The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans (42 page)

Still, this is not a new development; it has been years in the making. The ALA report goes on to say, “The Central Valley, where nearly half the nation’s food is grown, has been severely compromised by the overuse of fertilizers and pesticides, not to mention particulates caused by farm equipment.”

Half the nation’s food… There’s the trade-off, I suppose.

“An unsustainable equation of diminishing returns,” Trick reminds me.

I read further in the report: “The American Lung Association has found that the lives of six of every ten Americans are now endangered by pollution.”

Say no more. I’m outta here!!!

Word has come of the death of Sister Dorothy Stang in the Amazon Rainforest, so I immediately IM Crystal and Kiz with the news. We three have long suspected that the PL identity of our old friend Omar Paquero was none other than Sister Dorothy. I am not only shocked by the news but also concerned for the well being of our friend. Crystal immediately answers my IM: “Where did you hear this news?”

“I read it in the online version of
The Guardian
,” I write back.

Next comes a message from Kiz: “Has anybody in VL seen Omar?”

“Not that I know of,” I answer her.

“Oh, shit!” writes Kiz.

Even as I exchange instant messages with Crystal and Kiz, I am looking at a picture of Sister Dorothy. In the picture the American-born nun stands amidst the rainforest splendor; she appears to be seventy if she’s a day. Her hair is grayish-white and cut short and her face is tanned. She is wearing simple earrings, wire-rimmed glasses and a white t-shirt with the slogan stenciled upon it: “
A Morte da floresta é o fim da nossa vida
.” Which In Portuguese means, “The death of the forest is the end of our life.” My question is this: Did Sister Dorothy understand that her unwavering dedication to rainforest ecology and fair land use practices for the peasants of Anapu would lead to her death too?

The unfortunate answer to that question is, probably yes. Certainly there were those in the logging industry who saw her as more than a nuisance and wanted her out of the way. Her commitment to land reform enabling peasants who had never before owned land to engage in sustainable farming—as well as preserve valuable forest against clear-cutting—enraged those who saw the forest not as ‘the lungs of the world’ but as a fast track to huge profits. Already, twenty percent of the Amazon rainforest has been lost to clear-cutting, and the rate of deforestation promised to increase unless opposing forces were able to impose a moratorium of conscience. It is also unfortunate, as well as ironic, that such movements seem to take time to gain governmental support, and resources that are plundered are impossible to recover. What is happening in the Amazon rainforest is not unlike the range wars that once occurred on the American plains, but the stakes here are much higher. For each and every person on earth, our next breath is at stake.

Then there is the IMF… Who loaned Brazil billions during the recession of 2002, not out of any real sense of charity or good will, but rather to guard its back, and that of the other developed nations on earth—or at least their bankers. Shortsighted and selfish attention to economics once again cost the earth and its peoples an irreplaceable resource—nothing less than the air we breathe. Without the forest to produce oxygen, the atmosphere turns in ever-greater percentage to carbon dioxide, which as far as I know will not sustain animal life.

Sister Dorothy Stang knew all this as far back as the sixties when she first moved to Anapu, Brazil. And it was she who conceived and eventually effected changes in Brazilian law to allow the peasants to acquire two hundred and fifty-acre tracts of land for sustainable agriculture, the plan calling for farming of a mere fifty acres (which was enough for these peasants to earn a reasonable living for the first time in their lives or the lives of their ancestors) while allocating the other two hundred acres for rainforest conservation. All well and good for the peasants, but the program pissed off those in the logging industry big time, and of course a mafia mentality emerged. Killings were common and rampant. And Sister Dorothy was on the hit list. Did she know it? Of course she knew it. When they finally came for her at the Boa Esperanca settlement, she did not flinch. “Are you armed?” her assassins demanded. “Only with my Bible,” she answered, and began reading to them from the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the poor in spirit...” As she read, the two gunmen shot her at point blank range in the abdomen. She fell forward into the mud and they shot her again in the back. Finally, they emptied their weapons into her skull.

As Sister Dorothy Stang lay silenced, the rainforest wept for its fallen heroine, and the world gasped for breath. Just as I gasp relating this story to you… And now, it is time for my friends and me to search for our old friend Omar Paquero, if indeed he still walks the terrain of Virtual Life. I wonder if we’ll ever find him. I fear something essential has been lost.
Buenas noches, mis amigos.
Respira profundamente!

Air—the medium from which we draw life.

The place is the ancient Roman City of Misenum; the NL date is 24 August, 79 AD; and my host is Pliny the Younger. Pliny is a lawyer and an author; his uncle, Pliny the Elder, was a renouned naturalist of his time, a prolific author, a Roman senator and the commander of a Roman naval fleet. Just prior to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in NL 79 AD, Pliny the Elder had embarked on a sea crossing to the Italian mainland. Though he was invited, Pliny the Younger chose to remain at his uncle’s villa in Misenum, a decision that not only saved his life but haunted him for the rest of his years.

“Your story is one that has survived the Ages,” I tell Pliny. “And I will republish your writings, as well as your uncle’s, and place them in the Open Books VL vault.”

“It is a violent and a tragic tale,” he laments. “And I thank you for your archive.”

“You saw it happen with your own eyes,” I acknowledge. “Only you can tell this tale authentically.”

“Yes, I watched thousands die that day, including my beloved uncle,” he confirms.

From where we stand at Pliny the Elder’s opulent villa in Misenum, we can easily see the Italian mainland across the Bay of Naples. We cannot only see the city of Naples itself but also Mount Vesuvius looming in the background.

“The volcano is a mere eleven miles from Naples, which today is one of the most densely populated cities in Europe,” Pliny tells me. “If the mountain were again to explode, as it did that fateful day my uncle set off for Stabiae, then surely hundreds of thousands, if not millions, would die.”

“It must have been horrible to watch,” I say.

“It rained fire and rock for days,” he relates. “The sky turned black as night, and the temperature dropped as if it were winter. And we were powerless to intercede.” Pliny gazes into the distance, into history itself, and his emotions are obvious on his face. A tear falls from his eye for the many who died the day fire and poison gas had enveloped all the cities and villages on the skirt of Mount Vesuvius.

“It must have been terrifying,” I say.

“Like nothing you can imagine,” he tells me. “The fire at the center of the earth is malevolent, merciless and all-consuming. I will share my story with you, Fizzy Oceans, so that you might warn those living in PL who scoff at the idea of another eruption of Vesuvio!”

Pliny and I sit upon a low garden wall where we can plainly see the site of the historical disaster.

“The day began as any other,” he relates, “except that my uncle, who was a well respected naturalist, statesman and soldier, had left from Misenum for the mainland with a detail of friends and sailors. Then, in the afternoon, Mount Vesuvius erupted violently and without warning. So it is for my dear uncle, Pliny the Elder, that I give this account of the circumstances of his death, and of the deaths of the good citizens of Pompeii, Herculeneum and Stabiae.

“My uncle perished in a devastation of the loveliest of lands, in a memorable disaster shared by peoples and cities, but this will be a kind of eternal life for him. Although he wrote a great number of enduring works, the imperishable nature of
your
writings will add a great deal to his memory and legacy. Happy are they, in my opinion, to whom it is given either to do something worth writing about, or to write something worth reading; most happy, of course, those who do both. With his own books and
yours
, my uncle will be counted among the latter. It is therefore with great pleasure that I take up, or rather take upon myself, the task to which you entreat me.

“He was at Misenum (where we stand today in Virtual Life, whereas on that fateful day we moved in the light and grace of Natural Life) in his capacity as commander of the fleet on the 24th of August, 79 AD, when between two and three in the afternoon my mother drew his attention to a cloud of unusual size and appearance. He had had a sunbath, then a cold bath, and was reclining after dinner with his books. He called for his shoes and climbed up to where he could get the best view of the phenomenon. The cloud was rising from a mountain—at such a distance we couldn't tell which, but afterwards learned that it was Vesuvius. I can best describe its shape by likening it to a pine tree. The cloud rose into the sky on a very long ‘trunk’ from which spread some ‘branches’. I imagined that it had been raised by a sudden blast, which then weakened, leaving the cloud unsupported so that its own weight caused it to spread sideways. Some of the cloud was white; in other parts there were dark patches of dirt and ash. The sight of it made the scientist in my uncle determined to see it from closer at hand.

“He ordered a boat made ready. He offered me the opportunity of going along, but I preferred to study—he himself happened to have given me a writing exercise. As he was leaving the house he was brought a letter from Tascius’ wife Rectina, who was terrified by the looming danger. Her villa lay at the foot of Vesuvius, and there was no way out except by boat. She begged him to get her out. He changed his plans. The expedition that started out as a quest for knowledge now called for courage. He launched the quadriremes and embarked himself, a source of aid for more people than just Rectina, for that delightful shore was a populous one. He hurried to a place from which others were fleeing, and held his course directly into danger. Was he afraid? It seems not, as he kept continuous observation of the various movements and shapes of the evil cloud, dictating what he saw.

“Ash was falling onto the ships now, darker and denser the closer they went. Now it was bits of pumice, and rocks that were blackened and burned and shattered by the fire. Now the sea is shoal; debris from the mountain blocks the shore. He paused a moment, wondering whether to turn back as the helmsman urged him. “Fortune helps the brave,” he said. “Head for Pomponianus!”

At Stabiae, on the other side of the bay formed by the gradually curving shore, Pomponianus had loaded up his ships even before the danger arrived, though it was visible and indeed extremely close, once it intensified. He planned to put out as soon as the contrary wind let up. That very wind carried my uncle right in, and he embraced the frightened man and gave him comfort and courage. In order to lessen the other’s fear by showing his own unconcern, he asked to be taken to the baths. He bathed and dined, carefree, or at least appearing so (which is equally impressive). Meanwhile, broad sheets of flame were lighting up many parts of Vesuvius; their light and brightness were all the more vivid for the darkness of night. To alleviate people’s fears my uncle claimed that the flames came from the deserted homes of farmers who had left in a panic with the hearth fires still alight. Then he rested, and gave every indication of actually sleeping; people who passed by his door heard his snores, which were rather resonant since he was a heavy man. The ground outside his room rose so high with the mixture of ash and stones that if he had spent any more time there, escape would have been impossible. He got up and came out, restoring himself to Pomponianus and the others who had been unable to sleep. They discussed what to do, whether to remain under cover or to try the open air. The buildings were being rocked by a series of strong tremors, and appeared to have come loose from their foundations and to be sliding this way and that. Outside, however, there was danger from the rocks that were coming down, light and fire-consumed as these bits of pumice were. Weighing the relative dangers, they chose the outdoors; in my uncle’s case it was a rational decision; others just chose the alternative that frightened them the least.

“They tied pillows on top of their heads as protection against the shower of rock. It was daylight now elsewhere in the world, but there the darkness was darker and thicker than any night. But they had torches and other lights. They decided to go down to the shore, to see from close up if anything was possible by sea. But it remained as rough as before. Resting in the shade of a sail, he drank once or twice from the cold water he had asked for. Then came the smell of sulfur, announcing the flames, and the flames themselves, sending others into flight. Supported by two slaves he stood up then immediately collapsed. As I understand it, the dust-laden air obstructed his breathing; and his innards, which had never been strong, and often blocked or upset, simply shut down. When daylight came again two days after he died, his body was found untouched, unharmed. He looked more asleep than dead.

“Meanwhile at Misenum, my mother and I—oh, but this has nothing to do with history, and you asked only for information about his death, so I’ll stop here then… But I will say one more thing; namely, that I have written out everything that I did and heard at the time while memories were still fresh. You will use the important bits, for it is one thing to write a letter, another to write history; one thing to write to a friend, another to write for posterity.”