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Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

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SAVING FISH FROM DROWNING<br />

suggesting, that we just stand around and do nothing when ethnic<br />

cleansing goes on?”<br />

“Just saying we should be aware of the consequences. You can’t<br />

have intentions without consequences. The question is, who pays for<br />

the consequences? <strong>Saving</strong> fish <strong>from</strong> drowning. Same thing. Who’s<br />

saved? Who’s not?”<br />

“I’m sorry,” Bennie huffed, “but that is not the same thing at all.”<br />

The others were quiet. It wasn’t that they agreed with Dwight,<br />

whom they hated to agree with, no matter what he said. But they<br />

could not entirely disagree. It was like a brain twister, one of those<br />

silhouettes that was a beautiful girl with a hat, then a crone with a<br />

crooked nose. It depended on how you viewed it.<br />

“Oh God, what can we do?” Heidi said mournfully, still fixated on<br />

the fish. “Can’t we say something? I want to buy all of them and<br />

throw them back in the water.”<br />

“Don’t look at it,” Moff told her.<br />

“How can I not look?”<br />

The fish continued to flop. Moff led Heidi away by the arm.<br />

“Can fish drown?” Rupert asked once they had moved away <strong>from</strong><br />

the fish stalls.<br />

“Of course not,” Bennie said. “They have gills, not lungs.”<br />

“Actually,” Harry said, “they can indeed drown.” All eyes except<br />

Heidi’s turned toward him. “In humans who drown, the lungs fill<br />

with water, and because our lungs are incapable of filtering out us­<br />

able oxygen, the person suffocates. That’s the cause of death, lack of<br />

oxygen. We call it drowning, because it occurs in water or with some<br />

sort of liquid.” He caught Marlena looking at him intently. He con­<br />

tinued in his casual, confident manner.<br />

“<strong>Fish</strong>, on the other hand, have gills that extract oxygen, but most<br />

fish have to keep moving about to bring in a lot of water to filter<br />

enough oxygen. If they were not able to move, say they were caught<br />

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