Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

SAVING FISH FROM DROWNING
ing in front of painted scenery, solemnly staring at something off to
the side. It was her future, Vera liked to think. Her hair was coiffed
in the style of the times, wound and pinned, and she wore a high-
collared black dress, an oval pendant at her throat, with a skirt that
was smooth in front and in back as full as a Christmas tree. This was
her great-grandmother, Eliza Hendricks. Vera often felt that woman
in her soul; she had been a teacher at one of the first colleges for
black women. Eliza had also published a book called Freedom, Self-
Reliance, and Responsibility. For years, Vera had tried to find a copy.
She had contacted hundreds of antiquarian book dealers. She imag­
ined what Eliza Hendricks had written. As a result, Vera often
thought about those subjects: freedom, self-reliance, and responsi­
bility, what it meant then, what it meant now. She had hoped one day
to write a book herself about the same themes and include anecdotes
about her great-grandmother, if only she could glean more from
public records. But in recent years, she felt frustration more than in­
spiration. What place do freedom and responsibility have when
you’re plagued with budget cuts, conniving upstarts, and competing
charities? No one had vision anymore. It was all about marketing.
She sighed. The trip to China and Burma was supposed to reinvigo­
rate her, help her see the wild blue yonder once again. She looked up
at the clouds. The village lay half a mile up a road thick with wild
daisies growing eight or nine feet tall.
All at once, a hair-raising scream echoed down the road. “What
the fuck was that?” Moff and Dwight said almost simultaneously. It
was coming from the village up ahead. “A girl?” Moff guessed. Heidi
pictured a girl being raised in the air by a tribal chief, about to be
tossed over a cliff in a sacrificial ritual. Then came a whimper. A dog
that was being hit with a shovel? A moment later, it was wheezing
and braying. A donkey being whipped as it struggled to pull a load
uphill? Next came what sounded like the blood-curdling cries of a
woman. Someone was being beaten. What was going on?
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