“You ever have reason to believe there are actually two worlds, ours, and that one up there. I know it is different, but how different can it really be? We breathe water, they apparently breathe air, but given the facts, we are basically the same. We are just on different sides of the Oxygen Triangle.”

“What is an Oxygen Triangle? Sounds intriguing. Don’t believe I’ve heard of it though. This big push lately about getting prepared for big change, has taken the majority of my time. Do you know Old Starfish? He’s given us an assignment due just after Depth Charge Day. It is supposed to consider how our environment will be changed by the influx of fresh water from what he called disappearing miracles. Something to do with water you can walk on. He claims they keep them up around the poles, the miracles, where none of us care to go as it is like spending time at two thousand meters; dark, cold. I prefer the south pacific, warm… too much tourism I’ll admit, but you get used to it. Actually I have found that being in a crowd is in many ways safer, as there are more choices for trouble to find, than just me.”

“I would be mindful of everything you are made aware of. Remember how our world was ending? Turned out to be a desalinization plant off the coast of North America where the salt levels became so high it was impossible to remain emerged in water. They say you floated to the top like a bloated scuba diver. I’m just saying that predictions often turn out to be, more than less, of what they are made out to be.”

“So, walking on water is just some kind of miracle?”

“No, there are places above where the temperatures get so cold water actually solidifies, like coral. It’s like when we went to San Francisco Bay, and you complained the whole time about the water temperature. We didn’t go there if you remember for the exercise or balmy temperatures. You wanted to see the “Iconic,” bridge. The water temperature was not an issue, until it became one, for you.”

“So explain to me this Oxygen Triangle?”

I don’t know why I put up with him. He has no imagination when it comes to possibility. He believes, it appears, only in the obvious. When I ask which colors he finds most exciting, he says, “Which shade of blue are you referring to.” The water he assumes has a color; blue. He doesn’t even realize the water only appears blue because of the color of the sky in the other world, and even that is an illusion depending upon the refracted particulates in the atmosphere. I don’t think he was paying attention at all during our class on refracted illusionary metaphysical poetry. We discussed all of the possibilities of our environment being altered by another’s. Every action we must remember has an equal and opposite reaction. If your neighbor lets algae get out of control, not only he, but you may suffer the consequences.

Some of my classmates have become so disturbed by the ongoing disrespect in the Other World, they claim we need to get their attention, and the only way to do that is to become more radicalized. “This idealism that has infected us because of our millennium of acceptance, can no longer be used to rationalize the absolute abuse we are being subjected to by the Other World. We must retaliate in an effort to make them aware that co-operation is essential if we are both to survive." Their call to arms I assume.

They go on like that, sometimes for tidal cycles. Some of the more radical advocates have gone so far as to allow themselves to be washed up on shore where they lay on a beach in a bloated form of their former selves, and rot. I have to admit that is being a bit too dedicated to the cause for me. I personally draw the line at submerging towns along the coastal areas where the majority of the neglect occurs. 

We have discussions about how it would be possible to ignore the disintegration of your environment and continue to pretend all is well, when you are the primary source of what is happening.

I know the water is getting warmer. When I was young, I remember having to wait for hundreds of tidal swings before the water was temperate enough to enjoy, without having to resort to using my fat reserves. 

Some of my friends believe we should go back to the old ways. Pray to the old Gods for help; resurrect our past to help us get through these environmental changes. But what good would it do to roust Poseidon from his mythological sleep just to create storms and earthquakes? Who knows, he may bring his brother Zeus, and then we would see a show. But it would only cause more chaos. Even if it did provide a certain spirituality for those in search of obvious answers, it would not solve the problem. 

Our environment is already littered with the obsessions of the Other World. Shipwrecks of greed and opulence litter Our World. No, arrogance and retribution on our part, is not the answer. We need to appreciate the fact that Our World is expanding, while theirs is shrinking. The idealism that claims nature will renew itself, in my opinion, leaves out one important element in the equation, us.

Life can only exist in co-operation with the environment in which it exists. To destroy the very means of our existence begs the question of what those of the Other World are using to rationalize their actions. Perhaps they have become conditioned to the belief that a life after a life, is reason to reject fundamental considerations for those of future generations. Perhaps they simply don’t care to understand. 

The Other World, or what little I know of it, is a beautiful place. I have been told stories about a past before humans, when the waters were clean, all species cooperated in providing suitable conditions for every life form. How does a world like that, become a world that now threatens us?

You could reason, that history would provide answers to questions concerning relationships between life and the environment that supports it, but possibly our Two Worlds, are different. You cannot teach someone that refuses to see, listen, learn.

I have heard stories of red tides, that steal the oxygen from the water drowning the inhabitants of what remained. Stories of Our World once occupying the majority of Both Worlds. Dozens of stories founded on purposeful ignorance that can come to only one conclusion, extinction. There are two worlds, and it may take the abolition of one, to provide the certainty for survival of the other.

I would advise those of the Other World to say a prayer to Poseidon. Although he is of contemptuous spirit, he is also pragmatic. He believes we are all capable of change when we are forced to accept it. Most often however, it is by then, too late.