Toll of Years

I first saw the remake of 'War of The Worlds' in a theater not far from the Bayswater Underground station in London. As I sat watching the Tripods wiping out the human race the world was not quite four years past the downing of the twin towers, and just a little more than a week from the Underground bombings.

As Tom Cruise ran through the street dodging death rays, the war in Iraq was two years old, and 'Mission Accomplished' was already an embarrassing memory.

The Toll of the Years was heavy and getting heavier. In that theater, in a city which would soon know sorrow, I had no revelation of the future. I wouldn't have believed it if I did: five more years of war added to the Toll. Tens of thousands dead. Impossible, I would have said.

But here we are now, with no end in sight. Death still stalks Iraq, and runs wild in Afghanistan. Bin Laden still abides in Pakistan - or somewhere, perhaps powerless, perhaps not.

And a new President in the US hasn't stemmed the Toll. What will? Perhaps the Tripods will have to come tearing up from beneath our cities. Knock us all down separately, to raise us all up together.

Could Spielberg craft a happy ending for us? Could Cruise help us accomplish this impossible mission?

If I knew then, in that theater in Bayswater, what I know now, I might have gone crazy - or entered politics.