 |
 |
 |
|
Bed of Rags
Mother Earth hurried to the piles of rubble left beside the road by the bulldozer and began digging with her hands. Curious to see what might be buried in the loose soil, Meredith emerged from behind the boulder, followed by the shaman, who did not try to restrain her.
Mother Earth pulled out a bundle wrapped in dirty rags. She gently brushed the sand and dirt away and unwrapped the swathe of old cloth. What Meredith saw made her gasp. A poor thin child, a baby boy, lay as if lifeless on the bed of rags. He had an oversized head with sticklike arms and legs, protruding ribs and a distended belly. His skin was jaundiced and covered with purple sores on body and face. Mother Earth picked him up with care, but he hung limply in her arms. His eyes were open, without expression and he made no sound.
Is he dead?" Meredith asked the shaman.
"No, watch."
A Loud Healthy Cry
Mother Earth held up her arms as if gathering in the strength of the universe, and then touched the baby gently on the belly. The swelling diminished.
She passed her hands over his whole body, and the sores shrank away. She kissed him gently on the mouth and the frail body miraculously began to fill out as if nourishment were suddenly flowing into it. Except for some ugly purple scars on his cheek where the sores had been, he was perfectly healthy.
The baby straightened his neck out, flailed his arms and legs and let out a loud healthy cry. "I have never been so happy to hear a baby cry," said Meredith said, overcome with relief.
Toddled Off
Mother Earth held the child to her breast until he fell asleep. She replaced him in his bed of rags, where he slept peacefully for several minutes, then stirred. He opened his eyes, then closed them quickly as if unaccustomed to sunlight. Cautiously he opened them again, screwing them up and blinking until he was able to see.
He seemed to have gained muscular control during his brief nap, for he rolled onto his belly and tumbled away from the pile of rags to the ground, where he struggled to stand up, took some tottering steps, and then toddled off down the hillside. Meredith saw him heading west toward the city of the gray ant-like people. Mother Earth made no attempt to detain him.
Bulldozed Babies
Mother Earth began to move along the roadside, freeing many more babies from the piles of earth and sand where they lay packed together, filling the meadow and spilling down the hillside into the valley, then up and over the mountainside beyond.
Once their wrappings had been removed, Meredith could see that these children were of many different races, white skinned, black, brown or golden, with eyes of all colors, slanted and round, and their hair curled, kinky or straight.
But whatever their color, every one of them showed the devastating signs of starvation, dehydration, abandonment and disease.
Battalions of Babes
It took most of the remaining day to tend to the millions of sick babies. Each child was blessed with total healing in the arms of Mother Earth. Each slept briefly in its nest of rags, then rose up and walked, however uncertainly, under its own power down the hillside. Soon battalions of babes, once doomed but now restored to robust health, were marching off toward the city of concrete monsters through which Meredith and the shaman had passed earlier that day.
Open Mines
They passed open mines where metal ore was ejected from the entrances into their waiting hands; they scooped the precious metals and ran with them toward the city. They passed factories where the wares were stacked outside: plastics which they flung about everywhere. They passed lumber and paper mills where trees were ground up; they took all they could carry and dropped it further on. They passed automobiles which they hijacked, as well as appliances, TVs, computers, plastic gadgets, cell phones, cordless phones, speaker phones.
Consumption
The babes appeared to grow larger and stronger with every step as Meredith viewed them from afar. As they marched, they encountered materials which they consumed on sight.
They passed farms where they took food and devoured it: cattle, sheep, pigs, barns of wheat, silos of corn, fruit trees, fields of rice and beans. They passed shopping malls where they dressed themselves in articles of clothing, then discarded them and wore new ones: made of wool from sheep, cotton, fur and synthetics. They passed neighborhoods where, though still children, they threw together makeshift shelters, used them briefly, then destroyed them: of cement, stones, bricks, lumber, metal. They burned wood fires for heat. When they found oil and gas, they burned it in cast off furnaces, not without calamities.
Discharge
They grasped an item, stripped it of its nourishment or usefulness and cast it aside. Behind them lay a chaotic trail of refuse.
They left behind rotting garbage, recyclables, paper, plastic, glass, cans, old rags and new clothes barely worn. They left behind the ruins of their once-lived-in homes. The wood, oil and gas they had burned were gone forever, but the residues remained in the atmosphere, and the CFCs from the plastics had long since risen into the stratosphere. They left behind mountains of paper that once were trees, and the earth's precious metals that could never be replaced.
They left behind air conditioners and refrigerators leaking freon gas; TVs, computers, plastic gadgets, phones. For each babe, tons of consumption, tons of waste. They discharged as much as they consumed.
Finally the battalion of babes disappeared into the faraway city, and Meredith breathed a sigh of relief.