Battling the Monster Worms

I had dinner with my friend C. Carlton Sheff yesterday. We met in a small Chinese Take-Away restaurant in Karlin, near where he lives, the part of Prague that was completely underwater during the 2002 flood. C.C. spent last year in Kyoto, with his girlfriend Kristyana, studying Japanese calligraphy and Bushido. Since his return to Prague in January, I haven’t seen much of him. He’s been busy writing a new novel and I’ve been busy carrying on with my secret life.

Like most American expats, we discussed the declining American Empire as a way of assuring each other we got out just in time.

“Airport security is the first thing to go,” said C.C. “They’re so desperate to fill all these new security positions that they hire just about anyone. Don’t even look at their past criminal records. I usually just get the pork fried rice. When Kristyana and I were in the U.S. for Christmas we had this dumb ass security guard who went through my bag, then threw it down on the ground upside down. Are you getting a beer? I just reached down to set in upright and he snapped at me. I couldn’t complain, couldn’t say anything. If I did he probably would have detained me and I would have missed my flight. Try the Chicken with Five Spices. That’s a case where the wrong person is given entirely too much power and it’s happening more and more like that in the U.S.”

After the waitress came and took our order, I asked C.C. what his new book is about.

“I’ve been reading a lot on the cold war lately. Have you read any Alan Furst? He’s written a series of books about World War II and Central Europe – Hungary, Poland, Romania...And then I started reading some of the political theory of Hannah Arendt. You know who I’m talking about? She escaped Germany in World War II and went on to write about power and totalitarianism and evil, like, what is evil? Is evil really some powerful force or is it just a lack of will, a slothful banality of mankind? So that, plus my recent studies on Bushido started my brain ticking…That’s fast.”

The waitress had just returned with our dishes. She set them down before us. My Chicken with Five Spices looked like a typical sweet and sour chicken. It also had peas mixed in with it. I hate peas. I consider peas evil. I would have to pick them out.

“What was I saying?” Continued C.C. “Yeah, right. So I started getting this image of giant, monstrous creatures rising out of the ocean devouring everything in their path. It’s going to cross a lot of genres. It’s sort of a Cold War-Science Fiction-Political Thriller with a sword fighting hero who lives his life as if he were looking toward each present moment from the time of his death."

“What sort of monstrous creatures?”

“There’s this nuclear testing going on at the bottom of the Artic Sea, which rouses these giant prehistoric words from their aquatic slumber.”

"Words?"

"Did I say words? I mean worms. Giant, monstrous worms"

“Is this something you picked up from reading Hannah Arendt?”

“Not exactly. I mean, it’s kind of in there. If you read The Origins of Totalitarianism or On Violence it’s there, just not so metaphorically.”