When you are engulfed in flames - By David Sedaris Page 0,68
kind of shack with cow skulls tacked to the outer walls. It then turned out that the homeowner had not fumigated, and that there was only one mouse, which he somehow caught alive, and threw onto a pile of leaves he’d started burning some time earlier. This would certainly qualify as thoughtless, but there was no moment when he looked at the coughing mice, running for their lives from the poisonous fumes. He did not hear the leaves crackling beneath their feet, or reach for his matches, thinking, Aha!
How had I so misread this story, and why? Like a dog with a table scrap, had I simply wolfed it down too quickly, or do I believe, on some subconscious level, that eastern mice are inherently more sympathetic than their western cousins? Where did the fumigation business come from, and the idea that the man’s house was overrun? I recalled myself before the tour, sitting at my desk and lighting one cigarette right after the other, the way I do when time is running out. Garlands of smoke drifted into the next room and fouled the sinuses of our out-of-town guests, who’d arrived a few days earlier and were sleeping in our bed. The house was overrun, extermination was necessary. Had I somehow imposed my own life on the newspaper story?
Despite my embroidery, the most important facts hold true: The mouse did run back indoors. His flames were not extinguished by the wind. The fire spread, the house was consumed, and these are certainly dark times, both for the burning, and those who would set them alight.
April in Paris
While watching TV one recent evening, I stumbled upon a nature program devoted to the subject of making nature programs. The cameraman’s job was to catch a bird of paradise in full display, so he dug himself a hole, covered it with branches, and sat inside it for three weeks. This was in New Guinea, where the people used to wear sexy loincloths, but now stand around in T-shirts that say “Cowboys Do It with Chaps” and “I Survived the 2002 IPC Corporate Challenge Weekend.” One villager might wear a pair of gym shorts and then add a fanny pack or a sun visor with the name of a riverboat casino stitched onto the brim. I suppose that these things came from a relief organization, either that or a cruise ship went down, and this was what washed up onshore.
I’ll wager that quite a few sun visors found their way to Southeast Asia after the tsunami. One brutal news story after another, and it went on for weeks. The phone numbers of aid organizations would skitter across the bottom of the TV screen, and I recall thinking that if they wanted serious donations, they should have shown a puppy. Just one was all it would have taken. It could have been sleeping, its belly full of the malnourished children we’d seen on the previous night’s broadcast, but none of that would have mattered. People who had never before contributed to charity emptied their pockets when a cocker spaniel was shown standing on a rooftop after Hurricane Katrina. “What choice did I have?” they asked. “That poor little thing looked into the camera and penetrated my very soul.”
The eyes of the stranded grandmother, I noted, were not half as piercing. There she was, clinging to a chimney with her bra strap showing, and all anyone did was wonder if she had a dog. “I’d hate to think there’s a Scottie in her house, maybe trapped on the first floor. What’s the number of that canine rescue agency?”
Saying that this was everyone’s reaction is, of course, an exaggeration. There were cat people too, and those whose hearts went out to the abandoned reptiles. The sight of an iguana sailing down the street on top of a refrigerator sent a herpetologist friend over the edge. “She seems to be saying, ‘Where’s my master?’” he speculated. “Here it is, time for our daily cuddle, and I’m stuck on the SS Whirlpool!!!”
I’ve often heard that anthropomorphizing an animal is the worst injustice you can do it. That said, I’m as guilty as anyone. In childhood stories, the snail grabs her purse and dashes out the door to put money in the meter. The rabbit cries when the blue jay makes fun of her buck teeth. The mouse loves his sister but not that way. And we think, They’re just like us!
Certain nature shows only add to this misconception,