Nick Ut photo courtesy of wikipedia.org
Consider this scene. The hour is midnight yet the sky is alight with drones exploding overhead. A 14-year-old girl and her mother take refuge against a wall in their living room in the hope of protection. Then a bomb slams into the apartment and leaves them lying on an exposed ledge. Terrified, the girl screams into the night. “Shs—sh. Don’t be afraid.” The mother whispers into her daughter’s ear as she covers the child with her body.
But the child is afraid. Her mother’s blood, warm and thick, is pooling across her back. With no room to turn, the girl holds her breath. She dare not ask the question. “Moma, are you alive?” (A Bloody Night,” by Lujayn, The Nation, Sept. 2024, pg. 22)
Under normal conditions, the body knows how to die. It begins by shutting down thirst and hunger. Calcium levels rise and sleep arrives as a prelude to death. Nature may be predatory, but at the end, She shows a kind face.
Though we are Her children, we humans lack Her compassion. Violence seems more natural to us. Even those with knees rough from praying at alters revel in the sword. At the Texas Republican convention this year, the righteous swore an oath. People that aren’t in Christ have wicked, evil hearts. We are in a battle and you have to take sides.
“Why must we take sides?” I wonder. Yet, I know we are a species filled with mistrust and hostility toward one another and at a level higher than any mammalian cousin. Amidst strangers we are wary. Faced with new ideas, we are wary. Confronted by truths we do not like, we are wary. Suspicion is our default setting even among friends.
China and Russia are allies. Even so, they spend fortunes hacking into the other’s security systems. The West might laugh except we do the same with our partners.
Absurdities like this abound. The United States backs Israel’s war in the Middle East, supplying it with arms and money. At the same time, we pour relief aid into the countries Israel attempts to destroy. Lord, what fools these mortals be. (“A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Shakespeare, Act 3, Scene 2.)
Has Nature designed us to be cruel and brutish? If so, why do our brains also fill us with wonder? We may water the earth with human blood, yet, now and then, we stand in awe at the stars overhead and wonder about the secrets of dark matter.
Conscience requires us to make amends to a planet we have desecrated. But our remorse comes too late. Our better angels are ill-equipped to repair the damages of war and plundering. I know recycling my junk mail won’t impede the next hurricane. I do it to feel better about myself. What a piece of work is man. (“Hamlet,” Act 2, Scene 2)
Recently, I remarked to a fellow writer that she and I should been born before Shakespeare’s time. After the Bard, what is left to say about the human condition? Those of us who follow in his steps are no more than apprentices, dabbing a spot of color on the master’s canvas.
Thoughts about the human condition force me to return to the child pressed by her mother’s wounded body against a concrete wall. I imagine the fear thrumming through her in the darkness. The scene is real, more tragic than any Shakespeare could have devised and the words more palpable. “Mama, are you alive?”
