A postscript Tonight I sit on a large hunk of plastic and steel soaring at 500 miles an hour over a dark Indian Ocean. Although I don’t know where I am, or how to get home, or even who I sit next to, I have service and attention just a button- a call- a nod- away. I am recognized as a customer on this plane. As a citizen. As an educated person of value and opinion and potential. If I fail to get off this plane, people will ask questions. People will want to know what happened and why. People will make phone calls and issue complaints- demand answers. People- hundreds of people- will care. Outside of this cabin, with its’ artificial twinkling stars and 500 channels of interactive television, sit two billion people stretched out beyond the waters and over the horizon. Two billion people who I don’t know. Two billion people who I don’t care to know. Two billion people who I don’t care about. For if I cared, as I claim I do, why do I not ask the questions? The hard questions. Why do I not, at the least, allow myself to go to the doorstep of the abysmal forgotten pit of my neighbors lives? These neighbors who die each day- one at a time- waiting for rescue. Waiting for hope. Waiting for beauty beyond the desperate suffering; beyond the tormenting pain. Beyond the lonely oppression. Beyond their love-less lives. Pick a continent. Pick an issue. Why does it matter so much to us? Why do we want a designer cause with a private label to fit our personal consciences? Why do we always argue first and- maybe- think about compassionate answers later? Why do we doubt what we see? Why are we so stiff we won’t turn around to look again? Why do we wait? Who are we waiting on? Why do we hope someone else will do it? Why do we not want to do it alone? Why do we not want to do it? Why do we wait? Why do we pray from the comfort of our bedrooms? Why do we flip the channel again? Why do we continue as if we heard nothing? Why do we not want to listen? Why do we not want them to speak? Why do we not question? Why do we not cry? Why do we not scream? Why do we sit so quietly? Why do I think these thoughts and go to sleep? Why will I eat again and again. And again. Never quite hungry, but always ready for more? Why do we wait? Why am I afraid? Why is my fear so much greater than my love? Why does my life not reflect my mouth? Why does my heart not reflect my soul? Why does my head keep holding onto a world it does not own? A world it does not live… Why aren’t you moved yet? Why do we wait? Why do you argue? Why do you cry? Why do you feel so small? Why do you shrink back? Why do you forget? Why does yesterday and tomorrow not matter- except for you? Except for me…? Our hearts cry in lonely solitude for a break to the rhythm of dismissal…. For our souls know. The voice of old cries in the night. The voice of the deep crawls through my thoughts… through my forgotten dreams… through my weakness… through my uncertainty… through my false clarity…through my desperate grasping for more and more and more… Now. Now! Now! There is no more time. For today, the deep has called. Time has spoken from the place where it began. Surrender. Walk off the runway. Walk through the crowd. Leave the instructions behind. They are here. They are there. They are waiting. Where am I? Where are you?