Yesterday it was You Tube for lunch. First I watched a video of people walking for a day in the desert to get water. I watched people crying because they have no homes, they have no food, and their parents are dead. I watched them being persecuted by their own leaders. Then I watched a video of a Japanese robot that pours beer and talks.
It was a very eye-opening experience.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Why does your blog keep deleting my comments? o_O
Maybe it thinks you need more reflection... after all, beer-pouring robots are CERTAINLY not the mark of a horrible world! I think.
Yea, this post is a filler, so I was kinda just gonna let it slide without room for discussion. I never know if anyone ever takes me seriously when I try to write about serious issues or if they'll hate me for being all preachy. Sorry about the lame-ness and I'll get back to you with more awesomeness for the future... Oh my Osaka... did anything I just said actually make sense?
I did actually delete one of your older comments, but only because you used my real name, which quite defeats the purpose of an anonymous blog. I would have just edited that part out, but it appears I could not do that, and thus had to delete the entire thing. I'm sorry.
Love and kittens x
P.S. I should have actually made it clearer - thanks for being such a supportive reader and a good friend, it's great to know people enjoy my drivel.
As long as you don't divulge where we hid the plutonium, my blog (sentient being that it is) shouldn't have any more problems with comments.
S'fine, I was just wondering what was going on! You din'nae tell me that I wasn't supposed to mention you're real name, I apologise. And of course I enjoy reading your blog, 'tis made of interesting and awesome. And yeast, of course, how else would it rise?
*SHUDDER*
Please, please, pleeeeeeease? :P
http://wsu.edu/~brians/errors/your.html
Thirst
As a child, I never thought much about water. Abundance masked the crisp smoothness of water cascading down my throat. I could turn it on, and turn it off, hot or cold. There was no wonder in those old enameled pipes, just as much water as I would ever need. I noticed the chipped paint and the birth of the inevitable rust, but never the magic that those old pipes contained.
Zambia never featured much in Pretoria’s plans. Occasionally, someone absently decided that the southern reaches should be checked for enemy activity, but mostly it was left to it’s own devices.
It was one such absent-minded whim, which had created the set of circumstances in which I now found myself. Sitting on my kit in the glaring sun, my hand a metronome, absent of volition, regularly unsettling the re-settled flies. I was listening to the orders. We were to sweep an area of Zambia approximately 20 Km square, 120 Km north of the Caprivi Strip. It sounded easy enough. Two days in, three days to wander rather aimlessly through the bush, and two days out. Military Intelligence indicated very little chance of contact with the enemy
One week, how bad could that be?
Normally, we operated in sections of ten men. This time, our whole platoon was to go, even “Pipe” and “Plug”. Pipe and Plug were chemically bonded friends that normally managed to spend all their time in the base, avoiding patrols with a creativity bordering on magic. Perhaps it was the cannabis, or perhaps they had a direct line to the ancient Greek muse of malingering, but they were almost never reeled in. If I had ever heard their real names, I don’t remember them. I do, however, distinctly remember both their penchant for altered states of consciousness and the many desperate faces their panic wore that day.
From the slow blur of the words of the briefing, I selected three. “Time to go”. I picked up my kit, and heaved it onto my sweating back. The canvas straps bit mercilessly into my shoulders while the pendulous collections of extra water bottles repeatedly assaulted my back. In single file, we left the base. Straining against the discomfort, I waited for the numbness, which I knew would soon come.
For two days, we sweated silently toward the target area. On the morning of the third day, I knew we were in trouble. I had already consumed half my water, and the fractions were ugly. I knew I would have to reduce my consumption, but knew too that all were battling the same ratios. The relentless sun sipped moisture through invisible straws, and on the evening of the last of the three days of the sweep, I swallowed the last lukewarm trickle of my water.
As I woke, I automatically picked up my water bottle and tipped it toward my rasping mouth. Nothing. Not even a drop. I looked at the barrel of the machine-gun, and it was wet with dew. I licked it, tasting the oil.
The entire morning, we grimly trudged forward in absolute silence. I felt a warm trickle down my chin, an involuntary hand eagerly moved to bring the moisture to my mouth. It was blood from a cracked bottom lip.
Later, I started hallucinating. I heard a ridiculous humming. The disembodied humming grew, and as it reached a crescendo it changed to staccato laughter. I dimly realized that Pipe and Plug were the source of the noise. They had stolen the morphine from the medical bag the evening before, and now, just their irrational bodies were struggling forward along with the rest of us. We had to stop. We had to shut them up.
We moved into defensive positions, shrugged off our kit, and sat down. I noticed the Lieutenant zigzag unsteadily toward them, and shrugged. They were not my problem. Sid and I looked at each other. He was trying to tell me something, but I was unable to make sense of the sounds emitted by his white and thickly swollen tongue, and his bleeding lips. He had unpacked his metal kidney shaped cup, and started to piss into it. From his rations he took two packets of instant soup, mumbled something, and emptied them into the dark orange urine. Perhaps he should only have used one packet, because all he managed to manufacture was a thick, pasty glue. He mumbled again, and threw the tin cup into the bushes next to him.
Then, the medic staggered over. “Everyone gets 45 seconds”, he said. Without ceremony he pushed the needle of the drip into Sid’s left arm. Sid watched without emotion of any kind. No vein. Another attempt, still no vein. The right arm, success. The medic managed to find my vein with only two attempts, and the 45 seconds of life flowed in.
We had to walk again. Disconnected from reality, it never seemed strange that Pipe and Plug were gagged.
Then, the hallucinations started again, this time, large, grey hallucinations in the dusk. They looked just like elephants. Shouldn’t they be pink?
We had found a muddy watering hole. The elephants were washing in the mud. I think it was too dirty for them to drink. A primal feeling and an unfathomable connection allowed two species to share the same pool of mud without fear of each other. We all understood. Man and Elephant.
We drank the mud directly, filtering the larger pieces of scum with our teeth, not really noticing the stench of elephant urine or the small insects that couldn’t escape our thirst.
I now see the magic in those pipes.
Thanks, "anonymous"!
Your stories are magic.
Post a Comment