The sky didn’t look as good. It hasn’t been since those fireballs rained down from the heavens and the earth trembled. Never before had man seen anything like it. As I looked at what was left of our once beautiful world, I wondered if there was any one who had prepared for what eventually happened.
“Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them”, so said Abraham Lincoln in an era in which great minds ruled the world. But I guess fate had trust upon us, as we closed the last chapter on man’s greatest civilisation, Â a set of hot heads.
Alas, an itchy hand on the button in the last days, the rhetoric that other earth men worried so much about in the public space, and a dangerous super ego of men whose hearts were vain created a conflagration.
At first, it all began like a huge joke until the fireballs stored beneath the earth, hidden away from prying eyes emerged from their trenches. How beautiful they looked as they left their projectiles and flew in the direction of their mission, trailed by TV cameras. With time, objects that had the shape of pencils, propelled by burning gas, we’re flying everywhere.
Of course, there had been accounts of what transpired at Hiroshima and later at Nagasaki. Man was supposed to have learnt a few lessons; supposed to have had a peep into the future; at least to understand the danger irreparably linked to his embrace of the arms race.
Like those who attempted to build the tower of Babbel, Â man had erected his civilisation, evolving science as his knowledge loomed, and technology too, as his dominion of the earth deepened.
That was indeed many years in time; Â many many years before machines took over, and program runners, descendants of decorated white witches became lords. So man talked more about running programs as we scrambled for wisdom; thought of the sophistry that these programs would bring as we imagined a world in which, reliance on technological creatures, would play a more dominant role; and dreamt dreams of the ease of doing that which a simple touch of the button could introduce on the home front and in the public place too.
Even the underdeveloped races of coloured people as earth men saw some of their kind began to buy into “project ease” Â as the computer, a huge storehouse of information at first, transformed into miniature possessions to be toyed with by kids.
Where wars did not exist, we created war games by simulation. So soldiers fought in distant lands without setting foot there. Pilots flew sorties across skies, dropping bombs on imagined targets. Side by side, huge navies developed awesome aircraft carriers of all kinds in pursuit of what came to be seen as a system of forward defence.
God had made the heavens and the earth and created man and said that all He had made was good. But was man, the last of God’s creation, going by his quest, good enough to inherit the earth?
In place of peace, man created awesome war machines and developed spying cameras that he placed in orbit.
The gains of the super information highway in time would have taken man higher. Ideas, like a flowing stream, were spinning off  like precious gold .I still remember, many years after civilization suffered a setback, how we all tried to cue in. Ideas were transcending transnational boundaries, breaking down what had seemed like impregnable barriers in search of new grounds of influence and new frontiers to surmount.
Man began to push for a global village, a closely knit world as huge markets evolved and good hearts laboured to close down gaps. Oh how I remember the drive of the Europeans. They had come close to the ideal union they were desperately looking for. The Africans had equally started forging a union of their own too. On all fronts, man’s desire to advance to the next level was gradually being rewarded by what became known as globalisation.
To suggest that the world was perfect as a result of these advances is to leave a lie  in the minds of many who are asking why our civilisation failed.
There were in inequalities introduced in our interpersonal relations; unhealthy business practices that favoured a few; a quest for dominion of others that was baffling; and the harrowing urge to demonstrate strength, to kill and to eliminate one another, perhaps in pursuit of what the world would offer to those left.
Then came the two who cared very little about the beautiful garden in which man had existed all along. The one, as tall as Goliath with lurks that looked like gold. Many a man who knew him say he was a man with a self serving mien and a burning fury hidden behind a cache of wealth.
The other, a rather smallish man in comparison, with a near roundish baby face, born after the armistice more than 50 years ago which separated a homestead of  two brothers. What he lacked in height, he made up in vision and organisation.
With time, Datord would eventually become the name of he that was huge, furious and unpredictable. And Rocket man, the name of the other one who had tried to justify the claim that great things come in small packages.
But the two had something in common – lips that had no restraint; comments that made threats by ‘Hisler’ more of a child’s play; and egos that obviously knew no boundaries.
What had happened was unbelievable and unimaginable. For days, the world shock. So many had died just as it started. Men, women and children who had no place in it. Women and children who in a man’s world didn’t need to stand in the path of the wailing light.
That they saw the blinding flash from heaven as it made its way to earth was enough. It is difficult to say how many retained their sights afterwards; how many still had the benefit of keeping their skins intact after radiation or its effect took its toll.
So many too, who were within the radius where the fireballs made their landfall, as well as all that was man-made, were sucked in by the rumble as dust rose from the earth, craters appeared where the impact had been, and mighty winds drawn in from the corners of our spherical world picked up a spirit of their own, forcing the waters to tumble in the aftermath of the aftershocks.
My body trembled.
I hadn’t set out to see these sights or to tell this tale. Nor did I truly believe my eyes  would see it. Everything, just about everything, lay desolate. Human bodies visited by fearful but hungry looking vultures lay on what used to be well paved streets and gardens.
Roads and houses were broken up and power lines, were down and out.
Then I woke up. It was a dream. Â It had seemed so real. I looked around, my world was still as it was. I tuned the television set and America and North Korea were still standing. I heaved a sigh of relief.
Somehow, I saw what looked like the last world, a banal world that lost total control, but I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if someone was to press the nuclear button by mistake in the real world.
I guess the threats by Trump and Kim had left me petrified. I Â began to understand what Ralph Waldo Emerson meant when he said “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us”.
America has always been every one’s ideal dream. It has always been the land of freedom and a perfect example of what greatness lies ahead as a result of the mixture of all races. Its leaders had been ordered in speech and perception; groomed in statesmanship and the art of diplomacy.
I never saw any American President who spoke like Donald Trump; never saw any who tweeted about serious matters of state as Trump does; and never saw any whose burning rhetoric about “fire and fury” has brought the world close to war.
The other day, the Chinese and Russians did something unusual. They too had a joint military exercise around the Korean Peninsula. And the Americans returned days later to fly huge bombers off the borders of North Korea in a rare show of air power.
The rest of us who obviously belong to the class of the powerless simply look on in awe as the drumbeats of possible war continues to resonate. Who would save our world?
President Macron of France had said Trump was dead wrong on his assessment of the deal entered into with Iran before his arrival on the world stage. At least, Macron insisted, that deal left room for international monitors to keep track of Iran’s nuclear development.
Faced with what is turning out to be the rejection of an offer of understanding, Â Iran last week fired balistic missiles into space.
America is seen as the world’s leader. It has the size. It has the resources and its leaders have always dreamt of a peaceful world in which man would be free to pursue basic freedoms. And a world in which America would be free, through diplomacy and collaboration, to maintain its staggering height in a globalised environment.
According to FD Roosevelt “It’s a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead  and you find no one there”. Will Trump look over his shoulder and see what is happening behind? Will he demonstrate leadership by going off the radar of abusive exchanges that are not befitting for a man his age?
It was amazing to watch Trump at the UN General Assembly. The words which came forth from that President were not words of comfort. And those words uttered with reckless abandon did not suggest in any way that America, blessed in all things, is willing to regain the staggering height that made her the envy of the free world under this current leadership.
I had written when Trump ascended office that the Americans and the rest of the world were staring at a movie. I had hoped I would be proved wrong. Many months after, I guess we are beginning to stare at a horror film.
Perhaps, what we see is a product of “America first”, a slogan when read side by side with another which says “We will make America great again”, may indeed be responsible for the deep cleavages that we see within and outside America.
After more than forty years, Â Washington’s refusal not to engage directly in talks with North Korea has not worked. It is doubtful it would ever work, sanctions or no sanctions. Â Malcolm X had noted, Â “If you’re not ready to die for it, take the word ‘freedom’ out of your vocabulary.” Â This may be the position taken by the North Koreans in defence of their sovereignty, a position acknowledged by another great mind when he said, “Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.” Â I think it was Ralph Waldo Emerson who uttered those words.
Speaking at the United Nations, Nigeria called for directs talks with North Korea. She suggested that the proposed talks should be led by the United Nations Security Council.
That offer is still on the table. Who will take it? Who will save our world? Will President Trump save our world by the force of reason?
Who will save our world?
Let the dream of a last world which was like a terrible nightmare remain what it was -a mere dream. I have since woken up and my eyes stare at reality. Let a thousand years of peace reign. That would be the best for our world. My dream is not a dream that should be allowed to transcend into reality. God forbid!
