Jonathan C. Lewis
Author and Artist
It’s A Shame
A fictional travelogue; four minutes to read.
Dear Ben and Brittany,
The day is quiet, calm. Not the slightest breeze. The only sounds coming from the vast plain in front of me are the armies of buzzing insects marching through the fields. I can see for miles and miles.
I’m like a Roman sentry. Part of the garrison at Volubilis on the Roman Empire’s North African border. The commanding view from my outpost means I can prevent any potential invaders from pulling off a surprise attack.
Volubilis is a two-day march from Fez, Morocco. This ancient fort must have felt far, very far, from Rome. And yet the entirety of the known world’s problems and puzzlements would have affected my life just as the modern world’s troubles and travails impact us.
In comparison to most civilians, a Roman soldier had it pretty good. For one thing, he wasn’t a slave, he was a Roman citizen. For another, he ate regularly, drew a salary and earned a pension.
Sightseeing is seeing history up close. A kind of reconnaissance mission to get beyond remarkable monuments, exotic meals and picturesque people.
Remember that time we were in a Kenyan Maasai village and the men felt sorry for me because I had only one wife? Of approximately 1200 societies globally, only fifteen percent practice marital monogamy. Only five percent make getting married a reason for setting up a separate household. Seeing these statistics in action sticks with you.
If you ever get to Volubilis, come early in the morning. You’ll have the place to yourself. Right now, I am seated on a crumbly stone wall, looking through a Roman arch, writing to you.
A minute ago, standing on a rampart, my legs were shaky, head dizzy, bladder overactive. I didn’t see any massing troops but the world’s unseen threats and invisible terrors scare me.
Outwardly, compared to most of the world, our family has it pretty good. We have a refrigerator to keep our food fresh and unspoiled, clothes to wear, a roof on our house. That makes us richer than 75% of the world.
One million people will die this week, mostly unnecessarily. They live without clean water, without healthcare. They are dying from poverty and a dearth of political kindness.
We are richer in other ways too. We can read. A billion people in the world can’t.
Despite radio, TV and social media, three billion people are silenced by repressive regimes. Five hundred million people have a personal life history that includes torture, imprisonment, the pangs of starvation or surviving a war zone. They exist, as Thornton Wilder said, “broken on the wheel of living.”
Like a Roman legionnaire standing a long night watch, my eyes are timeworn, frayed, blurry. I need to stay alert, awake to the phalanx of approaching history. I tried looking away, but indifference comes with a cowardly, corrupting shame.
The world is like an upside-down Roman mosaic—missing fragments, covered in weeds, delicate and difficult to repair. Anyone with a shred of compassion or a commonsense concern for the survival of our species is gasping in disbelief.
I’ll be home soon.
Love, Dad
