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Nov. 2nd, 2007 05:02 am- 13:04 Andrew is joining saga zone.
Nov. 2nd, 2007
River of Fire
Nov. 2nd, 2007 11:16 pmThis week's cross-post from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
manyheadbones. And not just because I like the photo.
The lava flowed down the mountain beneath me, carving its way through the blackened hillside until it reached the grasslands, where fires were already springing up.
It's a funny thing, blame. So easy to attach, both to yourself and others. Had I somehow triggered this? Was I somehow responsible? The volcano had been dormant for centuries, and for it to surge into life suddenly now, just as I was standing atop its peak, seemed far too improbable for it to be a coincidence. On the other hand someone had to be standing on top when lava sprange forth from one of its smoking flanks.
Humans are just like that, I guess - there must people all over the area wondering what they did to deserve this, how their own measly actions of the last minutes, hours, days or months could have contributed to the karma that brought liquid fire to their villages. Tomorrow there would undoubtedly be evangelists blaming the disaster on everything from homosexuals to feminists to a thousand kinds of apostasy.
I remember once reading about superstitious pigeons. Scientists set up a feeding tube to give out pellets at totally random times - but the pigeons would try to learn how to make the food appear anyway. If a pellet appeared twice in a row while a pigeon was turning left then it would turn into a ballerina pigeon, constantly spiralling widdershins in the hope that this would conjure its next meal. You'd have pigeons that twitched their necks, pigeons that walked backwards, pigeons that did little hops on the spot or pecked at blemishes on the wall, all in the hope that these blind acts of worship would cause manna to fall from the heavens.
And in some ways knowing that it wasn't just me that wanted my life to fit a pattern, that would look back over the events that led me here, to this point, to this moment, and try to form it all into a story that somehow meant I deserved it, in some ways knowing that was a relief. Because I really couldn't see any way back down, and it seemed awfully unlikely that I was going to get to write another chapter in the somewhat baroque and melodramatic novel my life had turned into.
manyheadbones. And not just because I like the photo.The lava flowed down the mountain beneath me, carving its way through the blackened hillside until it reached the grasslands, where fires were already springing up.
It's a funny thing, blame. So easy to attach, both to yourself and others. Had I somehow triggered this? Was I somehow responsible? The volcano had been dormant for centuries, and for it to surge into life suddenly now, just as I was standing atop its peak, seemed far too improbable for it to be a coincidence. On the other hand someone had to be standing on top when lava sprange forth from one of its smoking flanks.
Humans are just like that, I guess - there must people all over the area wondering what they did to deserve this, how their own measly actions of the last minutes, hours, days or months could have contributed to the karma that brought liquid fire to their villages. Tomorrow there would undoubtedly be evangelists blaming the disaster on everything from homosexuals to feminists to a thousand kinds of apostasy.
I remember once reading about superstitious pigeons. Scientists set up a feeding tube to give out pellets at totally random times - but the pigeons would try to learn how to make the food appear anyway. If a pellet appeared twice in a row while a pigeon was turning left then it would turn into a ballerina pigeon, constantly spiralling widdershins in the hope that this would conjure its next meal. You'd have pigeons that twitched their necks, pigeons that walked backwards, pigeons that did little hops on the spot or pecked at blemishes on the wall, all in the hope that these blind acts of worship would cause manna to fall from the heavens.
And in some ways knowing that it wasn't just me that wanted my life to fit a pattern, that would look back over the events that led me here, to this point, to this moment, and try to form it all into a story that somehow meant I deserved it, in some ways knowing that was a relief. Because I really couldn't see any way back down, and it seemed awfully unlikely that I was going to get to write another chapter in the somewhat baroque and melodramatic novel my life had turned into.