I’ve never crash-landed but here’s how it must feel: the cabin’s processed air tingly with apprehension; the soundtrack a weird mingle of screaming, sobbing, silence; one passenger fingers a rosary, a mother hugs her infant; brains whir but without direction; memories of loved ones; gratitude that our dead have died before today; even scoffers straining to pray.

You bet I’m scared. Everybody I know is, who has half a brain. My periodic professors -- Paul Krugman, Heather Cox Richardson, Thomas Friedman, all – are clutching their armrests white-knuckled. Who else is going down, we’re wondering. What will the world look like if, miraculously, from the wreckage, we “emerge unscathed”?

Guilt and regret attack like unleashed pit-bulls. What I should have done, while there was time; words I should have said! We didn’t know how good we had it. We were cocky, indolent, neglectful. We are sorry now.

Panic is succeeded by anger if the clock still ticks. We knew better than to board this plane! And this pilot – is he kami kaze or what? Who hired him? Those responsible will get a piece of our mind! – if we live.

Do I exaggerate our danger? Fear tends to. We often die before we die. Other creatures take life and death as they come, why waste zest fretting? Humans rehearse our extinction – and blanch at the prospect.

Helplessness hollows us. Many more powerful than we feel as helpless buckled in. We’re in fate’s hands now. We squeeze our eyes to forestall discreditable tears.

And to think – this is one man’s doing! Everything was fine till we put him in charge. Even crazier, this guy’s no pig in a poke, he promised this mess – for more than a decade, he’s been promising, and showing by his deeds his words were meant. And still we invited him to lead. We deserve this denouement! After dismay at our predicament comes disgust with ourselves.

And if we survive, what?

Hard to envision a world so changed. So much of who we are is what we’re used to – our assumptions, routines. Nothing will be quite the same. Various people will be gone – with any luck that kami kaze and his lunkheads; others who’ve fallen – or jumped from windows – casualties of our depression. Almost all will be chastened, cautious, poorer. Those who still have money will be reticent to spend – consumerism is a form of exuberance and few will feel like flaunting.

Rebuilding will be the common theme – “Reconstruction”, as after our first Civil War. Rebuilding not just destroyed homes and bridges and companies, but also our Constitution, which got shattered – and relationships home and abroad – and our sense of self. We the people will have a lot of explaining to do – and apologizing – like Germany after World War Two. How could we have allowed this to happen! This is not “who we are”! – only it too undeniably is.

Religion will be staging a surprising comeback. When humans screw up, we crawl to God – and we’ll have screwed up big-time.

I’m depicting this dystopia not to get you down but lift you up – you and me both. Foreseeing horror fortifies us to endure it. It may not be this bad? Then Hallelujah! I account a victory each dawn I don’t wake up dead.

Might my vision be off? Of course. The Apocalypse can’t be depicted because nobody lives to tell the tale. Hieronymous Bosch’s hell isn’t what we’ll experience, yet we learn from it – how hideous humans are but also how inventive, various, resilient. If any of us survive this plane-crash, life will resume. Hell is full of life.