Chapter 17: Triangles
by Jesse Gold

       Most of us ended up staying in New Jersey for another week.  Junior found lots of meetings for each of us to attend in New York City as it truly is the “crossroads of the world.” We linked up with hundreds of newly discovered efforts for a better world.  It almost made me believe sometimes that this all was possible.  But only sometimes. The rest of the time I felt like it was wonderful, but crazy and impossible dream.

       For one thing, it was like pulling teeth getting a lot of the organizations to come on board.  All we were asking was for them to agree to support the idea of “One Day In Peace, January 1” -- they didn’t even have to do anything, unless they wanted to.  And most of the ones that agreed to be co-sponsors would never do anything more.  But that’s okay.  By mid-spring we had 5,000 co-sponsoring organizations in over 100 different countries.  When it comes down to it, to get the media’s attention it’s all about hype.  Eventually we’d have so many co-sponsors that they’d have to focus on our campaign. 

       Getting the media interested was the all-important key.  Once they get interested, the public would get excited. Then, all those co-sponsors would become inspired and create projects that really promoted the idea.  Which would get the public even more involved, and the media would fuel the hype even more. 

       Then corporations, sensing the public appetite for peace, would jump in, finding angles to promote themselves while they peddled peace.  This would pour gasoline on the fire bringing it to an even greater level so that finally governments would have to listen.  Under pressure from ‘the people’ they’d change unjust and unsustainable laws, which then would make it easier for this “fad” of focusing on peace to be sustained and actually become the new norm for society. 

       Then finally at last, countries would have a goal that went far beyond the Gross National Product -- their goal would be to help make life better for all of their inhabitants for the current and future generations.  And in order to do that, they would have to get along with other nations.  Then the world would have a common goal, too.

       At least, this was the general plan.

       Most of the time I’d look into the anxious and desperate and uncaring faces I’d see on the street, and I was certain they’d never stop to think about what peace on earth would be like.  If and when they heard about the goal of “peace for a day” they’d only see it as a foolish, childish dream, as I had.  They don’t have time to dream about a better world; they’re too busy worrying about paying the bills so that they won’t lose what little they have been able to achieve.

       And yet, sometimes it seemed that it wasn’t so farfetched.  Sometimes it seemed that if all the rules were fair and everyone’s life was valued and every one had a chance to find meaning and purpose, it would be an amazing world -- not perfect, but so much better.  Societies and people would have a purpose in life -- the purpose to live to our fullest potentials.  All that was standing in the way from this utopian dream was an unfair economic, social and political system that people have put in place, and that people could change.

       How I wished I could believe in this impossible dream all the time.  But then I had the perfect motivation to sustain me through all the doubts and worries and fears.  I had to do this.  I had no choice.  But, that part of it drove me crazy, too.  Would they hate me -- these friends I’d grown to love -- would they hate me when they learned the truth about me?

       I tried to hate Samantha, as a defense I guess for the guilt I felt about my feelings for Art.  And I could see she tried to hate me, too, but somehow we just kept finding interesting things to talk about, without intending to.  Which of course made me feel all the more guilty.

       It was no use trying to think about Troy to take my mind off Art, either.  But I kept forcing myself to think about Troy, and re-examine our relationship.  I’d never really convinced myself that I loved him.  But that was when I was, well, the way I was.  I felt more like a complete person now, and knew that if I went back over our relationship and inserted the new Jesse-with-a-heart into the place where Lady Jessica Martin had been, well, I could fall in love with Troy.  If only my heart weren’t fixated on Art now. 

       If only I could call Troy -- just hear his voice -- just hear him say he loved me, as he had so many times back then when my heart just wouldn’t listen.  This time maybe I wouldn’t mumble an obligatory, “yeah, me too.”  This time, I’d mean it.  But of course, Troy was the last person I could contact.  Now that we were certain that our every move was being watched, I had to guard my past even more diligently.       If only I could see him on TV, or read about him in the papers -- but of course, keeping out of the public’s eye was something Global Missiles Unlimited was always good at.  In all these months there wasn’t a single mention about my Uncle’s passing and Troy’s rise up the ladder.  Not in the Wall Street Journal.  Not on the Internet.  Nowhere!

       I lay there, trying to drift off to sleep in my motel room in New Jersey, but I kept remembering that Art was only a few blocks away. I kept seeing his face and thinking how wonderful it would be to be traveling with him on the Peace Bus.  “Think about Troy,” I kept reminding myself, trying to superimpose Troy’s face over Art’s.  I finally fell asleep, thanks to Junior’s snoring through the thin motel walls.


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Table of Contents | Preface | Ch 1

| Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 |
Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7 | Ch 8 | Ch 9 |Ch 10 | Ch 11 |
Ch 12 | Ch 13 | Ch 14 | Ch 15 | Ch 16 | Ch 17 |
Ch 18 | Ch 19 | Ch 20 | Ch 21 | Ch 22 | Ch 23 |
Ch 24 | Ch 25 | Ch 26 | Ch 27 | Ch 28 | Ch 29

ONE DAY IN PEACE
A Novel about creating humanity's first day of peace
Robert Alan Silverstein

The People For Peace Project


$4.59 paperback
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UTOPIAN DREAMER


May Peace Prevail On Earth