We had to move our space ship to another part of what you call the Gulf of Mexico. It’s hard for us to believe that, for all the technology you have, you humans haven’t stopped the gusher of Black Death.
Upon monitoring your television channels, we see very little about the major catastrophe that is taking place. A fifteen-minute news spot, with your worried little faces staring out and taking pictures of birds struggling with thick goo. The bird we saw lifted its head out of the oil, then fell back into its dying.
It seems as if your major concerns are the vacationers who are canceling their stays at beach hotels because of the spill. But how many of your water animals and plants are undergoing an assault greater than your attacks on each other on your puny land masses.
Indeed, your world is made up of much more water of varying types than land. Life that is birthed in the Gulf of Mexico spreads out across the sea and is harvested by you in massive quantities and now you threaten to kill your own food supply because you have a poisonous way of moving from one place to another.
We call your roads ribbons of death. You not only smash wildlife attempting to cross these ribbons but we watch as your metal cages smash into each other and your bodies are lifted out, bloody and broken. You keep track of the numbers and call it the death toll and accept the unacceptable as a way of life.
But back to the Spill. How long will this go on? This is your biggest Spill so far but there have been many others and the effects of them still kill.
We watch. The bird you call Pelican is flying now, covered with oil. A female human chases the bird with a net. She wants to catch the bird and clean it off so it might live. It still may die.
The bird, a Pelican, tries to escape. It only knows that humans have never been friendly to them. It doesn’t know that the woman wants to help. Human relationships with the Wild have never been friendly except in what we would call rare instances.
The Pelican flees. The woman cannot catch the bird that is already caught by Black Death. Imagine you are the bird. You are having trouble flying, trouble breathing, you are covered with a substance the seawater cannot wash off. Even if it could, all the seawater in this area is black.
See the birds fly above the water looking for fish. They don’t have any oil on them. Yet. The birds cannot see through the blackness of the water. They don’t know that all the fish in this sea are dead already.
God forbid the bird lands on the water to rest. The oil seeps up around its thrashing legs, covers the birds lower feathers, and suddenly it cannot breathe well. Even the birds just above the water are getting dizzy from the smell of the Dark Sea. Something has changed and it is very different than it was just a short time ago.
Underneath the sea, on the bottom, the shrimp fall, twitching as their last nervous spasms take them closer to death. The Gulf of Mexico, that’s what you call it, has become the Black Sea. What was once the spawning ground of so much life has become a poisonous soup of death.
The currents move the oil from one place to another. White beaches of clean sand are assaulted with black tarry balls. The human child is in the water. Suddenly it notices that blackness is coming towards it, surrounding it. The smell. The child flees the water as fast as it can. The parents of the child notice its distress.
It is time to leave the beach. We watch your species from many vantage points. You are so busy killing each other in other parts of the world. That is where most of your energy is going now.
We had hopes that one day your mental and emotional growth would equal your technological growth. We see that this is not happening in the majority of your species. You are like children playing with deadly toys and you cannot see into the future with any real perspective.
This Dark Death spill in your sea is not your first and it probably won’t be your last. The company, British Petroleum, tries to figure out how to get through this “mess” with the least amount of profit loss. The bosses know that money is more important than life. Your life, sea life, not their life. They live quite well and want to keep that style of life.
They think small. They don’t realize that everything in your world is connected. Soon they will wake up covered in the deaths of many and it will drag them down to a hell of their own making.
Many of you humans are like that. Our species had its dark times too but we learned before we killed ourselves. Your prognosis does not look good. Only a minority of humans learn to work well together. Only a small number of you understand that you are reaping what you sow.
Will the oil still be gushing when you read this article? We know that, even if the oil is not still gushing, the damage will still be present. Fish, birds, manatees, whales, dolphins, shrimp, shelled creatures that crawl the bottoms of the sea will still be dying. The oil will be caught in the Loop and make its way up the eastern part of your landmass. Maybe some oil will go to other landmasses.
We know that when you read this article, people will still be killing each other in different parts of your world. Why? Maybe it is because you name the Gods and fight over which name is correct. Maybe it is because some of your people want what their neighbor possesses. Maybe it is because some of you just like to kill.
You frighten us. It is not only the Pelican who flees your species and we understand why. It is truly a puzzle that a species can know so much but understand so little. The Earth is your Mother and you have turned on Her.
Your future is getting dark, faster now than before. There are so many of you and you all want what you want. Unfortunately, in the end, if you keep going in the direction you are heading for, you will get there. Your bones will bleach under the sun of a world where no humans are left.
This will not be a bad thing for the other creatures of your world, if any survive.
Marc D. Goldfinger is a formerly homeless vendor who is now housed. He can be reached at
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.