Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

SAVING FISH FROM DROWNING
ports might have encouraged people to return—astonishing, really,
how one person can make a difference in the world. All the tourists
had rushed out of the country when the news of the disappearance
was known, couldn’t pack their bags fast enough. Now, after his first
report, from Bagan, and the Mandalay episode just yesterday, the
hotel lobby was packed with tourists. What would the place be like
after his third episode? Not that he wanted to help bring in the
tourists, but the numbers meant something—it was the power he had
to change people’s perception. This was visible proof. He breezed
through the lobby and saw that none of these travelers had any de­
cent video equipment, only those outmoded models that took the
larger cassettes. And those horrible clothes they had on—the tour
operators must have slashed the price for coming here, to have at­
tracted such an obviously lower class of tourist. He continued past
the double glass doors that led to the pool.
The air temperature was pleasantly warm. He gazed upon the
Olympic-sized pool, its waters unmolested by any of the slicked-up
sunbathers lying on deck chairs draped with monogrammed hotel
towels. On the far side was a tent-shaped cabana with mahogany
flourishes that gave it the romantic aura of an old colonial backwater.
Ah, there, on the table by that woman with a hat, a silvery object
standing upright, that had to be a camcorder. He sped toward it, and
then saw its young bikinied owner turn and look at his approach.
Even with the oversized hat and dark glasses obscuring her peepers,
she was fetching. As he drew closer, she tilted back her sunglasses,
and he reassessed the bronzed princess with long chocolatey hair to
have a shaggability rating of eight plus—not that he was in the game,
but there was nothing wrong with keeping his analytical skills sharp.
Across from her was a boyish-looking woman consulting a guide­
book. He reckoned she was in her late thirties, what he once consid­
ered close to the end of shelf life, but that was before he met
Marlena. To his tastes, this woman had never made the shelf. She
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