A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall

Bob Dylan, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan

5 days to impact

Back home in Washington DC, the Senator with long white hair and a grey beard packed two Mark 23 semi-automatic large-frame pistols together with a few packets of Grizzly Mountain Organic Black Hair and Black Beard Dye, $100.000 in cash, a Ledger and a Trezor, three different passports, each with his face and a different name, and a picture of the Nobelqvists with their 6-year-old daughter; Karina.

It is possible to travel to war light-handed. Never light-hearted.

Watching Rick and Morty with his blue-eyed son, his wife immersed in a novel, he meaningfully mulled and meditated over his meticulous plan for the next few years. Every American politician needs some sort of picture-perfect family as to avoid eyebrows rising too high. This was his, except for the fact that she was almost 35 years younger than him. In the beginning of the third millennium this is frowned upon. A couple centuries sooner, not an issue, couple centuries later, also not an issue. Ageism, go figure. He would not see the two of them until way after the virus was out. They had no idea. Nobody did. In less than a week, he would be stepping into seven sad forests, ten thousand kilometres away from everybody, just him and his little hostage, wild wolves all around them.

• - This book is simply amazing – she said.

• - What are you reading? – he asked, as he cut through his dinner: steak with steak.

• - Blindness.

• - Ah, Saramago. Indeed it is, darling.

• - He won the Nobel prize for this one, I think.

• - He actually won it for his body of work – again, Nobel Prizes. Coincidence? Oh fuck Nobel, he thought. – but yes, his essay on blindness was well received.

• - He shouldn’t be watching this – his wife squinted her eyebrows inward.

• - It’s the only cartoon I’m willing to watch, and he’s only willing to watch cartoons, so...

• - So let’s ruin the kid’s mind at 8 and...

• - OK, OK, we’ll watch The Simpsons.

• - Put on The Flintstones on, or something more... fluffy – she said, stretching for the remote. – Scary to think how fragile the world is.

• - Do you know the flip side of Nobel’s story?

• - Nobel?

• - Yes.

• - There’s another side?

• - There’s two sides to every story – their son yelled, watching cartoons and following conversations as kids do, and adults don’t realize – you know that mom. There’s always two sides to every story.

• - Good, Adamah, very good.

• - What I know is that the prizes have been given to people who really helped the world. What’s the other side? Though I’m not sure I want to know...

• - The shared history of Sweden and Russia in the 19th and 20th centuries is often (conveniently) overlooked. Their most prominent families’ combined legacy includes the significant development of weapons and armament, and its industry. It ranges from underwater naval mines to, most importantly to this story, the invention of dynamite by a fellow also known for other feats: Alfred Nobel.

Alfred Nobel, who officially died childless. Unofficially, how many men really do know?

• - He was a philanthropist, they say. Maybe, but he was also a shrewd businessman with a hazardous aptitude for explosive chemistry, who not only invented dynamite but also became the major manufacturer of cannons and other weapons, cultivating military grade explosive devices and profiting from the sales of arms; the inspiration for a few modern-day companies such as Dynamit Nobel and AkzoNobel, descendants of mergers with companies he himself established.

• - Nobel had a weapons empire?

• - He was accused of high treason in France, for selling ballistite to Italy.

• - What’s ballistite, father?

• - It’s a smokeless propellant made from two high explosives, nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin. Nobel developed and patented it. I told you there was another side to this story...

• - You did.

• - His brothers, great characters too like the rest of them at the time, exploited oil fields along the Caspian Sea and became immensely rich developing these new oil regions. By the time Alfred died, he had 90 armament factories. No wonder he had to create a peace prize: how else could he clean his merchant of death’s reputation? This man had a leading role in weapon manufacturing and dissemination. And in their use: we are talking millions, both in money and in lives.

• - Was he a bad man? – Adamah asked, fascinated.

• - Well he did invent dynamite. As a weapon, mind you. The fact people use this thing to blow up buildings was a fluke positive side effect. His own brother was killed in na explosion, in their experimental shed.

• - Killed by the dynamite?

• - Indeed. Ironic. Dynamite comes from the Greek word for power: Dunamis.

• - But didn’t he leave all his money for Good? I heard that’s where the prize money comes from – his wife chipped in, not reading her book anymore.

• - He did. Good can improve one’s public image. That’s my job to know as a politician. I’m a merchant of Good, or so they say – he smirked. – He also made sure that, after he died, he was to have his veins opened and a cremation in a bath of hot sulfuric acid.

• - You’re exaggerating...

• - Never, darling! I always mean what I say and do. Every single time.

(Silence)

• - Nobel once said his inventions might end wars, since the consequences of using such powerful weapons would be too horrible to contemplate. This from the same fellow who founded dozens of war-supply companies. Irony can disguise almost anything; even Evil.

• - Do those people still make war things today? – the boy asked.

• - Well, he had nephews, nieces, servants, partners, some women... Their descendants are alive, some flourishing. The original legacy lives on in ways most people refuse to imagine: war is an timeless universal service. People say prostitution is the oldest profession in the world, I would argue it’s war. Soldiers in wars. Attack, defend. Conquer, kill. Remember Adamah, always know our enemy.

• - Nobels are bad – Adamah flicked a miniature football, knocking down a row of soldiers he had laid out while listening to his father.

• - And good. They’re good too. Most Nobel winners are smart, good people who have changed the world for the better. Some didn’t, but... there’s always two sides, Adamah, two sides to... – the Senator didn’t finish his sentence on purpose.

• - ... every story – Adamah finished it. – I’d like to be one of the good Nobels one day, father.

• - That’s impossible, Adi – his mother said. – They don’t give it to football players, sweetie pie.

• - Nothing is impossible, Adamah, no matter what anyone tells you – the Senator snatched his narrative back. – Love, please don’t call our son that. He’s a big boy: a small man. Treat him accordingly, please.

• - I’ll call my child whatever I want to, Your Royal Highness, Sir Imperial Excellency, Sir.

• - Adamah – the Senator raised his voice slightly. – I could introduce you to some Nobels this weekend, at the summit, if you’d like it.

• - Please! Could I speak to an astronaut, father?

• - Sure.

• - Can I read you something I just read and highlighted? – the child’s mother interrupted again, eyes peering over the top of her book.

• - Yes, mother, please do.

You never know beforehand what people are capable of, you have to wait, give it time, it's time that rules, time is our gambling partner on the other side of the table and it holds all the cards of the deck in its hand, we have to guess the winning cards of life, our lives.