THINGS WITH POWER

BY NITRO

Hi!  My name is Nitro, and I don’t like people!

Well, let me correct that.  I DO like people; it is just that I tend to be a little afraid of them, so I tend to avoid big social gatherings, potlucks, and crowds.  I was trained as an anthropologist, so I learned very early on all the terrible things that people can do to one another.  Having survived “academia,” I have also EXPERIENCED what people can do to one another.  People have “power.”  They can hurt you.

So, I became a museum person!  Forget people, I prefer THINGS.  Things don’t have power.  They can’t hurt you.  I can spend days alone with all these things that belonged to strange and exotic people, inhabitants of far away times and places.  They can tell me a lot, but they cannot hurt me.  Right?

Well, maybe they can. 

Back in my youth I was working for THE MUSEUM.  A group of representatives from THE PEOPLE OF THE PUEBLO in New Mexico came to us.  They wanted to see the BORDER GUARDS that we had in the collection.  These are artifacts that had been collected from their reservation back at the end of the nineteenth century.  We had the records, and we knew they had not been collected ethically.  THE PEOPLE had shown our collector the GUARDS, placed as they were at the borders of their territory, and said that they were very powerful and should never be removed.  Well, they were removed, without the permission of THE PEOPLE, and ended up in our collection.  They are not particularly spectacular or anything.  Just big wooden slabs carved roughly into the shape of a human figure, and painted with a humanlike face and features.  They had been in one of our storage units for many, many years.  I had handled them, and inspected them as part of my job.

THE PEOPLE had their special priests with them, and they went to inspect the GUARDS.  Afterwards, they told us to keep them hidden, in the dark, and to never let any member of their community come near them.  They also indicated that it would be the best for everyone if they could be returned and replaced at the borders of their territory.

After viewing the artifacts, they left.  That night, it snowed.  Big snow.  The subway system experienced a failure, and there was a crash which caused the death of several riders.  The first time such a thing had ever happened.  Traffic was snarled, and people could not get home.  An airliner crashed in the river next to the city, and all but one of the passengers died.  It was a terrible time.  It was the winter of 1978.

We at THE MUSEUM knew that the BORDER GUARDS properly belonged to THE PEOPLE OF THE PUEBLO, and wanted to return them.  Bureaucracy and politics, both in THE MUSEUM and at THE PUEBLO, caused nearly ten years to pass before the GUARDS could be returned.  But, at last they were.  Within the year after that, the Berlin Wall had fallen, the Soviet Union had collapsed, and the COLD WAR was over.

Maybe indeed things have power after all.  I mean, the GUARDS were taken, and then there was the Spanish War, World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, Korea and Viet Nam, not to mention the threat of nuclear holocaust.

THE PEOPLE believe that was a result of THE BORDER GUARDS having been removed.  Well, there have been wars before, and there are again.  But, hmmm, I think I may have changed my mind about THINGS being powerless.  And, people might not be so frightful after all.

The tale you have just read is true.  Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent (aka:  ME!).

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