In A Whipray Name

More people come to the zoo in warmer weather. As the ice thaws, as molecules begin to move, people begin to move. In fluid motions, they drip along the sidewalk, they find their way through the zoo to the opening exhibits.

At the visitor's center

They've told me

Otis will be free

In a couple weeks

As I was researching for today's topic, I found the creepier side of the zoo:

http://blog.pittsburghzoo.org/

Webcams. The invasion of privacy. Animals are being watched not only in person, but through technology. Big Brother. The age of surveillance and numbers.

When I was flying and being screwed over for even thinking of flying this past week, I kept thinking about what an awful experience it is. How it feels so unnatural. How the air is stale and while flying I feel a cold dry sweat on the plane. My right ear is slow to pop and I can barely hear anyone out of that side for a day after the flight. But really, what is flying and what makes it such a pain?

1. Flying is a form of checking for citizenship.

Why do we accept spending money on something so expensive? Why is flying rather than taking a bus, or should I say, why is high speed travel any different from an automobile? It is a chance for someone to look at your ID, it is a chance to filter illegal immigrants. Border control. Air control. Controlling everything. Why are we okay with being rubbed down, patted down, and asked if we like to take things from strangers?

2. If your flight leaves without you, it is very often your fault.

Two minutes to run to the terminal in a connecting flight? A physically impossible feat to breach? Your fault. A flight leaving early for a reason unprovided by your air carrier? Your fault. "You'll be able to get a hotel voucher when you arrive in Salt Lake City." Upon arrival to Salt Lake City, the terminal is closed. No one to ask to get a hotel voucher, no promised accommodations given. Your fault. So stubborn you sleep in the airport anyway. I person waxing the floor asks you to sit up so he can wax underneath your feet.

3. Being identified as a number.

This one's pretty familiar to me. Undergraduate college, for one. Nearly everything. As well as when I wrote prisoners at the Appalachian Prison Book Project. I always felt deep regret at the inmates who didn't write their ID number when requesting a book. Their name is nothing to our society within those walls. They are accounted for by their number, and while I personally only have to think of being a number lately in terms of air-flight, I feel a remnant of that feeling of insignificance.


Flying is a demeaning, abusive thing, and I'm late in starting to understand what fresh air really means. What sea salt and the smell of an aquarium, that salty, algae, green smell, can do for me. I feel alive. I feel happy. I feel like nobody can keep me from walking around, from trapping anyone just as they did every time we landed.

I'm looking at the hands-on exhibit of the white-blotched River Stingray and a Leopard Whipray.

This animal is another favorite of mine, and I'm not sure why. I remember these animals being feared after the 2006 death of Steve Irwin, and while I do think that it's so sad for a man who respected the research and discovery animals so much to die at the stinger of one, (as if I need to remind you of what I think) there's nothing malicious in an animal defending itself.

The de-stingered animal is soft, slimy. A little "nasty" to touch, as my friend says. As visitors touch this beautiful animal, as this is a thing the zoo has allowed, I wonder how it really feels to the animal (and I will return when I have some more time and ask an attendant what this happens). I wonder why this is a thing at all, to be rubbed down in front of an audience. To be patted down. Is it invasive or welcomed?

***

A little kid climbs under the built-in tunnel and pops his head through the looking glass. The human as a stingray. To be pet as a stingray. Is the whipray watching us or are we watching it? The leopard print it beautiful, meaningful, like every little spot is a center to another universe. It doesn't have a name posted anywhere. There is nothing posted on the internet about either animal's name, nothing that I can find even as I am internet-technology-born.

Have they simply become numbers?