Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

SAVING FISH FROM DROWNING
from her. His abrasiveness drove others away. She could not share her
successes with him, because he reacted only with terse comments—
“Another one for the trophy case”—and that angered her and made
her think that all they shared were different disappointments.
Dwight sensed what Roxanne was thinking. The thought of his
marriage’s ending both scared and saddened him, but he could not
tell her that. Early in their relationship, he had wanted to protect
her—emotionally—and he knew she needed that, even though she
appeared strong to others. But she had rebuffed his efforts, maybe
unknowingly, and he felt useless, then a stranger, alone. She wanted
so little of him. He wasn’t as smart as she was, not as strong, not
even as athletic. Her disdain had been evident on this trip. She never
wanted his help or suggestions. If she didn’t reject his ideas outright,
she was quietly unsupportive. He could see it in her eyes. She was
tender only when he was weak, when he was sick.
After their rescue, neither of them spoke about the inevitable, yet
they felt it sharply, the lack of jubilation in at last being alone to­
gether. They made separate arrangements: she caught a plane back
to San Francisco, and he went to Mandalay to explore the areas
around the Irrawaddy. That was what he had come to see. Along
those shores his great-great-grandfather had been killed.
He pictured his ancestor looking much like himself, around his
age, his same coloring, having a similar feeling of being displaced,
alienated from his disappointed wife, squeezed by the tyranny of a
society that would give him nothing by which he could distinguish
himself. He was just another cog. He had come to Burma to work
with a timber company, to see what his chances were, if his soul was
still alive. He looked at the river and its broad expanse. And then
came shouts, and he was surprised that death was happening so fast.
Crossbow arrows rained down and sharp knives went through him
with surprising ease, as if he had no muscle or bone. And then he
was lying in his mess, his face close to the water, not feeling his body,
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