Derrick Jensen - Lives Less Valuable

The dream is always the same. It begins with the slightest feeling of unease, as from a misplaced sound or a sudden silence: the too-quick stopping of birdsong or the scolding of squirrels. Then from Malia a moment of hesitation, that inevitable aversion to the warning she knows she must heed, that resistance to acknowledging an unavoidable reality. Each time in the dream she pays attention not to the sound nor to the silence, but to the red-tinted lettuce leaves in her garden, and to her weeding. She pays attention to her niece Robin, and notices sunlight glinting off the twelve-year-olds dirty-blonde hair. She looks at the ground and notices the stems and leaves from yesterdays weeding lying shriveled in the brown dirt.

And then again she hears a sound from the forest across the pasture. Finally, always too late, she realizes that something really is wrong. Finally, always too late, she says, quietly yet firmly, Robin, inside.

Always the response: When I finish this row.

Now.

Just a minute.

A moments inattention. In the battle between composure and panic, so often indecision wins out, spurred by a strange desire to appear calm when everything inside wants out, and everything outside is falling apart. The desire to remain asleep, comfortable, warm, hidden safely from what you know. A belief that if only you can remain steadfast in the dailiness of your activities, your world will never collapse. And so again Malia pushes aside the sounds, stoops to pick up a basket at her feet. She tells herself not to run, not to let even herself know anything is wrong.

She straightens, and hears another sound, then more silence. At last she understands, and in so understanding realizes the unforgivable stupidity of having ignored the warnings for so long. She starts to shout, Run, Robin! Run!

But the words never come. They are always too late. There is a shot, or silence, and an explosion of blood, red on the dirty-blonde back of Robins head.

Always in the dream the basket falls, slowly, and Malia runs, slowly, for the house. Gunshots. So slow she can almost see the bullets. More shots, like fireflies in the distant forest. Closer, Robin lies in the brown dirt, the back of her head gone, her skull open, jagged like a broken glass.

The doorframe splinters from gunfire. Bullets whine above her head.

Into the house. And then the voices. Always the voices. Her parents, Dujuan, Dennis, Simon, Ray-Ray, and now Robin. Run, they say, Run. More gunshots. Men approaching. Room to room she runs in this dream, each room smaller than the last, until she squeezes into rooms the size of coffins, rooms the size of desk drawers, rooms the size of matchboxes. She hides from the men, hears the gunshots behind her, and always the voice of Robin, Run, Malia, run.

The dreams. A moments inattention. A single moment.

Dear Anthony,

I hardly know where to begin. Would I miss you be appropriate? After all these years, finally I write. After everything thats happened, somehow it seems unfair for me to suddenly reappear in your life, especially when our contact will necessarily be one way. I can write to you, but you, for obvious reasons, cant write back.

I hope you remember our relationship as fondly as I do, focusing not so much on its endingwhich at the time seemed unbearably tempestuous to me, but now seems little more than a summer breezeas on the time that made up its heart. Our relationship. It wasnt my longest, but it remains my dearest, and by a long stretch my most passionate.

I hope that after all this time you can still decipher my handwriting. For that matter I hope youre still living at the same place. I went to the library and looked you up on the Internet. Your address was the same. Im glad for that, because that way I can picture you there, and I can picture us.

I can see you right now. You just walked to the corner to get the mail. Its hot, and already the tall grasses are turning yellow and brown. Leggy sweet clovers cascade with blossoms, and the vetch has just started to add its purple to the riot. Its dry. You kick up traces of dust with each step, and gravel rolls beneath your feet. As you walk, you dont look at the first neighbor on the left, because you never much cared for him. He never liked you either (or me, if you remember), so today when he sees you coming he busies himself a shade too quickly under his hood, fiddling with the carburetor so the two of you dont have to acknowledge each other. I remember these things. I remember so much about our time together. Little things, like this.

I guess the kids in the next house down dont play foursquare anymore, unless something has gone very wrong developmentally. Most likely theyve graduated to basketball and football. Or maybe by now theyve graduated altogether, and dont live there anymore.

The dogs are with you of course. Two. They were puppies then, and now they must be very old. Surely theyre walking more sedately than before, maybe arthritically. I hope theyve not died. One way or another theres been too much death these last few years. Theirs would add too much to the weight.

You reach the mailbox. A strange envelope. A typed address, and no return. You check the stamp: yes, first class, so its not junk mail. The postmark. You stop and stand in the middle of the street, wondering who the hell you know in Odessa, Texas.

Well, no one now. Im mailing this on my way out of town. Im sure you understand why I cant say where. Ill let you know when Im ready to leave the next place. Several months ago I moved here, on the run from the latestand worstof the deaths. I needed some relief. The first day I asked a woman at a restaurant, What do people do for fun in Odessa? She said, They move away. Ive saved a little money, so its time for me to go.

You dont know how long Ive wanted to write you, or come visit you. My family is all dead now. All of them. I dont have anyone anymore.

And I really dont have you. I did once, and I feel stupid for giving you away. I know thats not how I saw it at the time, nor maybe how you see it now, yet thats how I see it. But even that isnt so simple. If wed stayed together I dont know if I would have followed this path, and despite it all, Im not sure any other path would have been appropriate.