An Efficient Shade of Red

I have long maintained that if you give the elements enough time and mischief, they will organize themselves into a spectacle that no committee of men could hope to equal, and though many have tried and billed the public handsomely for the attempt. Such a spectacle befell New York City when the Sahara Desert, being, I suppose, tired of minding its own business, resolved to visit the Empire State without so much as sending ahead a calling card.

It came not modestly, as a polite desert ought, in the form of a picturesque sunset to be admired and forgotten, but with the full intention of making itself known to every man, woman, and reluctant taxpayer between Buffalo and Montauk. It packed up its finest red dust, iron-rich, industrious, and of a color that does not apologize, and set sail upon a wind of such determination that it would have impressed even a Carson River steamboat captain in his prime.

Now, the wind was no ordinary drifter. It had purpose, ambition, and if I may say so without casting aspersions on any particular institution, the organized enthusiasm of a thing directed by invisible hands that preferred not to sign their names. It gathered dust from Africa, courted it across the Atlantic, and delivered it into New York with the efficiency of a well-run office that does not entertain dissenting breezes.

The result was a sky that turned so red, so thorough and committed that it left no room for alternative interpretations. It was not the shy blush of evening, nor the sentimental tint of a lovesick horizon, but a bold, declarative crimson that suggested the firm conviction that blue skies were an outdated indulgence.

The citizens of New York, being practical people when properly startled, responded in the usual fashion. They blamed the weather bureau first, which is to say they blamed it thoroughly and with feeling.

Farmers upstate squinted into the distance and declared that while they did not hold with such theatrics, it was at least dry, which counted for something. In the city, where a man can witness the end of the world and still be late for lunch, the rooftops teemed with observers armed with little picture-taking machines, each determined to prove that he alone had noticed the sky had changed color.

Along Fifth Avenue, entrepreneurs of a visionary stripe began selling “Authentic Desert Viewing Spectacles,” which were guaranteed to improve one’s experience of the event without in any way altering it. They sold briskly, for there is no calamity so complete that it cannot find improvement by merchandise.

The scientists assembled next, as is their custom, and spoke to one another in a language designed to discourage interruption. They explained, with admirable seriousness, that the phenomenon was the result of atmospheric particulates carried across great distances by cooperative pressure systems, which was precisely what everyone suspected once properly explained.

The rest of the population, unwilling to be outdone by facts, produced explanations of their own. Some held it was a sign of change; for others, it was a warning, while a few insisted it was an improvement. There were even those who, having grown accustomed to the arrangement by the second day, began to speak fondly of it, as one does of any condition that proves persistent enough to seem inevitable.

Meanwhile, the dust settled quietly upon everything it could find, windowsills, laundry lines, unsuspecting backs of livestock, leaving behind a uniform tint of the new order. It simply arrived, covered the landscape evenly, and waited for objections, of which there were many but none that seemed to inconvenience it in the least.

In time, of course, the wind moved on, as all such enthusiastic movements eventually do, and the sky returned to its former habits, though not without leaving behind a faint memory of how easily the persuasion came to try something different. The citizens resumed their ordinary concerns, though some did so with a thoughtful air, as if they had glimpsed how quickly a familiar thing might find replacement when the conditions are just so.

Others declared the whole affair overblown and returned to reading their preferred accounts of it, each of which agreed perfectly with its reader. As for the Sahara, it returned to its usual occupation of being vast and patient, having demonstrated that even the most distant and unlikely influences may, under favorable conditions, find their way into the daily lives of people who had not thought to inquire too closely into the matter.

And if, on some future morning, the sky should again take on a color that seems unusually committed to its purpose, I expect the good people of New York will greet it with the same admirable composure, first by denying it, then by explaining it, and finally by selling tickets to view it, proving once again that while nature may provide the spectacle, it is human ingenuity that supplies the interpretation.