Photo credit: Greenpeace
A man sends me a message, he’s writing about deep sea mining
I’m sitting in a hospital at the time, waiting
My husband is on a bed, his face stitched with pain half-masked by that stoicism men are taught at an early age
I am trying to be patient, as is expected of a patient’s next of kin
Only one visitor is allowed, we are informed by a sign on the wall
Along with another sign warning we will not be dealt with if we are abusive
I am sitting in what appears to be a nurse’s station, where once a nurse would have looked out over the people waiting, maybe speaking words of comfort and care
Now it’s empty, except for the only chair I’m sitting on, which is stuck in the station, so I am not at my husband’s bedside
Answering WhatsApp messages will stop me from shouting
The man wants to know how we can deep sea mine without (a) damage and (b) by sharing the proceeds equitably
I say, it’s the wrong question, because it assumes the necessity of sending machinery to the dark sea floor, light years away, to bring up nodules, scattered like potatoes we are told, just there for the taking, full of the materials we need for an energy transition, and it will all be fine
I imagine the man sending messages to me is young – perhaps he does not know the other meaning of the word ‘nodule’, does not appreciate its full metaphorical field
Nodules can present themselves in lungs and glands, nodules can warn of invasions, of defeat, of catastrophe
Suppose Jamaica had lithium instead of bauxite, the message asks, are you saying we should not mine it?
I am saying that, I reply
I see my informant is typing
I will not wait for his reply. I send: Our model of development is exploit, destroy, move on. I am quoting someone but I forget who. Unless that changes, the debate about where to exploit is moot
? he sends back
The doctor comes with the results of the tests. It’s not a nodule or worse. I put away my phone. He’s in pain, I say to the doctor, about my husband. This is because I know his face
Painkillers and anti nausea meds are promised via the IV line, but it stops working, and no one comes to fix it. My husband’s wrist swells
I prowl the corridors looking for matron or an occupied nurse’s station. I wonder if shouting ‘Hello?’ will count as abusiveness
Why isn’t there a water cooler?
The doctor – did I mention he is young? – returns and apologizes for the non working IV line, and in my head I see the blowout of BP’s Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 – we hardly know those letters stand for British Petroleum, not anymore. The well poured oil into the sea for five months. Did BP apologize? Yeah
From a slide at the public presentation of the Yellowtail Project, oil drilling offshore Guyana, modelling the direction and extent of a spill
The name of the oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico was Deepwater Horizon. Is a horizon something to journey towards? Or a line at the end of things?
Given the blocked IV, the doctor gives me a prescription for the pain meds and I hurry to catch the pharmacy before it closes
I’m grateful to him because he stayed past his shift change to apologize
My phone is on silent, stays in my bag
At home my husband vomits the pain meds and we go back to the hospital. This time, he quickly gets the drugs he needs in the way he needs them.
This time my chair is far away, I can’t see him, but I get up from time to time to look at his face. Now he is sleeping
I see my phone has a voice note. I don’t listen to it
We must have what the West has, the traffic jams, the new phone every year so that if we are in a hospital waiting room we can distract ourselves, we must have houses with rooms that no one ever goes into, jeans that change their shape every year, fluffy beds to sink into and thousand thread count sheets, we must be able to tell our friends we have done Venice or Istanbul
It is our turn to pollute right? Long past time, right?
My husband is okay. We go home. A horizon always moves away, you never get to it. I think of deepwater without nodules, dark deepwater that does not entice the miners . My bed is, I decide, fluffier than necessary
Wow! I’m so glad your husband is Ok. I’m so with you on everything. In my last Substack Earth Day I wrote that we must fall in love with the Earth again, like when we were children and had adventures exploring and dreamed of helping animals or others when we grew up. Until the idea of ripping out the guts of our Mother to make some disposable commodity is anathema to us, we stand little chance of maintaining an environment that can sustain us. Thank you for putting in the work and continually updating us.
Every line of this resonated with me! I am SO very sorry that your husband has been sick. This reminds me of sitting in a nurses station two years ago when my own husband had what turned out to be a minor stroke! I had that same surreal feeling...WhatsApp is a crazy (useful) distraction sometimes. NB It was the Deepwater Horizon incident that prompted me to start writing my blog, in the summer of 2010...