July 2008 QUOTE OF THE MONTH: "In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." - John Muir, Submitted by Dana Dizon, Richmond High School

Atrophy (Part 2)
 
By Chuck Beaulieu
John Charles Beaulieu
St. Ignatius College Preparatory
San Francisco

Dear fellow organisms (literate or not),

I am of the persuasion, as are several of my own friends and comrades,
that an apology is due.
Personally, we think us humans have ruined many of your, and our, lives.
You see, my species has a standard of living
that most of you Rest can't ever understand,
if you can understand.
Our way of life is more sophisticated than any of you Rest can imagine,
if you can imagine,
and we have the power.
It is just about complete, as we can kill any of you Rest off just for kicks, and we do.
Some of you Rest live in aquariums or houses or farms or zoos or cages or barns, kept pregnant for profit.
Other of you Rest infest us, so we destroy you right off.
Our enormous and brilliant accomplishments and discoveries due to a highly evolved frontal lobe and thumbs dominate you Rest with only, at most, a shred of empathy.
Oh, and the hazardous havoc we've infested you with.
Toxic air from the large scale burning of things,
the insane chemicals we've synthesized,
weapons,
autos driving on roads between cities we've paved.
My species makes a lot of stuff, as I'm sure many of you are aware,
which we've gotten bored of and littered on our fair earth.
Sometimes in small piles, sometimes gigantic.
We've done what we can to kill off those of you Rest who live underwater with
our fishing and spills of expensive liquid we've accumulated.
The wind, sky, and earth will have its revenge on all of us the way my species
has treated it.

Our humanity did not realize that the tranquility we've sought so belligerently was alive when we became our species, not something that can be achieved via the conflict inherit in our different ideologies, which are, after all, another one of our inventions.

So I apologize.

Damnit,
--Chuck Beaulieu, homo sapien