Erica thought.
But the men and women in uniform didn't have all day. Shortly before the sun set, several of the children began to stir.
"They're waking up!" Erica exclaimed, finally removing her jacket from her face.
When some of the older children realized what was happening, they fought against those who were trying to transport them. Twenty feet from Erica and Riley, a sixteen-year-old boy, who'd had more than one scrape with the law in his short life, got into a fistfight with a New York City fireman. In the heat of the moment, the former gang member took a switchblade out of his pocket.
Suddenly the spokesperson of the group, the blond-haired, blue-eyed angel of a child who had asked for peace on behalf of all the children in the world, rushed in to stop the altercation.
"No," she cried. "We came for peace, not to fight."
Moments after the sixteen-year-old boy guiltily lowered his weapon, a shot rang out. Erica saw a red stain slowly spread on the blond girl's white T-shirt. The child's innocent blue eyes turned in her direction, and the reporter saw them glaze over before the little girl fell.
The silence that followed the shooting was complete, as though someone had pressed a cosmic MUTE button. Then, just as the little girl's heart stopped, there came the ominous sound of a massive death rattle as the remaining thousands of youngsters in front of the United Nations Headquarters and the billions around the world breathed their last.
* * *
Theologians have long recognized the number forty as having special significance in the Bible and associate it with a period of probation, trial or chastisement. When Noah built the ark, for instance, God made it rain for forty days and forty nights to destroy the sinners in the world. Moses spent forty years traveling through the wilderness and forty days on Mt. Sinai before receiving God's laws. The Israelites had to wander through the wilderness forty years before crossing into the Promised Land. And Jesus was tempted by Satan in the desert for forty days.
It was surely no coincidence then that exactly forty years passed from the first sighting of Rosewell's Comet to the second. When the comet returned, however, there were no parties, no T-shirts, no special glasses and no startling predictions. In fact, no one was even aware of its coming. After the death of the world's more than two billion children, mankind lost its interest in comets, not to mention its own future. A nasty little side effect of the "safe as baby aspirin" gas was that it made the adult population sterile, so when Rosewell's Comet blazed across the sky for the second time, fewer than one billion people inhabited the earth, the youngest of whom was fifty-nine years old.
Ironically, the demonstrators accomplished what they had set out to do that warm September Sunday: they achieved world peace. For with the end of the civilization in sight, mankind finally lost its desire to wage war. With their inability to procreate, human beings were an endangered species that was doomed to extinction.
Erica Boyd, who was just three days short of her seventieth birthday, walked out of the house she inhabited in Bergen County, New Jersey, and gazed across the Hudson River at what remained of the once bustling port of New York City: a collection of dilapidated buildings that resembled the skeleton of a dinosaur. So much had changed in forty years that she could barely remember what her life had been like back then.
When the sky began to darken at midday, Erica thought it was a sign that her time was near. Death didn't frighten her, not after all she had lived through. In many ways, she welcomed it.
"If I'm going to die, let it be in my own bed," she declared and returned to the house where she laid her head on her pillow and closed her eyes as the comet blocked out the sun in its orbit around the earth.
Erica was surprised when she opened her eyes the following morning.
"I'm still alive!"
Forty days later her astonishment was compounded when she felt the movement of life inside her. On the forty-first day after the second coming of Rosewell's Comet, the seventy-year-old former journalist gave birth to a healthy baby girl. The blond-haired, blue-eyed angel of a child was a symbol of hope and the first sign that man had been forgiven.
This is not a cat march for world peace. It's just Salem's relatives coming to dinner.
