The Pipe
There is a man who is spending his entire savings warning humanity that the world will end on May 21, 2011. Well, if he is in the mood for some bathroom reading in between his prayers then I'd recommend The Pipe to him. He'd feel right at home in this story.
The Pipe is all about death and decay -- both of nature and man. What's causing it? Selfishness, greed, disrespect of nature? Is it just that God is ready to pack it in? The shepherd seems to think so -- and the bailiff -- Meliton -- suffering under the weight of poverty -- wants God to hurry up.
One feels suffocated in this gloomy story in the middle of a copse. The tale outlines the disappearing of the forests, animals, birds, fish -- just like our current world where the bees and frogs are dwindling and the rain forests are being destroyed.
But The Pipe is not Greenpeace literature -- or a cautionary fable about environmental degradation like Dr. Seuss's classic The Lorax -- this is a story about the misery of man.
Man is getting cleverer. Maybe too clever. And as the shepherd points out -- what's the use of being clever when the birds are gone?
In our own times -- we are also becoming cleverer -- as we get wired to a virtual world -- but like the peasants and the nobility of Chekhov's day -- we are becoming weaker -- more spoiled -- more disconnected from our surroundings.
The Pipe is a check up on the landscape of the earth as well as the landscape of the soul -- and they are both in poor health.
A very current story indeed.
Seems as if nothing has changed. We are suffering from a lack of purpose. We were placed on earth to perfect God's creation and what a mess we've made.
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