h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The water scares me.

I look out on the river beside my house. Everything is serene and quiet. The inhalations and exhalations of the tides add a beautiful rhythm to even the gloomiest day. The glistening and the ripples, the sparkles and the splashes. It’s calmness personified.

But now, this water scares me.

It frightens me because I saw yesterday what water can do. I have seen the live TV images of huge waves pushing themselves inland, carrying trees, cars, boats and houses as if they were matchsticks. I have seen, as we all have now, the sudden loss of possessions, of dreams, of lives, of everything, in a cancerous upwelling of this self-same liquid that flows silently past me every hour of every day.

Those images will not leave. The cars turning and reversing in panic. The houses crushed to a pulp in an instant. The fishing boats floating drunkenly over roads and streets. The manicured fields: one second ordered and cultivated; the next, crushed under a mass of human detritus and shapeless debris. A vast battlefront, more powerful and destructive than any army ever launched against an enemy. A formless hegemonising goo exerting its dominance over our civilisation. The immediate nullification of decades of patient human labour. Vast swathes of land reclaimed by a master more powerful than the greatest of our technologies.

What makes it scariest of all: its unconsciousness. Its indifference to the vast suffering it inflicts. This monster is nothing but a function of physics and geology. All else is moot. You get in the way, you die; no matter how virtuous or deserving your plight. The greatest cruelty is unleashed when no mind or conscience is involved.

I look out on this expanse of water and I imagine a giant black wave of destruction turning the corner and advancing up the channel towards me. I imagine stone buildings turned to rubble in front of my eyes. I imagine the windows exploding and and an unconscionable mess flowing into every room of the house. I imagine the walls of the house groaning and capitulating under the relentlessness of the planet’s most powerful weapon. Beyond this, my imagination fails me.

So you may babble away, dear water. You may bubble and sigh. You may lap upon the shore and darken under the passing flutters of a playful breeze. But I cannot trust you. Your darkness knows no limit.

http://woodpigeon01.wordpress.com/2011/03/12/tsunami/

You speak as I feel; I too, live near water (a sea which has flooded and taken thousands of lives in living memory) and I too, fear Mother Nature's backlash and force. It's like every once in a while, just when we think we're the Boss, we're in charge, and then WHACK! out of the blue, no matter the advancements and all our technology, someone somewhere gets a good slapping, a reminder of exactly who is in charge.

Our lives are so precious, it's all we can do to live them to the best of our ability and be kind. People remember a kindness, and I'm sure someone somewhere is ticking a box or making a list. It's what keeps me going when I watch the devastation on the news. They didn't deserve to die in such a way. No-one does, but in the end we will all die. It's just a matter of where and when. I like to think I have been a good friend and a loving daughter/sister/mother/grandma. Hopefully my time on has not been a waste.

stay safe my friend, feel sorrow for the lost and displaced, but have faith the survivors will rebuild their lives with help from kind people.

Obviously the only large body of water around here (Lake Michigan) isn't likely to cause devastation on such an epic scale. But we've had some wicked storms here in Illinois in recent years, and I'm afraid we'll have a massive tornado sometime soon. I work in a high-rise and storm season scares me. My mind has been reeling at the scale of what has happened in Japan. I hope I am able to help in some small way.

But yes, I know that the damage humanity has done to the Earth is coming back to bite us on the ass in a very big way.

Thanks Ann and Cindy. It's such a disturbing thing. We live in a world where everything is now instantly visible to us wherever it happens. No longer can we be shielded from the worst of scenes.

This has (in a way) eclipsed the Tsunami of Boxing Day 2005 and even the Haiti earthquake and the two in Christchurch, NZ. That is not to say the others weren't tragedies, but the scale of this - earthquake, tsunami and now nuclear worries - is unimaginable.

I see our brilliant UK rescue teams, having just got back from Christchurch, have gone over to Japan to help. May they come back safe.

If you have read any of Frenchbean's accounts of what it is like in ChChCh then you will have a taste, but only a taste of what those people are going through.

I am puzzled that unlike with the Boxing Day Tsunami I have seen no pleas on the TV for donations to help. Japan may be a rich country, but much of that wealth must have been wiped out, or soon will be, and they will need support for a long time to come.

I watch all the coverage, I just cannot ignore it as some people do, but the distress I feel puts all my personal problems in perspective. I feel sorry for the thousands who will have died, but life for the survivors will never be the same again and at present it must feel like hell on earth. I just cannot imagine how they will cope, but I am sure they will.

Woodpigeon, the power of water and fire is frightening but your eloquent expression of your fears does bring it home. However, we cannot live our lives based on 'what if'. If there is a sensible precaution we can take, and only if it is in the least likely to happen then do it, but otherwise we need to put such fears away. I don't think the people of Boscastle, Cornwall every thought it would happen to them but I doubt much planning would have made any difference.

Websailor

Hi Websailor - thanks a lot for your message. It's well said. I'm probably living in one of the safest places on the planet, so yes, what I am writing about is totally irrational. Chances are that I am far more likely to be done in by a car accident or a fall than a tsunami, but yet I would never go around worrying about cars or the likelihood of me tripping up. I think that what I am writing about is how images such as these play upon my unconscious, making something commonplace and benign seem sinister.

Given Japan's history, this is something they will get through. They are an incredibly resilient people. I think there is a lot of money in Japan as they tend to be savers rather than spenders. They are well equipped to deal with the long term effects although at the moment it is a matter of getting large numbers of experienced rescue, containment and medical teams on the ground as quickly as possible.

I haven't been following Frenchbean's accounts - I must take a look!

Thanks,

C

This web site in particular has helped me to form and feel connections to others half a world away (and I pity my fellow Americans who don't have that). I think my own fears might not be wholly rational (yet), but on the other hand, not quite two years ago a tornado took part of the roof off our building (over the storage area and not living space, thankfully) and we were without power during the hottest, humidest part of summer with no power and with my asthma and heart condition... I was nervous. Of course while the tornado sirens were going off, K wasn't home and I was corralling two kitties and stuffing them into their crates with cat food, first and foremost. They can't get to safety without me, so I *must* look after them, no matter how scared shitless I am. I can only imagine the same terror in a parent.

Oh, all that said... the situations in Japan and Christchurch are exponentially worse... just my mind boggles at the situation and I have difficulty thinking in other than practical, "get them help and ASAP" terms. Because if I think about it too long, I lose it. The mere thought of *thousands* of deaths makes me feel physically ill.

pc,

I agree - it is such an enormous, wide spread catastrophe, which seems to eclipse even Hurricane Katrina, that it is hard to take in, and by all accounts it is not over yet.

The dignity of the Japanese is much talked of here, but I do wonder how much of it is sheer 'shellshock' and numbness! How on earth do you come to terms with such a disaster? At least the rest of the world is now actually doing something to help.

Somehow nothing we can do will seem to be enough.

Websailor