An Open Letter To The Residents Of Key West

The funny thing about storms and the like is often they arrive without fair warning. They are not one, but many of nature’s soldiers in union. Lone riders in genesis they are, each wielding its own cataclysmic volition. But until they collide in a harmonious rhythm no mortal man can fashion, they drift aimlessly across the plain searching desperately for meaning, blurring the souls of their subjects but only for a moment. For alone they reap not the fields of force they sow. Lost minions of their Maker, they are defined by their search for each other, whipping through the cosmos with finite intention. And then, when all is calm, a collision ensues of spiraling and jiving, swirling their masses together for the ultimate congregation of mayhem. The sound of distant thunder is the only warning that this union has occurred and peace will fall to its unyielding hand. This letter is that thunder, my friends that hand.

So shall you scurry to shelter in thine easeful village, or will you face the wickedness steadfast, with a black heart of resolve? Make your peace with God that you are at his mercy at least for now. And as you take heed to the echoing of the coming, just as the one you call “Papa” did years ago -­‐ drunken and dilapidated on your cobbled streets and in your desolate watering holes. Hemingway knew, as shall you…

“No man is an island, entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls…it tolls for thee.”