All of this is very difficult to believe.
I’m reminded of descriptions of the survivors of Hiroshima wandering around aimlessly because the devastation was so complete.
Our suffering doesn’t compare, of course. Few have lost their lives, although many have lost their homes and each day the tally grows.
The mind rebels, insisting “this will all be over soon, right?” “I mean, a whole city of millions of people can’t be held hostage by dumb fire, right?”
And brown smoke hangs in the air, stains the horizon, dusts cars with fine ash, turns the sun into a glimmering orange ball. The air is tan-colored, like dirty sheets. The perspective of the sky is lost, turns oppressive, flat.
Does everyone else have this same weird incongruous worry? About their jobs? About the projects they left behind and can’t be working on right now and will, of course my boss will understand that I couldn’t go to work—they want everyone to remain off of the freeways.
Of course they can’t be expecting me to go to work! Still, I worry.
Probably because I am one of the lucky ones not in the path of any of the fires. My primary concern is killing time and finding a place to camp out because the house I live in doesn’t have air conditioning.
My mind runs to weird plot scenarios. I just saw a very good Hollywood thriller and perhaps I am primed for drama. Fire moves towards a shelter where thousands have taken refuge. The Red Cross decides to hand out masks and remain indoors. Local fire crews make protecting the shelter a priority. The tension builds with thousands of lives in the balance.
I’m not writing this drama. Except for that last sentence it’s part of a recent news report.
But thousands of people don’t die in natural disasters in the United States. We just won’t allow it. It would make a better drama if there was some real risk of grave danger for the thousands of displaced persons scattered across the county map.
But we aren’t writing this drama. No one is. And that is terrifying because then anything can happen.
I’m reminded of descriptions of the survivors of Hiroshima wandering around aimlessly because the devastation was so complete.
Our suffering doesn’t compare, of course. Few have lost their lives, although many have lost their homes and each day the tally grows.
The mind rebels, insisting “this will all be over soon, right?” “I mean, a whole city of millions of people can’t be held hostage by dumb fire, right?”
And brown smoke hangs in the air, stains the horizon, dusts cars with fine ash, turns the sun into a glimmering orange ball. The air is tan-colored, like dirty sheets. The perspective of the sky is lost, turns oppressive, flat.
Does everyone else have this same weird incongruous worry? About their jobs? About the projects they left behind and can’t be working on right now and will, of course my boss will understand that I couldn’t go to work—they want everyone to remain off of the freeways.
Of course they can’t be expecting me to go to work! Still, I worry.
Probably because I am one of the lucky ones not in the path of any of the fires. My primary concern is killing time and finding a place to camp out because the house I live in doesn’t have air conditioning.
My mind runs to weird plot scenarios. I just saw a very good Hollywood thriller and perhaps I am primed for drama. Fire moves towards a shelter where thousands have taken refuge. The Red Cross decides to hand out masks and remain indoors. Local fire crews make protecting the shelter a priority. The tension builds with thousands of lives in the balance.
I’m not writing this drama. Except for that last sentence it’s part of a recent news report.
But thousands of people don’t die in natural disasters in the United States. We just won’t allow it. It would make a better drama if there was some real risk of grave danger for the thousands of displaced persons scattered across the county map.
But we aren’t writing this drama. No one is. And that is terrifying because then anything can happen.
posted by PhilosophicalWaiter | 4:01 PM
1 Comments:
I really like San Diego. Except for the part where it burns down every year. This has stopped business for two days already. The emotional and economic impact is sickening. We can be thankful that at least so far we've had very little loss of life.
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