66
" The Bad-Moon Girls appear on days when Dad doesn't know what he is thinking, or even if he is thinking. Those days can weigh less than air or more than an ocean. He has blank thoughts without feelings, followed by heavy feelings without thoughts. Time means nothing. A minute ticks by in the same rhythm as an entire day. He can look at one thing for an hour without moving. He can see me or Victor without knowing we are in the room, peering at us as if we are underwater, moving in warped slow motion.
After the nothingness, he wades through a stagnant lake with the moon reflected in it, waiting for the daylight to rinse it away. He almost drowns while time ticks on. The sky is filled with black milk. No stars. Two days can pass before he surfaces.
Dad's brain-switch, the focusing thing the rest of us switch on to make things look better, is a bit buggered. Those are his words, not mine.
The Bad-Moon Girls whisper evil in Dad's ear, the sort of women who would set their own mother on fire if there were no other way to light their cigarettes. The trouble is, they can follow. Just as we were setting off to Clacton last autumn, they hunted him down. "
― Joanna Campbell , Tying Down the Lion
70
" Right now in this world, a child is dying from an ailment because its family cannot afford to buy charcoal for boiling water.
Right now in this world, a girl is striving to find firewood from trees that no more exist, and water from sources that are poisonous.
Right now in this world, a boy is out fishing in a lake rich with inedible species.
Right now in this world, a mother is drowning in heavy rainfall, to save her belongings.
Right now in this world, a man has lost his dignity because all his eff orts to save have been wiped away to poverty by unforeseen calamities.
Right now in this world, a family is starving because drought has invaded their once fertile land.
Right now in this world, a nation is planning for refugee status due to adverse climate conditions.
Right now in this world, you have a choice to help alleviate environmental problems caused by humankind. "
― Gloria D. Gonsalves , The Wisdom Huntress: Anthology of Thoughts and Narrations