A torrent of betrayal trickled through my soul, coiled me with disgust, as if an act of treason to the morality I thought I carried. Reading ‘Small Boat’ by Vincent Delecroix exposed a darkness buried in the subconscious, repressed but clamoring, pleading its way to revelation, a moral decay plotting escape from isolation, seeking expression.
And in our encounter, I’ve met a part of me that is vile, rotten, inhuman – so abhorrent and nauseating. This realization, this revealing, felt like a confession; crammed in a dim, claustrophobic cube, seeking reconciliation with humanity, seeking to lacerate the apathy. I didn’t like what it revealed. I wanted to annihilate the darkness inhabiting my soul. Normatively, I recognize that what she did was wrong – instilling false hope that rescue is en route, assuming that it’s just a matter of time before the boat drifts to English waters, and ultimately, not sending any help at all. And it’s disturbing that I somehow accede to her reasoning, horrified by the fact that I am persuaded by her logic.
They say reading is a mirror, for one's interpretation of the text reveals what lies underneath. But mirror as an analogy underlies something already overt and evident. I disagree.
Less of a mirror, I see reading as an archaeologist. A persona actively digging, carving, unearthing, parts of the self unknown even to the self. It is not a lifeless object that ricochets something already existing. Instead, reading decodes ciphers within uncharted chambers of the self. It makes sense of the abstract, and in the process exposes the malady corrupting mankind: the emphasis on self-interest, glorified isolation, main character syndrome at the cost of community, calculating love, arbitrary romance rules, and all else that fragments humanity.
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞
There is always an impetus, a clamor to debrief, unpack my current reads. But the act of processing and marinating never attains actuation. And the longer I repel performance, the deeper the guilt grows, until shame paralyzes me. But right now, allow me to blurb about ‘Small Boat’ while listening to Salience.
So, Small Boat, I say this with a sigh. It is thought-provoking, not chaotically or messily, because it did not impose an idea or persuade me into an argument – instead, it shattered my self-image and made me question my morals. A darkness that lurks slips into the cracks, and all the more, I get to encounter the evil that I am. My thoughts, my tolerance, my sympathy to the operator. Because really, how is it her fault when she didn’t ask them to leave? Her insipidity and detachment were innately unacceptable– yet, the sum of events couldn’t entirely be pinned on her (me thinks). Because she doesn’t hold the fate of the economy of Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Albania, or Syria, which impelled migrants away from their ‘homeland’. It wasn’t in her hands to command the policy of France to shelter or incentivize stay. And while their salvation rested on whether or not the operator would send help, the genesis of events as to how or why they chose war with the morbid waters of the English Channel was not hers to bear.
She was wrong, but it’s not her fault entirely. Neither is it the migrants' fault. To pin the blame on either or neglects the larger picture, that it is the country’s fault. The war-torn countries marred by a plethora of social ills that force their people astray – they’d rather stake the dangers of the English Channel than stay inside their homes.
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞
And this is where I went wrong, because you don’t teach a drowning person how to swim, nor gamble when the tides waft them to English waters, nor go on mental calculations about what you label as their stupidity. What you do is help them.
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