FACES, FACES, FACES

They're all out there...looking back at you...in every restaurant, truck stop, movie house and commuter train...the faces of the future... sometimes I'm afraid to really look into them.

Why? Because when I do, I see in them dangers beyond what I can bear, joys more than I would know how to handle. For you see, in those faces -- the eyes especially -- reside all our tomorrows. The good and the bad, the noble and the ignoble, the prospects for our species to leap boldly ahead or fall tragically behind.

In the ravished old face of the tired workman I see an end-of-the-day exhaustion which can mean either a stoic acceptance of the way of the world, or perhaps someday an explosion of in-the-streets rage. In the bearded young face of the student I see a crackling circuitry of dreams which can mean either another brilliant scholar, or perhaps the next mass murderer. In the lean clean face of the downtown executive I see a life swelled with accomplishments which can mean either thousands of clients well served, or maybe cleverly cheated out of their life savings.

Each person is more than a person. They are tomorrow's news stories. Heroes or vandals, rational or mad, willing to work with the system, or to plunder it. Scooping up my little life right along with it.

Each day hundreds, thousands of private faces behind which hide the world's great good fortune, or possibly its next worst nightmare. Who are these faces? They are us, really. And we are each ticking like some cosmic clock which, on some bright morning down the way, may ring loudly into a page of the history books.

One can only hope with all their hope that those pages will read of fine and worthy events. Up to now, the pages have been less than we'd like, yet always open to inserting some fresh new headline...