Change, that fickle passing thought

     The guy sitting on my left is looking at his laptop screen with a grim face. Next to him a woman with exciting legs is half smiling into her blackberry. On the other side of the row a young chap wearing a "Patriots" cap--the "in" football team--is tapping his foot to the beat of the rap music plugged into his ears. Behind them two guys who have a sort of business air about them are talking politics:

     "Obama  says he's for change."

      "You really think so?"

     "Yea, I mean there isn't going to be any change with McCain, that's for sure, and Clinton...she's part of the party machine."

     "O.K. But a black president? The guy's got charm, even says he's for capitalism, but all this talk about green economics...do think it can work?"

      "Well, what about a woman in the White House? The problem isn't being black or a woman. Who can take us out of this mess? That's the problem. Do you really think Obama is going to do what he says?"

     "You got me. Everybody's talking about change these days, but can we really pull out of Iraq, switch to green energy..."

     The question went unanswered. A row behind them on the New Jersey Transit line a man was reading the news: Hmmm. The Pentagon is asking for a $515 billion dollar debt, $70 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan...the public deficit could reach $410 billion this year...the housing mortgage scandal...

      So just imagine the guy with the laptop. He gets home, kisses his dear wife, pats his two children on the head, plays with the dog and sits down to munch his TV dinner. Later that evening, a few hours after hitting the sack, he screeches furiously in the midst of a horrible nightmare. On the train he reads the banner headlines:

  "America has crashed and become a third world country!"

     "Calm down," conforts the sweet wife, "it was just a dream."

     "But could it happen? I mean the way things are going it could, couldn't it?"

     The dear lady thought it better not to answer, or to answer with silence. But her husband's fear no doubt is going to accompany him for some time. After all, empires rise and fall..don't they? Well...