Sorting through History

 I wrote this little burb when President Obama was in office.  I wondered what would happen if our society was destroyed, and the only thing that was available to rebuild it was a collection of DVDs found in a government building somewhere.  This is what happened in my head.

    The man behind the podium shuffled through a small pile of index cards. When he seemed satisfied, he placed them on the podium and began to speak.
    “I stand before you today humbled by your faith in me. To allow me to lead you has been a great honor, and one that I do not take lightly. This is likely to be the last time I address this great nation though no one alive at this time will ever here my words. This is for generations to come if there are any.”
    “I have a story to tell,” he continued. “It’s not just about me. It’s about the human condition. The trials and tribulations we have faced on this ball of water hurtling through the universe. I really don’t have any answers to age old questions that have plagued mankind since he uttered the first ‘why’. I wonder if there ever will be a ‘because’ to answer every why. I only know that humanity has survived a long and bloody history from both wars and disasters.”
    “If why was the first word that man uttered, then because was definitely the second. Everyone has an answer to the problems that life presents. ‘It worked for me,’ they say. When you ask why it worked, you get the standard ‘because it did’ generic answer. That answer isn’t good enough. It’s like saying the creek rose because of that one raindrop that fell in it. That may be true, but the other billion or so raindrops helped. History has always been the interpretations of a select few that tell the people what they want them to know offering a carefully constructed because for several possible whys.”
    “I don’t intend to ask why or offer any standard because in this story. There are way too many whys, and I can’t think of a single because that is worthy enough to answer them with. So, if you bear with me for a little while, I will tell you what happened, and you can ponder the why questions and because answers.   Our way of life is in mortal danger, and honestly, I don’t trust my own judgment any longer.”
    “It began with a blip on a radar screen. It’s not an uncommon occurrence. The drug trade from Mexico has caused a lot of blips on American radar screens. The pilots would fly high enough to hop the border and then come in low. It hardly ever worked, but they kept trying.”
“This blip however wasn’t an airplane. It was much too large to be a light aircraft. Whatever this thing was, it was much too large to be a 747. No one had a visual. We put a dozen fighters in the air in order to intercept this unknown threat. The leaders of this great nation watched live radar and video from our intercepting aircraft over a secure feed in the situation room.”
    “Ideas were bouncing back and forth. Could it be the Russians? ICBMs can’t fly that low, can they? Did one of the South American countries gain some new type of weapon? No one knew. The dozen small blips were approaching the large blip, but there was nothing in range of the camera. While the leaders of the country sat transfixed by the images on the radar and the lack of a visual on the camera, one of the planes exploded in mid-air.”
    “It hit nothing, and nothing hit it. The resulting collision with nothing destroyed the plane. The pilot never had time to eject, and the plane was obliterated. The remaining planes scattered in all directions. One other plane clipped the nothingness with a wingtip. It went into a spin and the pilot ejected.”
    “From Southern Arizona to Washington D. C., our radars followed nothing more than an unidentified blip on a radar screen. Cities that it passed over burst into flames.  Great cities like Phoenix, St. Louis, and Cincinnati were wiped of the face of the Earth in a matter of moments."
    "Over the White House, the nothingness became something that has only been seen in movies and by a select few who never seemed to have a camera ready. The nothingness fell away like a veil leaving in its place a spaceship of unknown origin. Within an hour, television screens around the world flashed video of the giant ship that floated above the capital of the United States of America.”
    “The red phone that sits in the oval office rang. A mechanical voice speaking English asked for a meeting. I agreed to that meeting. A representative appeared at the front door of the White House within moments of my hanging up the phone.”
    “It looked almost human, but it wasn’t. It shook my hand but didn’t speak. It showed me what it wanted in what I can only describe as images inside my head. I spoke, and it answered with these images. All of the men nearby saw exactly the same thing I saw, and I believe we saw more than it wanted us to see.”
    “It asked for a peaceful surrender, but we saw its true purpose for being here. The human race was to submit to the will of the invaders, or they would be destroyed. The strong would work strip mining our precious natural resources. The weak would serve the strong. They would raise livestock and grow crops to feed the slaves and the invaders. When the resources were gone, we would then be exterminated.”
    “The secret service did as I instructed and fired upon the being that stood before me. Whether or not it was injured, we don’t know. It disappeared leaving us alone in the room.”
     "With a target visible and desperation unknown to man before this time, we attacked that ship with everything we had.  No weapon could penetrate its defenses.  Wave after wave of planes were shot down by the invaders.  We retreated to the underground bunker to decide what to do. For many hours, we could not come to an agreement, but we finally came to a decision."
    “Our decision was complicated, but we believe necessary.  We, the government and people of the United States of America, in good conscience, could not let the human race become slaves to beings from another world only to be eliminated once we were no longer useful.”
    “As you watch, this know that there was no other choice but to let the human race, which has thrived for tens of thousands of years, keep its dignity intact. As I record this, the vice president, the secretary of state, and myself are preparing to launch every nuclear missile in our arsenal. We will end the suffering before it begins. If you are watching this now, you have survived. The fate of humanity is now in your hands. Hold onto it with every fiber of your being. Embrace life and know that we did what we had to do. We saved mankind by destroying it. As your president, I wish you well. God bless us all.”
    The screen went blank. The young man watching it pressed a button on the machine in front of the screen. He took the disk that was ejected, returned it to its case, and placed it in a large container labeled fiction.
    “Are you sure it’s not real, Jim?” Dave asked.
    “Of course, I'm sure it’s not real. A black man couldn’t have been president of the United States. We know from the documentary that the great historian Spike Lee left us that the Confederates won the war,” Jim replied. “The last president of the United States of America was Abraham Lincoln. We also know that a virus wiped out most of the human population from the documentary by Stephen King.  Only one nuclear weapon was ever used.  It detonated in Las Vegas.”
    “Okay,” Dave said. “It looked real to me. I think as director of ancient document studies you have a responsibility to the people to investigate it thoroughly. We want to make sure that they get factual information.”
    “I appreciate your concern, Dave, but we rebuilt society with Mr. Lee’s guidance making the Confederate States of America great again,” Jim replied. “We can’t let the slaves see this ancient Northern propaganda. A black man president? It’s 3015, and I don’t see that happening in my lifetime let alone one thousand years ago,” Jim replied. “I’m just thankful that great men like Mr. Lee and Mr. King left the documentaries that helped us set things right again.”
    “I know, Jim, but…”
    “There are no buts, Dave. Without this treasure trove of documentaries that survived the Stand, we would have never known anything about our past. Crap like that cheesy video will do nothing but undermine everything that we stand for.  You’ve got nine kids to feed. If you want to keep your job as assistant director, you better learn the difference between fiction and fact. I put it in the wrong pile."
    Jim fished the disk from the fiction box and tossed it into the trash can.  He made washing motions with his hands and picked up the next disk.  He slid it into the machine.  The words 'Sylvester Stallone in Judge Dredd' flashed across the screen.
    "Finally, something we can actually use," Jim said, “a documentary on law and justice."