The archives

Nea Karlsson: Rebel With a Cause

Nea skates over to Falls City park, searching for her friend Casey but doesn't find her. She skates to her home and her mother says she's in The Narrows handing out water bottles with a grassroots organisation calling themselves Life Drop. "Life Drop? The Narrows? What's Casey gotten herself into this time?" "You know Casey, probably some save-the-bees organisation that just doesn't understand the way the world works." No such thing as the American Dream anymore, only the Corporate Dream and the Corporate Dream and the American Dream ain't the same thing. She's read about The Narrows... supposed to be the poorest and most polluted district in Falls City. Maybe it's because it's the poorest that it's also the most polluted. Maybe it's because of corrupt yet legal policy against those who can't afford the big lawyers to change or challenge the corrupt policy. Paper mills. Car factories. Toxic waste facilities. All dumping on the land and water. A few politicians set the dollar price to poison the environment and an entire community of blue-collar workers pay the price, the ultimate price, with their health and lives. Nothing new. Same old, same old. The fat-cats and bureaucrats keep doing it because they can. So long as there's money to be made in poisoning the world, someone will be there to make it. That's everywhere, every city she ever read about, and Falls City ain't no exception. She used to care, but then there was too much to care about, and so she decided it was easier not to care anymore. Funny how that happened. All she cares about now is skateboarding and finding the impossible place to tag. Whatever, maybe she'll find something to tag in The Narrows. She skates down the street following Upper Falls River toward the poorest and most polluted district in Falls City.

"What are you and the mums doing?" Nea approaches Casey and several middle-aged women handing out water bottles and cases to local residents. Casey turns to Nea. "What are we doing? Anything we can to help." Nea laughs and nudges Casey. "Let's go to the park." Casey nudges her back. "Not today Nea, this is important... another day..." Nea watches Casey and the other women handing out water to the poor. "How many kids at home? Three? Okay, here's a dozen bottles. Four? Okay, take an extra container." "When is our water going to be safe?" "The hell if I know." "Is it dangerous to shower? To do the laundry?" "How bad is the water?" "Pretty bad. The water is killing our children. We need a centre to treat the poisoned." Nea listens to all the talk with horror and disbelief. She's never really had to think about something as basic and essential as water and now... she's thinking about water... polluted water... and the poor in her city. They're saying it's the worst case of Minamata disease in the country. She doesn't know what that is... Minamata... but it sounds bad, real bad. "What's Minamata?" Casey looks upset or disturbed as she hands out another container of fresh water to a resident. "It's what happens when people are poisoned with mercury." Nea sighs, feels for the residents, but knows shit happens and there's just not much you can do about it. "We can't save the world, Casey? What's a few containers of bottled water gonna do?" Casey freezes and gives Nea a look she doesn't quite understand. It's a moment before she responds. "Yeah, well, maybe we can't save the world, Nea, but we can sure as hell make it a little bit better, and that's good enough for me."

"Can't save the world but we can make it a little bit better and that's good enough for me." Nea thought about Casey's response the entire night as she researched the horrors of the Minamata disease. Deterioration of motor skills. Walking and speaking degenerate. Random convulsions. Paralysis. Children born with twisted limbs. All permanent side-effects of mercury poison. Mayor cut a deal with a beverage company. They rerouted good, healthy water from a clean lake for a bottled water facility that bought the rights to the water and connected The Narrows to the old river system. They thought no one would notice. They thought it wouldn't be that bad. They thought wrong. When mothers began losing their unborn children and everyone began to lose their hair fifty-thousand residents began to notice. They noticed, they complained, but no one did a thing. Business as usual. Nea takes a deep breath and releases it slowly. She's never really had to think about water and now that's all she's thinking about.