$FILE=dr_belto.txt                                 Jan-5-87

       A Letter from the Diary of Dr. Eric Belton

Jan-1, 1am

I have awoken from despite the sedative that
Dr. Saunders had given me, everyone else is
aboard-ship is asleep.

She must have given me a very minimal dosage,
or I would not be wake now.  I must set my
thoughts down, so that perhaps I too may sleep.

   1) the events of the flood

I am a pediatrician at the children's hospital
in Mexico City, in my 3 years of practice since
graduating I have seen too much to leave my
conscience undisturbed.

My hands do not shake -- Alice says they will
one day. I wonder if the pain will one day
carve my face the way it has done hers.  It is
hard to believe that she is only 10 years older,
she looks 50 not 40.  At any rate my mind wanders.

I had a deep forboding when we were called out
to the peninsula on the emergency call; can there
be such a thing as clairvoyance after all?

I still feel drousy, when I am tired I always
begin seeing ghosts, and become quite
metaphysical. Oh, yes.

The conditions of the flood were much worse than
we feared. Even with the three other boats we had
our work cut out for us.  We would continue to
shuttle between every small island that protruded
through the new surface of the lake.  Most houses
(if I can call them that) came loose from their
foundations and were floating; Father Valesquez
said it was a miracle, I was too tired to argue
or would have pointed out that if was a miracle
that the dam would not have broken in the first place.

   2) our efforts to save as many as possible.

We were in constant radio contact with the other
boats, and they found much the same things as we
did.  The typhoid was unbelievable the conditions
must have been particularly bad in this area.

So simple a precaution, the politicians play their
little game of world domination.  The damned
companies don't care as long as they get their
precious oil.

   3) the poly-clinic

It was the boat that Art had taken this morning,
Father Valesquez was was with him.  They actually
expected to find the hospital above water.

I remember my geology course from college, some
old fossil for the instructor, can't remember
his name -- just "old fossil." He couldn't
keep on the subject for more than 3 minutes,
sometimes the stories got to be interesting,
and then he would remember where he was and
start back on the "history of the Earth,
which is the folding and faulting of the
Earth -- a dynamic earth..."

I still hear his raspy old voice. And someone
asked him about The Flood; I took him to heart
in his answer (for I would have sworn that
he was a bible toting good ol' boy).

"There have been many floods in the past,
and almost all of them wiped out most animal,
plant and human life. If you refer to the
Noachian flood, then surely you realize
that it is more of a moral tale than a fact."

The student mumbled something, and the old
fossil wandered off on another account of
how the same question had come up when he
was at Yellowstone Park.  And

I have wandered too.

How can I describe it. If it had been during
the second world war, or if I had been the
Dr. Reux of Albert Camus's The Plague,
perhaps it would have been different.

But I think not.

A quarter of the children were alive;
strangely enough most of them were infants
but Alice said that was usual, they seemed
to hang on better for some reason.

Valesquez piously mumbled something about
a miracle. I should have looked at his face,
I should have seen that he was in as much
pain as I was.

But I could only lash out blindly.

I don't know what I said; but I can guess.
I the "compassionate" humanist, I should have
tried to help him -- as though the young
Dr. Belton could help so wise and venerated
a priest. But, no in all honesty I struck
out against his God. And the deity by
which so many live not being handy, I
struck out at his representative.

I don't know that I was violent,
I don't remember anyone having to
pull us apart. I probably just shook my hands
at him in the helpless furor that
I now realize we all felt.

   4) the events of the death of Father Valesquez

We first knew that Father Valesquez was
missing at about 7pm I had gone over to Art's
boat to appologize.  We were docked by the
hospital's library (which was now at water
level and not the second floor).

When Father Valesquez did not answer,
I thought of mumbling some appology through
the door.  I turned the knob, and of course
found his cabin empty.  Our search for him
was short, Alice seemed to know where he
would be.  Indeed he was in the chappel of
the hospital. He looked in peace, almost as if he
was just resting.

I remember cursing God that he had claimed
another life sacrificed to his loving bosom.
I cried as we went back to the boat, and
I recall thinking that it was silly that
the other's would think I was crying for
having attacked Father Valesquez,

but in fact I cried for the injustice of
the flood happening at all. That and the
children of the clinic.


So, here ends my entry. I do not think that
people can waste away from away from a sort
of philosophical "wanting of the soul."
(As did the priest in Albert Camus' "The Plague"
nor do I think that is what Hugo was thinking
of when Inspector Javert destroyed himself in
"Les Miserables.")

I know too that for most people they do indeed
live in quiet desparation as Hemingway himself
must have not only realized, but done as well.
So, I can only think that Father Valesquez
died not from the water, but from a lack of
hope.  The very lack that I often feel --
and I not having a God to comfort me, do not
have any real reason for living -- perhaps it
really is cowardice that keeps me from ending
it all, perhaps I simply have not lost all
hope. Someday I may find out. Even as an
athiest, I can only hope that Father Valesquez
has found his God.

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