Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

SAVING FISH FROM DROWNING
Marlena! Curious, she looked older than he remembered her. But
there she was, next to him in China, his arm around her waist, and
around them were the others. Alive, so alive, so happy then. And now?
He realized that in his hands, in that tiny rectangle of circular reels,
was a parallel world, the past seen as present, reexperienced as here, as
now, unchanged, able to repeat itself over and over. “It’s us,” he said.
“Can I see?” Belinda asked.
Sorry.” He punched up the sound and let her see. “It’s us,” he an­
nounced. “It’s a tape of us, my friends, before they disappeared.”
Belinda feigned surprise. “Oh my God, really?”
More snippets of the past rolled by, and not a glimmer of disaster
in any of them. As he watched these ten-to-twenty-second spurts, his
mind was a tangle of worry. Where did this tape come from? Did TV
Myanmar really mean to give it to him? Couldn’t be. They would
have called to tell him what they were sending. So who sent it? His
heart raced, not knowing which way to go, up or down? Was it a sign
they were alive, or was it—
Belinda broke into his thoughts. “Where did the tape come from?”
“It was handed to me by a bellhop this morning,” Harry said. “At
least, I assume it was a bellhop. Roxanne made the video. She’s with
our group.”
Belinda nodded. Of course, she knew the name. She knew all of
them, as well as their ages, occupations, physical attributes, and
names of family members. How could she have been so stupid not to
recognize earlier what they had been viewing? She didn’t even have
the excuse of not wearing reading glasses like Harry. No matter, be­
cause here it was, in her hands. The scoop. She felt killer instincts
surge in her brain, and saw all the signs leading to “top of the news
hour,” an in-depth special, a fast-track promotion to anchor the
evening news or produce her own weekly show, numerous Emmys,
and her ultimate dream, a Peabody.
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