Why Friends Never Take Me To See "Old Yeller" (Animal Welfare in general)

Member Name: 29th_Candidate

Product:	Animal Welfare in general
Date:	18/05/02 (52 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Only noticeable or appreciable during drought seasons...

Disadvantages: Finding a way to transport the water from the viewing area to the drought conditions without causing flashfloods...

While scuba-diving off of Virgin Gorda, (one of the British Virgin Islands) a couple of years ago, I happened upon a colony of beautiful and exotic looking "Conch" shells, one of which I wanted to take home with me. When I picked it up, I thought its previous owner had abandoned it for larger quarters. After taking my boat back to the dock, while rinsing my gear, I noticed movement in the shell. The little conch inhabitant must have suddenly become aware of his strange new surroundings, and had shuffled to the front entrance of his dry-docked, concentric-spiral of a home to advise me of his displeasure over this recent development.

(To appreciate my anecdote, you must take a few seconds to visualize this little guy: Conches are soft-bodied shell-dwellers that look like ping pong ball-sized versions of hermit crabs. They take in the world through two very animated and expressive, externally-mounted eyes. The comically disproportionate size of their huge, "Looney-Tune" eyes, to their soft, defenseless little bods, lends them a "Cookie-Monster" or "Kermit the Frog," muppet-like demeanor and its accompanying "personality.")

Prior to this instance, I had not ever seen a living conch before. The earnest intensity that registered in this upset little homeowner's peepers, took me by quite by surprise. Having been on the "bureaucratic" receiving end of government-generated circumstances as unrelenting and disheartening as those into which I had inadvertently placed him, I couldn't help but feel pangs of sympathy for his plight. With muted fascination, I picked him up and brought him to eye-level intending to establish a closer rapport.

As is typically the case with animals and small children I encounter, this fellow immediately sensed the disarming immaturity my personality seems to radiate. This apparently quelled any initial fear of me he might have experienced, as h
e did not even reflexively retreat back into his shell, as one might have expected. Instead, his little eyeballs seemed to look my face over with the same bemused curiosity with which I studied his.

After a moment or two of exchanging worlds, "we" arrived at an unspoken resolution. I would transfer him to a comparable or better shell and return him to his colony, (which happened to be on my way back to Tortola,) if he'd abide my desire to take home the shell he currently inhabited. His eyes seemed to convey an expression of cautious assent to my wordless proposal (conches are known to migrate to other shells on occasion.) His residual tentativeness seemed to imply that he would remain uneasy until he had actually witnessed me uphold my end of the bargain. I mentally assured him I would.

I proceeded in earnest to fulfill my end. I picked out a comparable shell with a roomier "master bedroom" than the one he'd be leaving. I then knelt down & began to gently "pour" him into his new home, but abruptly stopped when I suddenly realized if I slipped, or if there was some error in the transfer, his defenseless little bod would end up pancaked on the splintery frying-pan surface of the dock. Relieved at having considered this tidbit of foresight, before, rather than during or after the occurrence of this potential disaster, I moved to the edge of the dock, so that if anything should happen, he would have the transparent-turquoise Carribean ocean-water as his ersatz safety-net.

He seemed to watch me during this entire process, with, what at least in my mind, was an expression of cautious-optimism mixed with hesitant trust. I couldn't help but be a little distracted by this little guy's intensity as I attempted to comply with the terms of "our" bargain. As I again began to transfer my reluctant "business-partner" to his new abode, my attention was suddenly compromised when a girl I h
ad met prior to my dive, approached me from behind to follow up on some plans we had made (but I had forgotten about, yikes,) for after the dive. The suddenness of her approach coupled with the startlingly "intimate" manner in which she had grabbed my bathing suit's "attention," caused me to jostle my transferee during mid-transfer. Despite my never once losing eye-contact, he pitched forward just shy of the vessel into which I was attempting to transfer him, and plopped helplessly into the water below.

As he began the lazy spiral of his inexorable, slow-motion descent bottom-wards, the "swimming pool" clarity of the turquoise water allowed me to maintain unbroken eye contact with him. His two sad, bewildered and imploring muppet-eyes seemed to wordlessly beseech me with one soul-searing question: "Why?" At about one third of his hours-long-seeming descent, a Parrot fish who, unbeknownst to me, had been watching the bungled execution of my transfer attempt, capitalized on the sudden advantage accorded her by my oafish error. With one almost invisibly-quick lightening-strike of a dart, she broke my eye contact with this sad little guy by swallowing him whole. Then she casually swam off in search of dessert.

I remained perched on the edge of the dock, temporarily immobilized, watching with blurred visual acuity as my teardrops broke the surface of the water; marking with their stillness-interrupting shimmer, the now-vacant spot that had, of late, been a scene animated by such flurried, aquatic activity. I became vaguely aware of the soft mind-echo of a female voice attempting to breach the melancholy bubble of my consciousness. It seemed to emanate from the foreign ambience of the living universe that began behind me. "What's the matter?" "Are you okay?"

Two unbroken and stubbornly persistent saline streams continued to streak my countenance with the glistening, sunlit af
tertrails left by their unchecked, ocean-bound escape-route down the arches of my cheeks. Their conspicuous presence and the uninvited heaviness responsible for it, embarrassed me; momentarily overrode my weak impulse to respond to the pretty face behind me. By sheer effort of will, I broke my awkward and unresponsive silence. Addressing the "no one in particular" represented by the vacuous, turquoise tranquility of the indifferent ocean that continued to assault my sightless stare, I asked if she would mind meeting me at the beach in one half hour. I needed to be by myself.

The sudden appearance of a delicately-constructed pair of sun-tanned female arms and knees enclasping me from behind, a shock of sun-bleached blonde hair, cascading its sunlit brilliance in a waterfall of soft-tickling over and down my right shoulder and arm, followed by an adamant, yet soothingly responsive: "Not a chance; I wouldn't think of it, and there isn't anything you could say that would persuade me to leave,"indicated that I was, from that point onwards, this nurturing sea-nymph of a girl's involuntary Siamese twin and hostage, at least until I was shriven of my negligently-incurred burden; confessed clean by my soul's oblational submission to the compassionate renewal offered in the tender affection with which she persisted in showering me.

Nonetheless, I explained to her that if she allowed me to maintain the dignity I believed I could retain by declining to accommodate her compassionate and well-intended request that I confide to her the source of my sadness and regret, I might perhaps, provide a full accounting of it as we got to know each other better. In fact, we did get to know each other better, yet regrettably, I did not provide her with that accounting, and she, graciously, did not persist in bugging me about it. My friend Mark Arnold, was the first person, whose similar compassion for animals encouraged my trust enough t
o relate this story. When I told it to him, he unabashedly wept as I, with no small effort, resummoned and haltingly recounted the details of it to him. Now he's gone. The only other person with whom I'd have felt comfortable communicating the experience, my fiancee Sue, was killed the year before it happened.

It embarrasses me to relate this story, but I don't respect cowardice; least of all when I recognize it in myself. Intellectually, I realize I'm probably way over-reacting to the death of, what amounts to one eigth of an order of a "Conch Fritters" appetizer. Emotionally, I become as sad now, when I envision those bewildered, frightened, upward-staring muppet-eyes, as I did when I helplessly watched them suddenly disappear the first time; perhaps moreso. Perhaps it's just easier for me to focus my emotions on a simple sea creature than have to face the enormity of the grief I feel over the loss of Sue and Mark. Maybe it's just a matter of perspective.

On the other hand, maybe I'm just over-reacting a little bit, or not at all. Some people seem to distinguish between living creatures; "wild" animals and those of the "human" variety, with respect to the trauma of death. I cannot. My experience with both kinds persuades me that each has the requisite wherewithal and sentience to appreciate and understand when the life which they; whether it be the conch, the cat, Mark or Sue, cherished every bit as much as you cherish yours, and I mine, is being taken away from them. I consider our inability to appreciate the desire animals have to live, a failing on our part; not an inability to communicate that desire on theirs.

So why do I feel as embarrassed as I do admitting that I'm emotionally distraught by any one of their deaths? No response required; the question's strictly a rhetorical one.

Thanks For Your Thoughtful Read; Comments Are Appreciated...

--29th

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