The Bliss Of Ignorance

Josh MacLeod

Leane stood on the edge of the cliff and watched the seagulls churn the sky. She smiled faintly and the looked down and saw the murky and polluted waters below her. "Damn polluting American pigs!" She snarled, her faint smile gone, and reached into her black leather purse for one of the hard candies she chewed on to relieve stress.

Her doctor had told her that she should calm down and relieve her blood pressure. That was difficult to do when the world was going to hell in a hand basket made by slave labour in Indonesia and the smoke stacks of Corporate America were turning the world into Hell on Earth. She chomped down viciously on the candy and silently vowed to continue her never ending struggle against the scum who were ruining the environment.

With a brisk shake of her head, Leane tossed the rest of her lunch to the ground (The food was all biodegradable and organically grown) and began to walk back to her bicycle. Unknown to her, the candy wrapper drifted downwards and was borne by a slight breeze to the small pile below the cliff Leane had been accumulating for some years now.

The seagull saw the wrapper, swooped down, ate it and reached his expiry date.

Leane looked back in time to see the seagull screech in pain and fall dead into the polluted waters.

"Probably the result of another oil spill." She said coldly and grimly vowed to continue her battles against the pollution-causing scum of America.

- Josh MacLeod (1995?)