March 13th 1998, The Earth Is A Beach That I Visit
The earth is a beach that I visit, one foot in the sand the other on the back of a monarch
butterfly, all those butterflies that flew out onto the ocean reef to drown, after their tropical
forests were cut down, they had nowhere to land but the waves, their purpose ended in harsh
salt and waterlogged wings, many tropical fish came to the area to feed, butterflies do not
taste the best, but anything will be consumed when the situation is desperate, consumption
perpetuates itself, the cassowary swallowed fruit whole from the pickings of the tropical
forest floor, and has been known to swallow twelve bananas, one after the other on a bad day
in the zoo, every day was the same so the bananas were reduced by keepers before she did
herself damage, my only solace was to sink down through the warm salty waters to the sea
grass meadows in search of a mother, several dugongs were grazing adrift in gentle weed, the
aquatic cows with enough motherhood in them, to sustain a calf and a world short of mothers,
I tried to find peace there although they were not my species, a sea turtle swam towards the
surface where the Coral Sea broke the water with light, her small wrinkled neck and deep
brown eye made towards the sun, flippers became wings during her flight through transparent
aqua, her transformation had begun, now I knew where the angels were, yet ultimately this is
disrupted by things trying to eat other things, there are fleeting moments followed by their
demise, a boat of aboriginal hunters waited at the surface, the dark shadow of the painted
wood beginning to drift with the tide, this utopia was their old hunting grounds, I could not
bring myself to see how the two were connected, as the turtle's shell was ripped from her
alive, and she screamed the way a turtle does in silent shrieks and bubbles, her eye clouded
over with blood, not everything is sacred and heaven isn't always on earth, the earth is a
beach that I visit, the mother dugong has been speared through the back of the neck and
dragged back to the beach and gutted, there is blood on the sand and entrails floating down
through the water, her newborn baby sinks to the bottom of the world and dies in the
shadows, I say, "yeah, it was a really nice time, but I would have preferred not to be there,"
the earth says, "thanks for living." I say, "thanks for sharing it with me, but it was often
abusive, like the time I was dragged down by the jugular by a grey wolf from a stalking pack,
another time a bigger fish ate me because I was the smaller fish, then my body was
smothered by blood sucking insects who tried to carry me away in pieces, then I was a
starving polar bear as an early spring parted the locked ice, and the seals swam to breathe the
safety of an open ocean, when I wasn't actually dying I was watching others dying, I had a sore
spine, my teeth began to rot and I tore a muscle around my heart, pretty soon I would be as
organic as my old dog, when I found him in the backyard with ants in his eyes, apparently they
wanted the meat fresh and couldn't wait, like those people who tear live lobsters limb from
limb on their plates in restaurants, as their legs are cramping and twirling in the air or as they
are trying to walk away with their agony, I've heard it's aphrodisiac, even I eat sprouts and kill
an ant or two by washing the dishes, I'm not perfect but at least I'm trying, to save the world
as my body slows down, it appears that animals including humans and trees love to be saved
and live happy lives so I keep doing it, even as I was being attacked from the outside by
things that thought I was food, or by internalised trauma or things that didn't care, it was like
trying to outrun the heat of Townsville in a muddy stupor, the same with my destruction, I
have a virus inside my body and constant battles being fought on behalf of my existence, I
can't escape my internal weather so I must endure, then again it's pretty hard to escape the
sun, the air, genetic engineering, chemical warfare and food irradiation, but life's all death
and death's all life, but none of that really happened to me since I'm a computer. |
