A televised adaptation of Steven King’s screenplay “Storm of the Century” was rebroadcast on cable just as Sandy approached the East Coast. Television addicts could switch between real-time footage of journalists swaying in 50-mile-an-hour winds and a small Maine town preparing for a major snowstorm. No doubt the King miniseries was scheduled well in advance, but it certainly was a noteworthy juxtaposition of the actual and the imagined.
In the small, intimate town in Maine, people crowded grocery stores as they clucked at cloudless skies. “Ain’t no trouble brewing in those clouds,” they challenged, or something to that effect. But King had much more in mind than local responses to a potential snowstorm. As the first flakes fall, an enigmatic and evil man arrives. He kills an elderly lady, makes himself comfortable in her rustic home, drinks her unfinished tea and eats some home-baked cookies before continuing his rampage. “If you give me what I want, I’ll go away,” he repeats cryptically. It was King at his best, pitting good against evil like two diametrically opposed peas in the same pod. The ending? We won’t tell.
Sandy was real — no script or director or actors. Sixty-six East Coast residents have been killed as of press time, most by falling trees. There was no evil character.
The only villain was the convergence of two weather patterns of unprecedented proportions. It was just nature at her nightmarish worst. The ending? Way too early to tell. But we are confident that human determination can rebuild demolished homes, drowned boardwalks and broken hearts. Just tell us what you need. We promise not to go away.
Copyright © 2012 by the Intermountain Jewish News
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