Globalization Part II

A flat world
has no borders.
It defines the seasons.

That conquest
remains incomplete.
~~

The long awaited summer
had finally come.
The stage was set
with many of the props
just as Chad imagined.

A perfect day in Chicago
as the weather goes-
bright and sunny, the air
crisp and bracing.

At once an adieu to Spring
and fair welcome to Summer.

Chad stood motionless,
fixed to the mirror.
His image the end
of a long journey.
One which had taken
most of his life
he could remember.

Long, black robes eddied
about his arms and torso.
The black, tasseled cap
jauntily cocked
as if to say,
"We've arrived."

Chad hesitated.
He couldn't let go
of this picture
for him complete.

And thinking to himself,
painfully all the while,
"Where did I go wrong"?

It was Graduation Day.
The culmination of many
small wins upon larger wins
to be the biggest win
of his dreams.

But in all his diligent,
Chad had not learned
about the consequences
of a flat world.

In a flat world
there are no barriers.
No windbreaks to buffer
the storms of recession.

Chad's dreams, pinned
to an economics degree
from University of Chicago,
lay shattered in shards
of broken glass
strewn across the highway
of a flat world.

Promise of "security".
Internship to lead
to a career on Wall Street.

That promise of position
now rescinded.

All that was left
was in the glass.
This moment.
This reflection.
~~

A flat world
influences beyond
topography.

In a flat world
a virus takes
many forms,
ever changing,
ever adapting,
insidious to its ends.

In a flat world
there's always
a leveling process.

Nothing is sacred
or immune.
~~

Chad couldn't bring himself
to move from the mirror.
Uncertainty had corralled
his strength of resolve.
His heart bleeding tears
he could not cry.

The ending of the ceremony
the final blow. The thought
of giving up the robes.

For the first
in his life,
Chad was scared
and alone.

For the first time
without direction.
"Had the map
been misprinted,
or was it the wrong map"?
a voice deep in his thoughts
asked over and over.

Chad was overwhelmed
by sorrow of loss,
knowing the day's end
would mark his defeat.

He stared into the mirror
as if to steel
the glass in time,
his last best hope
the glass reveal
beyond its image
a world that was round.
~~

A flat world
is ubiquitous.
It is uniform.

In a flat world
without barriers
contagion spreads.

The mores
of society engulfed,
obscured to sameness,
a single datum,
a single map,
a cap and robes.

Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels
All Rights Reserved.