Dan the Hero, Part Iv

...His eyes narrowed, and he got to his feet, said, “When did you fall to nihilist urge? When did you decide that good in itself was just to be laughed at? Cast as absurd? “You’re not the first of your kind to find me, to pester with questions of shortcomings, to ask why I bother, when ‘all is lost,’ to show such a shallow understanding. “So let’s be up front, yes, I was church-raised, in rural Iowa, where I did learn, if you can help a man, then you do so, you don’t just step back, watch your neighbors burn. “If you saw a child crossing the street, and by chance a car was coming their way, you’d grab that child, and pull them right back, you’d do that every time, and every day. “You wouldn’t ask why should I save this boy? you wouldn’t say ‘Why care? Others will die!’ you’d recognize it would matter to him, you’d know instantly why to save his life! “Now I can do more, by some freak of fate, then most men can do, but the truth remains, if I see that child faced with a car I’ll do what I can to save that kid pain. “You all call me ‘hero,’ for good or ill, but is that what I’m doing in this place? I saw it on the news, saw it burning, knew I could help, and that is why I came. “If you had my skills and saw this same mess would you hesitate, or would you race here? Miss Trace, I do not know how you were raised, but for me, the answer is rather clear. “You claim I’m trying to be a ‘hero,’ I am not, I just trying to be good, I have never called myself heroic, I don’t believe a person ever should. “Because that is the day you stop trying, that is the day you give into ego, and had I known that plane was going down, then you’d known damn well that I’d up and go! “But I can’t, I cannot know everything, and I certainly can’t be everywhere. But there’s people here who now will survive, I am asking you to please have a care. “Think about these people, think of their lives, of the joy they bring to their kith of kin. Think of the children some of them will have, of all the people they choose to begin? “Think of all the friends they’ll make and enrich, think of the songs and stories they’ll create, of the work that they will gift to the world, of all the beauty they’ll appreciate? “Think of the love they’ll share with their spouses, of all the meaning they’ll find on the earth… Calculate that, and then come back to me, with all your blathering on big pictures.’’ CONTINUES IN PART V.