The Sun emerged over the curved horizon, a blazing disc of light against the inky backdrop of the eternal night. Every human would have been moved by such a spectacle, but the satellite could not care less: not only had it behold in its short life more sunrises and sunsets than any human being could ever contemplate, but in addition its camera was not trained at the horizon. While humans raised their heads to watch the stars in awe, its cold, efficient eye had been riveted to sweep the ground far below it.

The stolid mechanical device darted towards the illuminated part of the Earth and took up its routine mission. It glided past the lesser Antilles, those specks of green scattered across an expanse of blue, took its first shot, and stored it in its memory for further delivery. And moved on, unconcerned by the tiny white wen over the turquoise waters it had dutifully registered: in the heavens, the weather was always fine.



At the UN headquarters in New York, the conference on nuclear disarmament opened amid increasing tension. Orators from the United States and Soviet Union were blustering their usual threats, rejecting the blame on each other, under the applause of their respective vassals. The situation had severely festered, however : on both sides of the Iron curtain, nuclear warheads were budding like mushrooms. It was a spring of sorts, but not a spring heralding the return of life and warmth. No, on the contrary, this one brought with him omens of death and large scale destruction. And while, up to now, no skirmish had been serious enough to trigger a global escalation, everybody all over the globe could almost figure the forefinger of the president of the United States and of the First secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union hovering each morning over the red button. That dreaded red button which would spark off what some had not hesitated to deem the end of all civilisation.

Sven was sitting on one of the long benches, his ears clumsily covered under the old headphones he was wearing. As a Swede, his proficiency in English was unquestionable; Russian, however, had never been his cup of tea, and, maybe more out of laziness than real difficulty, he had decided to give up and rely on the skill of the bevy of interpreters the organisation employed. That was not without drawbacks, however: while the overtones of the Soviet delegate were clearly aggressive, the female voice that faithfully translated his words had decided—intentionally?—to adopt a neutral tone.

That voice had droned on and on from midnight well into the wee hours, focussing in turn on every tiny detail of the American foreign policy that could be construed as a potential threat to the Eastern regime. Jaded, Sven took his headphone off. There was no point in listening to this over and over again: it was always the same discourse, always the same rhetoric. He turned his head toward his assistant and looked at her with bleary eyes.

“Coffee?” he proposed, inadvertently speaking in English.

“Ja, tack!” Lotta answered, smiling.

Lotta—“Lolita” as he sometimes called her affectionately—was the epitome of the Nordic lady in her early thirties: long, light blond hair that fell freely on her shoulders, sharp blue eyes, fair skin and a skinny, attractive body highlighted by her form-fitting, swanky attire. Her remarkable beauty had a lot of success amid the Southern representatives, something that was causing her more worry than joy. Although the organisation had always denied it, it was still very misogynist, and some delegates, perhaps prodded by the relative protection their diplomatic status granted, did not hesitate to harass her or even, for the boldest, cop a feel during the frequent klatches she used to attend.

Sven rasped his chair backwards, stood up and edged his way to the nearest exit.



At the NHC centre in Miami, John O’Connell yawned at the empty screen of his workstation. It was not even 7 AM, most of his colleagues were still asleep in their bed, and the room was all but desert. He had had a hateful night and had barely slept two hours. Probably the lobsters he had wolfed yesterday night were not as fresh as the fisherman had bragged. Matter of fact, he still felt a little sick. He sipped from his coffee mug, and casually flicked the switch that turned the screen on. After logging on the main computer, he selected the most recent satellite image and got it displayed.

His trained eyes immediately glommed on to a white splotch located in the middle of a blue background. Typing a few commands on his keyboard, he zoomed in and overlaid the picture with the synoptic surface pressure chart, confirming his suspicion: that was not an innocent gathering of benign clouds. A thousand miles west of the Antilles, a tropical depression was forming. What would be its fate or trajectory, it was too early to guess. But this was a potential threat, a reinforced watch had to be kept, so John promptly redacted a fax that he sent to the NWS’s main bureau in Silver Spring. While the document was being emitted, he briefly wondered how this particular storm—if he’d become a storm—would be christened by his managers. But ending up with no definite idea, he shuffled back to his desk and turned his attention to another sector.



Sven considered the front-page flag of the New York Times thoughtfully. “WE WILL BURY YOU!” in bold, capital letters, over the picture of the Russian delegate. He wondered why the guy had dared such a blunt sentence at the conclusion of his speech. Sheer foolishness? Ordered provocation? Or simply tiredness? There was no way to tell, but the net result was devastating. Every American newspaper had titled on those four words, and the journalists had reeled off the easy rhetoric of slander and hate on their typewriters all over the country and beyond. A dramatic diplomatic telegram sent from Stockholm had warned Sven and Lotta to get ready to evacuate should the situation deteriorate further. Everywhere around the world, embassies were in alert, and, he imagined, secret intelligence was in full swing, too. If the Soviet Union and its allies were about to start the war, everyone wanted to know when and what would be the first country to be ravaged by the merciless atoms.

Inside the newspaper, other articles discussed the subject further, casting a pall over the country’s future: where would the Soviet missiles likely hit the American soil? How many people would be so lucky as to die immediately, how many would survive only to be tortured by the unbearable sears, and how many would escape to be plagued by cancers years later? How many deformed children were bound to be born? The columns brimmed with gruesome figures, some of them backed by pseudo-scientific evidence; comments from the White House; reactions from other governments all over the world. The hard news had been pushed back to the last two pages.

A box in small print no more than three lines at the bottom of the last page caught his attention. It simply said that the NOAA had reported the genesis of a new tropical tempest. It had been named Elsa by the NHC. A pretty name for a future nuisance.

Sven folded his copy and plonked it over his desk. He swivelled his chair, stood up and paced around his office. This wasn’t auguring well. Verbal provocation was a form of agitprop, one of the preferred soft weapons of the USSR, but this time they had put their neck on the line. Even if the US government wasn’t a group of callow warmongers, they would have to yield something to the public opinion. But what exactly was left on both sides to yield, he wondered. We are acrobats tiptoeing on a high wire over a bottomless pit: the slightest mistake and we are all lost. There is no emergency net this time.

He looked at his wristwatch and jerked. The plenary session was about to reconvene. UK and French delegates were to deliver their speech. He snatched his case, strode out of his office, slamming the door shut behind him, and rushed down the corridors. On his way, he bumped into numerous small groups of people. Some he recognised, and cursorily saluted before proceeding onwards. At last, he found the right entrance door, flung it noisily open.

The large conference hall was buzzing and humming, waiting for the first speaker to appear. Panting, Sven looked around and traipsed down along the few steps leading to the row where his seat had been assigned

Lotta was already there, and she smiled at him when she saw him arrive.

“Gomorron,” she said.

“Hej! Hur mår du?” he answered, putting his case on the long desk and lugging down his chair.

“Bra, tack! Og du?”

“Bra okså, tack!”

At this moment, the hall broke into loud applause as the French delegate ascended the stairs to the platform. Sven clapped his hands briefly in unison, then, when the noise had somewhat died out, he turned toward Lotta once more. “Jeg kan—”

He broke off. Lotta had already put her headphones on and wasn’t listening any more.

“Monsieur le Secrétaire général, mesdames et messieurs les plénipotentiaires, permettez-moi de vous présenter le point de vue français sur la question qui nous intéresse,” began the French delegate when the silence was complete.

Sven sighed, put on his headphones in turn, and started listening to the speech.



John O’Connell was returning from lunch and didn’t feel like analysing the noon report from the west coast. It was still early in the afternoon, he had plenty of time to do so. Besides, his curiosity had been roused by his morning discovery. So, instead of focussing on California, he requested the latest picture from the Antilles area. When he got it, he noticed that the blotch of clouds was still there, and visibly larger. After some deft typing, he conjured a ghost of the morning picture and asked the computer tot put it atop the other one. No doubt: the storm had moved and expanded.

Using the arrow keys, he moved the graticule on the screen and recorded the two different positions. Satisfied, he entered a line of arcane commands, crashed his forefinger on the Return key, and reclined in his chair, waiting for the answer. Three minutes later, another graphic appeared on the screen. John zoomed out and whistled.

“What is it?” asked one of his colleagues who was walking behind him.

“Have a look at this baby. Has lost thirty millibars in six hours. Well on its way to become a full fledged hurricane. Here’s the expected trajectory during the next seventy-two hours…” John’s forefinger described a wide sweep over the screen. “Landing… here! ” He stopped plumb on a point.

“Goddam it! Are you sure of your calculations?”

“With only two points the error zone is wide, but it’s slap bang in the middle of it.”

“Should we issue a warning?”

“Nope. Too early. We can’t afford starting off a flap if we’re not at least 80% sure of what will happen. Tomorrow we’ll have a clearer picture.” He took his mug and slugged another mouthful of cold coffee, considering the computer screen.



The morning speeches mercifully came to an end: Sven had nodded off a dozen times out of boredom. Lotta had left the seance during the brief recess between the French and UK speakers. Had Sven not promised to the Swedish ambassador a detailed summary of the speeches, he would have done the same. Fortunately, his torture was over. He hastily stuffed the sheets he had scrawled on into his case, zipped it close and stood up.

And nearly crashed into his Italian peer, Dino di Palma.

Sven and Dino were good friends. Like many Swedes, Sven was used to spending most of his holidays in Southern european countries. Ten years ago, he had ventured for the first time in Italy, and had never traveled anywhere else since. He had fallen in love with the country, fascinated by the magnificent landscapes, the treasures of art and architecture, and the kindness of the people. Building on his natural sprachgefühl, Sven had been able to learn at least basic Italian, something that had helped him to connect almost immediately with Dino when he had been promoted Sweden ambassador to the UN.

“Ehi! Come stai, vecchio mio?” he asked, almost in stitches.

“Bene! Tu? Non ti saresti addormentato per caso? Sei tutto spettinato!” the Italian joked.

Sven quickly brushed his hair with his left hand. “Meglio?”

“Basterà.” Dino beamed, and cocked his head at the empty seat of Sven’s assistant.

“E la tua assistente? Era così stufa che ha deciso di andarsene?”

Sven grunted a nod.

“Tu e lei, non avete ancora…” He trailed off, but discreetly made a sort of obscene gesture.

“È sposata, sai.”

Dino wrapped his arm around Sven’s back and whispered in his ear. “E allora? Cos’aspetti? Pensi che sia un ostacolo?” He cracked up into a loud but warm laugh, and both walked out of the hall.



The next morning, John O’Connell and all the experts of the NHC were convened at an emergency crisis meeting. There was no nitpicking anymore: the tropical storm Elsa, now a hurricane of class 1, was travelling north-east at a unusual speed. It had covered in one night what normal hurricanes took three days to travel. And, on its way, it had mustered strength as the warm waters of the Atlantic fuelled its deadly machinery.

But that was not the real rub. The rub, and main point of the meeting, was its trajectory: the newest runs of the atmospheric models were unanimous. The margin of error had decreased significantly, while the computed path had not moved the slightest bit.

Elsa was homing in on New-York.

The threat was still far away, but it was marching at an accelerated pace. There was not a single minute to squander away. The director of the NHC closed the meeting and escaped to warn the headquarters of the NOAA. People there would, in turn, alert the relevant authorities. And maybe the media. Anyway, it was too big a business for such a small expert division to handle. It would require skill to avoid a likely panic, with dreadful consequences, a skill none of the meteorologists possessed. The NOAA had communication managers and press offices and all the require stuff: it was their job to deal with that sort of emergency.



Sven’s day was mostly dull. The plenary session was in recess, and the negations were now hosted inside the crucible known as the security council, of which Sweden was not currently member. No doubt there would be hot discussions and debates, but, up to now, the low-down had not filtered out. Of course, he knew pretty well some of the delegates that seated at the council, but there was no way to hold them up even for a minute. Besides, he was not sure they would have tipped him off.

So he slogged away all through the morning at writing the summaries of yesterday's speeches, had a quick lunch and devoted most of his afternoon to reading Swedish magazines and watching some “domestic” shows—standard video tapes that were regularly delivered through the diplomatic bag, then shared between all the members of the Swedish diplomatic corps.

It was about 5 PM and he was about to watch the last one when someone knocked. He aborted the loading, turned the TV off, and walked across his office to the door, that he opened. He was expecting Lotta, but instead saw the face of the Irish delegate, Sean.

“Sean? What a good surprise. Come in!”

“No time to. I just wanted you to know…” The Irishman broke off and looked left and right at the corridor, as if he wanted to be sure nobody could hear him.

“Know what? Has that something to do with today’s security council—”

“No, no,“ Sean cut in. “Nothing has transpired yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the negotiations had foundered once more. No, it’s nothing such.” He lowered his voice until it was no more than a whisper. “The Canadian and Mexican delegates have been warned by their respective governments that a hurricane has formed in the West Atlantic and is heading straight to New York. In less than three days, the city could be hit by tidal waves and totally flooded, even destroyed. The US government has not announced anything yet. Maybe they fear a giant panic. But it may be time for you to leave while the situation is still under control and everything operates normally.”

Sven stepped backwards. “Is that confirmed?”

“Seems accurate. I’ve relayed the information to our Met office and they are doing their own calculations. But Canadians are not dunces. If they say so, you’d better heed them.”

“Well, I’ll be discussing this with the Swedish ambassador right away. Thanks for dropping in on me.”

“You’re welcome. Take care.” And with these words, he was gone.

Sven strode to his office, picked up the phone and dialled the number of the Swedish embassy in Washington DC.



“Verdammte Scheiße! Das ist unglaublich. Warum sind wir nur jetzt darüber informiert?” the Austrian delegate exclaimed as Sven jostled past him. Like all the other mornings, the same small clumps of people clotted the corridors. But the overall feeling wasn’t the same. Instead of the general laid-back, hushed atmosphere, everyone seemed to be agitated, flustered, speaking loud. And it was not about the ongoing conference: Elsa was the name on everyone’s lips. Arriving at his office, Sven had found a note from Lotta explaining she was going to hide out in Minneapolis, where one of her cousins lived, with the benediction of the Swedish ambassador. He would have to manage alone.

The newspapers focus had switched from the conference to the impending menace. The New York Times had splattered on its first page a big black-and-white picture of the hurricane—now classified 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with estimated wind speed well over hundred miles per hour. Interviewed experts from the NOAA told how baffled they were by the speed and the steadiness of the trajectory: the phenomenon cut a clear, direct path through the Atlantic, as if guided by some unseen giant hand. And New York city was definitely in the centre of its cross hairs.

When Sven entered in the conference hall, he realised immediately that the chaos was worse than usual. This hall was always noisy, but this was no noise: it was a loud fracas. Everywhere, delegates were all in heated discussion with their neighbours. Newspapers scattered the long desks, and all headed on the hurricane. Even in this modern Areopagus, the concern had shifted from politics to meteorology. Sven also noted some empty chairs, and thought that maybe some delegates among the most yellow had already taken to their heels and flown to safety.

He walked his routine way to his chair, put his briefcase on the desk and looked at his watch. The plenary session should resume in five minutes, with a rundown of the previous day given by the Secretary general himself. He was about to wonder how to kill those five minutes, when Dino walked to him.

“You still here?” the Italian asked in English—much to the surprise of Sven.

“Yeah,” Sven nodded. If Dino had spoken in English, maybe he had a reason. Whatever that reason was, he was surely not expecting an answer in Italian. ”Lotta has taken a plane to Minnesota, but I’m staying until further notice or a general order of evacuation.”

“Fluctuat nec mergitur, eh? Those bloody French.” Dino gently placed his sturdy, tanned hand on Sven’s elbow, smiled, and walked away.

When the Secretary general climbed up the stairs, a relative hush fell. His speech was no real surprise. Even if nothing specific was said, it was easy enough to read the subtext: US and UK against USRR; France and China mugwumps, but trying to play off the three other major players in order advance their own pawns on the chessboard. Plain routine. However, something in the overtones was overtly optimistic, as if… no, maybe he was imagining things.

Sven left the conference after the end of the speech, swung by his office to get rid of his briefcase, then went down to the canteen. When he had eaten his lunch and swigged his expresso, he went back to his office and prepared himself for a new boring, eventless afternoon. The security council was about to reconvene, and nothing much would happen until the evening.

Almost reflexively, he walked to the TV set and switched it on. The face of the CBS news anchorman appeared on the screen. Behind him, the now familiar picture of Elsa. The guy was pattering about the wheres and whys of hurricanes. Sven yawned and, after five minutes of this pap, switched the appliance off and walked to the window. He looked down on the city, trying to pinpoint signs of abnormal behaviour in the usual bustle. But saw none. From the fifteenth floor where his office was located, the people in the street were no greater than ants, and those insects hurtled down the streets just like every other day. Likewise, the endless ballet of the yellow cabs—model cars—was still in full swing. Nothing in the traffic was pointing to an exodus. Sven reckoned that Americans were either foolish or so mean they would work until the last moment. Thoughtful, he returned to his chair, twiddled his thumbs, then picked up the phone and called home.



The falling night found Sven dozing off in his chair. After his call, he had had that crazy idea to try and dust one of his cupboards, and had discovered therein an old bottle of akvavit that, in his boredom, he had decided to taste. That hadn’t been wise: Sven was a sort of teetotaller and his body was not used to dealing with booze. A single nip of the liquor had sufficed to send him into the realm of Morpheus.

The stomping of hurrying feet in the corridor woke him up. He started, jerked his eyes open, grimaced and buried his head in his hands. Sighing, he raised his head and reached for one drawer, from which he drew a tube of paracetamol. Popping the cap off, he tipped the tube over his mouth and swallowed two tablets. Then he curled up once again in his chair, waiting for the medication to take effect.

Quarter of an hour later, he was feeling better. The throbbing headache was still there, but much less intense. When he deemed himself strong enough to, he rose and paced around his office. Satisfied, he glanced at his watch, snatched the keys of his office and walk off to the canteen for dinner.

When he came back an hour later, he was still inexplicably feeling fatigued. He had had dinner alone at his table: the dining room was all but void. The security council meeting was not over, and he wondered if most of his other colleagues had not deserted the place in anticipation of the looming catastrophe. He shuffled to the window and, this time, looked up at the sky: it was clear and cloudless. Hard to imagine that in fifty hours the city would be hit by diluvial rain and titanic gale. But so it was, and the NOAA was doggedly confirming its previous reports.

He turned around, walked across the room to the TV set, switched it on to the familiar jingle of “Mission: impossible”. Perfect: he did not feel like watching a highbrow program. He grunted, plonked himself on to the couch, and let his mind rest as his eyes registered the images automatically.



A soft rapping at the door snatched him from his light slumber. He stood up, padded to the door and opened it. It was Sean, the Irish delegate.

“Hey! What’s up?” Sven asked, pleased to see his friend at such a late hour.

“Just touched base with the US delegate during a break. Something unexpected has happened. The USSR could be willing—take it with great care—to make concessions. Nothing is done yet, but the idea is here. Just need a bit of goodwill to push through.”

“Good!” said Sven, smiling. “Any idea when the meeting should end?”

“Probably not before midnight at the earliest. Another speech of the Secretary general to the full assembly is scheduled for tomorrow morning. You’ll be there? You won’t make off like so many others?”

“It’s not in the cards right now. I think I’m bound to stay until the ship sinks. What is more important? My own safety or that of millions of people across the globe?”

“Still idealistic, eh?” replied the Irishman. He patted Sven on the back. “Good luck, young dreamer. See you tomorrow!”

“Slàn!” Sven replied in Irish. Sean winked at him, then disappeared in the corridor.

Sven closed the door and considered his office. He felt too tired to go home. Fortunately, he had ordered a small makeshift cot to be installed in a recess. That would do for tonight. He switched the TV off, took off his shoes, socks and trousers, set the alarm for 6 AM, turned off the lights and plopped himself on the bed. Strange thoughts crossed his mind for a while, but then he fell squarely asleep.



The harsh ring of the alarm jabbed him awake. He crashed his hand on the snooze button, and stretched his body. The bed was not exactly snug, and his muscles felt sour all over. But what caught his attention right away was the faint sound of honks and klaxons. He threw the blanket off, sat on his bed, yawned, then stood up and walked to the window.

Under an overcast sky, the Franklin D. Roosevelt drive down below was brimming with cars. Clotted. From his vantage point, he could see the vehicles locked up, motionless, some with loads of luggage hastily strapped on their roofs, some with the hoods so full they were barfing cases on the pavement. Here and there, doors were opened and small antsy figures ran from car to car, or all along the way. At least they were lucky to be outside; he briefly imagined the hell inside the tunnel under the East river.

He turned away from the window and switch the TV set on. “Evacuation… Mayor declines responsibilities if… Go away immediately… Evacuation… Huge gridlocks… Chockablock trains… Flights all booked…” Images spoke of chaos, disruption, accidents, brawls, unending files, panic. In the middle of this bedlam, a poor inhabitant of the Bronx told the reporter he was staying because he just had no other place to go, and so he was bracing up, preparing himself to suffer the brunt of the storm. Then the focus switched on the weather report. A chart showed that the hurricane, now category 4, was zeroing in at an accelerated speed. This was an inexplicable phenomenon, but if it was to continue on its present course, it would land within twenty-four hours. Given its intensity, the city would be plagued with general flooding, and extensive damage due to the wind was to be expected, too. The mayor, governor of the state and the federal government had advised everyone to flee as far as possible.

Sven switched the TV off, then proceeded to the bathroom.



The Secretary general took the floor amid a huge brouhaha. The chairman had to rasp his gavel several times before the din subsided a little. His speech was fraught with tension, but it was not tension caused by what he had to report: visibly, he was feeling uncomfortable with the upcoming catastrophe. Proof was, he had never spoken so quickly, as if he was urged to finish as soon as it could. Besides, the news were good. The USSR and the US had finally acknowledged they possessed a ridiculous amount of nuclear warheads, more than enough to wipe out any civilisation three times. The talks were in good way to a global agreement. This was, the Secretary general added, totally unexpected and unforeseeable twenty-four hours before.

The speech lasted half-an-hour. At the end of it, the Secretary general scooted off the hall to join the security council meeting that was about to start again.

Like all the other attendees—less than half of the delegates—Sven left the room after the discourse. He caught a glimpse of Sean in the main corridor, but he was busy talking to another delegate so he decided to leave it alone, and walked back to his office. Reflexively, he went to the window and looked down through it. The same spectacle of massive gridlock was laid out before his eyes. He even thought he recognised a fluorescent yellow van he had already seen four hours ago, when he had woken up. The vehicle had not moved ahead more then a couple of yards in the meanwhile. Straining his eyes, he noticed that many cars had their doors ajar. Their occupants had probably abandoned them to seek another means of escape. Had they succeeded? Nothing was less certain.

The phone rung, and Sven hurried back to his deck to pick it up. It was the Swedish ambassador. He was offering to pick him with a specially chartered helicopter to the embassy in Washington. Sven turned him down. He wanted to witness the end of the negotiations. If this were the last rock to emerge from the furious ocean, he wanted to be right on it. He was a hard-boiled daredevil.

He hung up and flicked through the morning papers. Elsa was everywhere. It was almost as if the world elsewhere has ceased to exist. The attention of the country was focussed on this one city, this city that was getting ready to face the most violent hardship of all its young history.

He stood up and left his office. Most of the other delegates had already run off. Dino had taken a flight to Rome the night before. Amongst those he knew personally, only Sean had stayed. Maybe he was at his office? Sven dawdled along the empty corridors until he reached the door of the Irish delegate. He knocked a few times, but got no answer. He tried to turn the handle, but the door was closed: wherever Sean was, it was not in his office.

Somewhat disappointed, he turned back and wondered for a while what he should do next. He finally decided to visit the immense library, where he could find books from all over the world about almost any subject imaginable. And plumped for a volume on hurricanes. Inside he found all that a layman could reasonably want to know about those meteorological monsters: their genesis, their structure, their trajectories, their effects, their evolution, their taxonomy, etc. The hundred-and-fifty pages book was copiously illustrated with satellite and terrestrial pictures. He read about one quarter of it, skimmed over other parts, then put it back on the shelves. He had a hard time to concentrate. He was thinking about all those people outside trying to take shelter. The kids, the babies, the old ones. The vagrants also. How many would die? How many future orphans?

The clock struck twelve. Sven headed for the canteen. It was empty. Visibly the cooks had not come: the fridges contained the same food as the day before. He picked up a plate with a couple of ham slices and gherkins and endeavoured to eat them. That was about all he could do to fritter his time away. He looked around for bread but found none. Disgruntled, he sat on one of the empty tables and chomped on his meagre meal. The decor was surrealist: ordinarily, this room was busy almost all around the clock. Today, it looked forlorn. All those empty brown tables. Almost perfect silence. A spooky spectacle, he reflected, as if the end of world was in the offing.

When he had finished his plate, he simply left it on the table. Nobody was here to wash it anyway. He stood up, reflexively headed toward the counter were coffee was served, stopped, snickered, swerved and edged around the tables to the exit. He stopped at the frame of the exit. Turning around, he looked for a last time at the empty room. Maybe he should take a photograph. His empty plate standing on a sea of deserted tables, that would make a great picture. Nah. He shook his head. He was a diplomat, not a snapper.

Back in his office, he once more glanced through the window. Same landscape of frozen traffic and void sidewalks. The city had expelled all its living matter. Whatever remained was the dregs, the lowlives, the poor, the underdogs, all the lepers that stuck to the city as a leech stuck to his prey. But they would soon be washed away by the waves and the wind.

He switched the TV on once more. Elsa. Category 4 confirmed. Winds in excess of hundred-and-fifty miles per hour. Litres of water pouring down from the skies. Heavy lightning. Waves more than five meters high. All this fury about to be unleash around midnight. He was living the last hours of an ostensible peace. He felt like he was gliding blithely in the eye of the hurricane, unconcerned by the bleak barrier of dark clouds all around. He quickly grew fed up and turned the TV off. What was left to say? In a few hours, they would know.

He rummaged into one his cupboards and picked up his personal copy of Nils Holgersson’s wonderful voyage across Sweden, the best-seller that Selma Lagerlöf had written to teach all the Swedish kids how beautiful their country was. He opened it on page one and began to read.

He lost track of time.



Violent knocks on his door shook him. He had nodded off once more. How long has he slept? It was dark outside the window. He glanced at his watch. 6:30 PM.

Other knocks.

“Coming!“ he yelled. He stood up and paced to the door.

“They’ve signed it! They’ve signed it!” bawled Sean when Sven opened. “They’ll stop spreading death. They’ll stop manufacturing those deadly poppies. They’ve signed it! It’s over! The Cold war. The great threat. Puff! You’ll see.”

“When?”

“Just ten minutes ago. They signed the treaty, all the five, and then they flew off. They had an helicopter waiting for them on the roof.”

“What about you?” Sven asked.

“Oh, I am staying. Now I don’t care. I can die, peace is saved. Is there anything more important?”

“Want to stay with me?” Sven proposed.

“Why not?” the Irish man answered.

“Come in, I think I still have some akvavit left.”

Sean trod in, and Sven closed the door behind him.



Midnight passed.

One AM.

Two AM.

The stars shone in an untroubled sky.

Three AM.

…

Six AM.

Sven woke up. He had prepared himself for the worst night of his life. Maybe even for the last night of his life. But nothing had happened. Through his window, he could see only clear, blue skies, where dark clouds should have spilled tons of water down, and winds should have buffeted the building. Instead, it was a bright sunny day, like autumn could sometimes draw out of its stash.

For the last time, Sven turned the TV on.

A NOAA expert was speaking. He was visibly bewildered. The storm, he explained, had reversed course three hours before landing. Inexplicably. It was now heading back East, and was dwindling hour after hour. Soon, it would become no more than a mundane low pressure centre, undistinguishable from so many others that traveled the Atlantic from West to East all the year through. Nobody had ever witnessed this, and no computer had predicted such a sudden change.

Sven smiled and, letting the TV drone on, slowly walked to the window.