Fragility

Mary had a surprise. It was in the oven.

Ding.

It was about to come out of the oven.

She stalked through the kitchen on slippered feet. It had to come out of the oven before it got too hot, before it fell.

With bated breath, Mary cracked open the oven door. She winced as the aging hinges protested their movement. But there, perched in the center of the oven, was her creation. “I’ve finally done it,” she thought as the soufflé landed on the countertop to begin its respite. “At least, so far.”

Mary’s admiration was interrupted by a distinct clattering. The shuttering garage door could be heard, even from across the entire house. A car door banged shut and another wooshed open.

She scurried down the hallway to warn her husband. “Roger please!” she whispered hoarsely. “I’ve got a soufflé,” she mouthed.

He stomped over the threshold, continuing the one-sided conversation he had been carrying on with his radio. “Stupid unions…goddamned environmental protection…”

His leather briefcase swung wildly in front of him while his free hand groped to his left. With this hand he grasped the handle of the opened door and cocked his arm. He would slam it, and it would make quite a racket.

“Roger!” she shrieked.

Eyes wide and mouth frozen mid-“agency”, the husband looked up. “Yes, dear?”

“I’ve got a soufflé,” she moaned. “But it should be alright, if you keep it down.”

While her husband tip toed across the foyer, cradling his briefcase, Mary made her way back to the kitchen.

It wasn’t alright. It was, in fact, down.

It was that shriek.

~~~     ~~~     ~~~     ~~~     ~~~     ~~~     ~~~

They did nothing wrong.

7 men have been sentenced to six years of prison time.

They did nothing wrong. Maybe they made a mistake, maybe their actions were not perfectly appropriate to their situation. But there was certainly nothing insidious, nothing evil, nothing heinous lurking behind their reassurances to their community that, despite all the panic, it was highly unlikely that an earthquake would ravage the city and kill its people.

But they were wrong. It was an unfortunate time to be wrong because they soon became embroiled in a scandal that would destroy their scientific reputation and, depending on the result of the appeals process, significantly alter the course of their lives.

It boggles my mind to think of the countless numbers of human beings to have existed on this planet. So many of them led their lives to the fullest possible extent, maybe even the majority. Sure, a lot were not much more than peasants who tilled the soil for hours and hours, day after day. But they lived as long as they could. They found spouses and created and raised children.

A lot died early on, mostly in violent ways. They fought in wars, brawled in bars, sped drunkenly down the highway in their cars. These people suffered a good many stabs to the abdomen or cracks over the head. Maybe they didn’t deserve such nasty, brutish and short lives, but they followed a path that led inevitably to an untimely, gory demise.

But the worst kind of death – social or physical – is the accident. Maybe it isn’t best described as an accident, rather the events that are entirely avoidable, yet unavoidable. How many people’s lives have, throughout the history of the world, been ended by some kind of stupidity completely out of their control? How many quaking innocents have been cornered and beaten by a group of thugs? How many poor, clumsy fools trip in front of a speeding bus, or are born with epilepsy, which causes them to have a seizure and fall in front of a speeding bus, or are just in the proximity of some other doofus who thinks it would be funny to push somebody in front of a speeding bus?

Regardless of personal beliefs, everyone has to believe that this life is the only life a person has on this planet, in this body, in this time, in this situation. And the human body, like spider’s silk, has been demonstrated as being relatively durable and strong. But, ultimately and with all things considered, it is incredibly vulnerable and devastatingly fragile. And still we throw it away for such incredibly useless and trite frivolities.