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Fandom: Highlander The Series
Rating: PG
Pairing: Duncan & Methos
Author's Note: This story is for Olympia.
Written in response to a post about the looting of Iraqi museums on a list I'm on. An attempt to find some bit of hope in the midst of tragedy.
Copyright and Disclaimer: Highlander The Series and the characters of Duncan and Methos are copyright Rhysher-Panzer/Davis. I make no claims to ownership or creation. This bit of not for profit modern folklore (thank you Prof. Jenkins) is mine.
"So stupid!" Duncan shook his head in disgust as he shut the TV off and tossed the remote on the coffee table. Jumping up from the couch, he stalked back and forth across the barge's tiny living room.
"Do you mind?" Methos said, peering over the top of the Times.
"How - how can you be so calm about it?!" Duncan exploded as Methos went back to reading the financials section. "There were priceless, irreplaceable things in there and now they're gone. What hasn't been trashed will probably end up in some rich moron's collection where it will never be seen again!"
Cool hazel eyes regarded him evenly for a long moment. "The irony of this coming from an antiques dealer is not lost on me."
"That's bullshit and you know it — everything I ever dealt in had a legitimate provenance. I never touched anything shady. Besides, I didn't deal in national treasures."
Still calm, Methos folded the Times, set it on the table, and put his face
in his hands for several moments. A heavy silence, broken only by the ticking
of the clock and the gentle lap of the waves against the hull of the barge,
settled over the room. When Methos looked up again, all trace of Adam Pierson
had vanished from him from his eyes. In a wintry cold voice, Methos said, "Yes,
Duncan, I am angry. I am furious at the stupidly of the
human race. That after millennia, the average person of today, once in a mob,
still acts much as he did 5000 years ago.
"Yes, Duncan, this is a terrible thing. And I've seen it happen a hell of a lot more than you can imagine. The library at Alexandria alone —" Methos cut off, his lips white with rage. Taking a deep breath, he continued, "I wanted to crucify the fucking Christians after that one. But I can tell you this, if an army were on the verge of sweeping through London or Washington DC or Paris, or any one of a hundred cities were all order had completely broken down, the same sort of looting would very easily take place. The storerooms where the curators had packed everything away would be broken open and desperate people looking for something to help carry them through the hard days ahead would help themselves.
"And yes, it's terrible, and a loss, and stupid. Exceeded only by the stupidity of when governments willingly go out and trash their nation's treasures."
Duncan nodded in agreement. "Yeah, the Taliban ..."
Methos waived a dismissive hand, "Feh. They're just a most recent in a long line of fools.
"But do you know what gives me hope, Duncan?"
"No," Duncan said, sitting back down again.
"You can't kill an idea, MacLeod. Like, say for example the pillar with Hammurabi's code were smashed to bits. Awful, yes, but it was lost for centuries and the ideas behind it — that there should be one law of the land, and that it should be posted for all to see, written down so that it could not be changed by the whims of a tyrant — carried on.
"Or that gold harp that vanished, either to be melted down or sold on the black market. It's a crime to destroy something that beautiful, but the ideas that produced that beauty are still alive and well today.
"People die, paper crumbles, fabric rots, ming vases get dropped, hard drives crash at the wrong moment, stone is worn away by wind and water. Hell, even Burro Smith's tunnel will someday vanish —"
"Burro Smith's Tunnel?"
"Yeah, Burro Smith. Dug a tunnel through a mountain out in California. Ore played out, but he figured he'd dug so far into the mountain, he might as well keep on digging until he got to the other side. The USGS estimates it will be around for at least 500,000 years. It's hard to think of anything else built by man that will outlast that."
Duncan snorted. "Great. Mankind's longest lasting endeavor — a hole through a mountain that goes nowhere."
"Back to my point, though, it's our ideas that stand the only chance of lasting anywhere near as long that silly tunnel. Ideas are living. They grow and change and sometimes morph into completely new things. But they're still here. It's not much, MacLeod, but there's the hope I have."
Duncan quirked his lips in thought for a moment and said, "Yeah, I suppose you're right."
"Doesn't mean I wouldn't like to have all that stuff of mine that burnt up when the Allies firebombed Dresden back. Doesn't make it any less irreplaceable or what happened any less tragic."
"True, that."
A mischievous glint sparkled Methos's eyes. "Now, who do you know that does deal in shady antiquities? Or would I be better off asking some of Amanda's fences?"
"What?!"
"Hey, that harp belonged to a wife of mine, and if it's on the market,
I want it back."
Last Updated: 3/16/2004