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Entries in survival (41)

Monday
Sep052011

Dear Lucy Chimp Child

I learnt to write before reading. Letters. Strings of pictures. Read nature.

Word pictures. Yeah. Grunts and ughs and yahoo wows and gestures and sings signs and more gestures. 

So it goes. Eat or be eaten. Law of the jungle. How did we evolve? Answer evidence.

Anyway, I walked from Ethiopia to I don't know where. New climate and landscape.

Someone, probably a Homo Stupendous had fire. I saw the light. It was in a shelter. A hole in the ground covered with branches and animal skins. Maybe a cave. 

Our tribe wanted to stole it. They made a plan. Brain power. Sneak up.

We asked, using our gesturing language. Limited. Share?

Go away!

They threw sticks and stones at us. 

Find your own fire. 

It's a struggle.

Bye.

Tuesday
Aug302011

hominid

Namaste,

The following conversation is, are was, were conducted by little people. Everywhere.

Hi, I'm a hominid. Really? You're taller than Lucy.

Yeah, I evolved. I learned how to stand up. Yeah, ya gotta stand up. Before you can walk you have to crawl. Yeah. Before you can run you have to walk.

She was a midget. Barely three feet. Didn't last long. Poor thing.

I'm hungry. Have some fruit. Delicious. Seen any wild animals around here? Yeah, grunt grunt. Big teeth. Hungry.

Find a tree. Climb fast. Keep your mouth shut.

It's a jungle out there. Eat or be eaten.

I eat to survive. Oh yeah. I survive to eat. 

That's life.

Metta.

Saturday
Aug062011

Little People

The little people lived in Coma-land. They descended from Java man 40,000 years ago.

Like yesterday, today and tomorrow.

They lived in trees. Survival of the fittest. They were the first tree-house builders. Acrobats. Sophisticated.

Vines, branches, trunks, leaves, edibles. 

They swung down, dropping with agility. They walked on all fours. Knuckle down. 

Thousands of years later they stood up. Let's have a look. 

They peered over tall grass. O my goodness.

Many spent their lives looking back at their tree house. Like now.

Fear is a great motivator.

A big hungry predator strolled their way.

They crawled. They walked. They ran. They scurried back to their tree house. Fast. Grunting. Like now.

Fear. Run. Hurry. Hide. Help!

Yeah, yeah. Need transport?

 

Friday
Aug052011

Park it

Where do I park this empty vehicle,

asked a Tibetan monk

burning corpses

after an earthquake killed 2,686 people

in a remote village at 13,000 feet.

A child survivor ate cigarettes,

and paper napkins

drinking his urine to survive.

Life is found in a desperate situation.

Disaster gave the Chinese Party Propaganda

machine a glorious opportunity

to create a new Hero and promote being One People.

Friday
Jul222011

Maybe 20

Namaste,

The demanding accusatory tone of voice is always an admonishing attitude of voice how reality is. Shanghai commands are simple and direct. 

Heels strike cold hard pavement in darkness. The sharpness belongs to a girl escaping from family for the night. Muted voices of an old couple walking through narrow concrete canyons echo as heels fade.

An elevator door opened on the 11th floor of a five-star business hotel in Shanghai. 

A beautiful Chinese girl, 20, in a white dress clutching a small black purse stared at a scuffed marble floor. Small puddles of rain water gathered around her shoes.

She raised her face from the ground. 

Deep dark brown rings circled old, tired, fearful eyes hiding her heart's knowledge, revealing her soul.

There was no place to hide, no magical cosmetic concealing the truth of everything she knew. The woman and witness instinctivily understood each other. Passing toward another temporary hope, another ethereal reality.

She was on the wrong floor and pressed another number. Doors closed. She was moving up in the world. Up to the room of a foreign businessman taking her through night into morning.

Everyone in town was making money. 

Billboards shouted, “Making Money in China is Glorious!

She carefully folded hard earned hard currency into her black purse after a long hot shower and took the elevator down. Gliding through a revolving glass and brass door, she passed a deserted dark empty Japanese restaurant and negotiated gray stained industrial steps to Nanjing Xi Lu.  

One million serious adults in blue industrial clothing practiced Tai Chi with controlled balanced concentration.

Every methodical movement had meaning.

Dawn's collective mist breath crashed around her well worn heels skipping over cracked stones through shadows. 

Metta.

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