For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost

I'm not sure I trust myself to speak today.  Waking up to the news that a military strike killed the United States' Most Wanted is disturbing.  I'll tell you why.

I'm a novelist.  We writers are a strange breed, especially those of us who construct whole lives and worlds in the imagination.  The very same perspective that makes it possible to follow a story across time and generations, also makes it difficult to watch "real life" unfold and not see it as the arc of a storyline.

Nothing happens in isolation.  As an author, if I drop an event into a story that is in no way related to the overall narrative --- just because I heard about or imagined something that tickled me ---- it stands out and cries to be removed.  I've had to go back and take out some very entertaining scenes or characters for just that reason. 

Everything is connected to everything else.  Poets and philosophers and storytellers and religious teachers all say the same thing, using different metaphors.  A stone dropped in the water, a butterfly in Indonesia flapping its wings, the birth of a baby, a nail lost from the horse's shoe ---- all have been used to bring home the point that the tiniest action has unpredictable effects.

So Osama bin Laden, the 17th baby born to a well-to-do family in 1957, was killed in an operation that will no doubt be written about, filmed, talked of and doubted for years.  (Or he wasn't killed, if you prefer.)  At one time, he was a newborn baby, not unlike every person reading these words, not unlike the babies all over the globe being born this instant.  His life began to unfold at that moment.  One thing happened, then another and another.  Just as we all do, he processed the world and its inhabitants based on his own interpretation of the things he felt and saw and heard and learned.  Was it pre-ordained?  There are those who believe it, I'm sure.  I don't happen to think that way.

I'm certain that this man, whoever he was in his heart of hearts, was responsible for terrible pain and grief in the world and in individual people's lives.  There is no mitigating such an awful legacy.  He will be remembered, not for whatever acts of kindness he may have bestowed on the people close to him, but for the monstrous acts of violence he set in motion.  He is not the first, nor even the worst, if you toll these things in number of casualties.  But he has left his mark upon the world.

What captures and distresses me is what comes next.  Some people, many people, are celebrating his death.  Others don't believe it.  The fact that he is gone will have some effect on the organization he leaves behind.  Where does this lead?  There will be geo-political ramifications that, like the stone in the pond, will radiate out from this event in all directions.  There will be political fallout in the US.  There will be private, personal changes wrought by the strike.  The families who have lost precious sons, daughters, mothers, fathers through military service or in the 9/11 attack will add another layer to their existing story of life and death.  Civilians in the war-torn countries involved, whose lives have been disrupted or destroyed over the past decade will also react, each in an individual way.

Sometimes when I read fiction, I can't stand not knowing what is going to happen and I either stop reading or jump ahead.  I have a low tolerance for suspense.  Sometimes in life I feel the same way.  There are too many variables crashing into each other right now.  It makes me jumpy and anxious and ready to have the resolution.  But I know, because I write the stuff, that resolution is short-lived and more will continue to unfold.  With a book I can write the words THE END and call the story to a halt.  In real life it just keeps coming.