Somewhere underneath us now, a giant squid attacks a sperm whale and vice versa. Some argue that the whale is the instigator but blame is not the issue and, anyhow, the whale’s mother sees it differently.
Somewhere underneath us now, a dictator protects his people from a gift horse with a hundred hungry cameramen crouching inside its belly. The countrymen and cameramen will all starve, but what they require different types of sustenance.
Somewhere underneath us now, a rat is electrocuted by a subway train that heads south down 8th Avenue. The train is packed with people seeking Saturday night who aren’t thinking that somewhere underneath us now there is a squid and a whale and a dictator and his countrymen and some cameramen and a rat.
I’m having a hard time understanding what’s happening in China right now in the after effects of an earthquake that has killed 12,000 people so far. I’ve read the articles and heard some reports, but my brain isn’t recognizing the shock and compassion that I would expect to feel. I stared at a picture of a row of bodies of middle school children who had been pulled out of the rubble of their collapsed schools, and I did my best to practice my “good reader skills”: envisioning, empathizing, synthesizing. Nothing. Is it the physical distance or cultural differences between my world and the worlds of the earthquakes? Is it my inability to make a connection to what this might be like? Would a television report help me engage more of my senses and aid in my personal response? I’m actually embarrassed by my lack of response.
