For once in my fishy life, this post isn’t going to be about me. It’s going to be about how I despise the humans even more after what I overheard in a conversation between Owner and her human friend today. Oh wait, it is about me…
Owner and her human friend were talking about a group of disabled humans who were residing in a rehabilitation centre, humans who weren’t born perfect. Instead, they were born with special needs. Even though they were provided skills and education, these humans were discriminated by society. Their surroundings outside the institution weren’t properly built for them, and they were constantly fighting for their independence, desperately trying to live freely without the need to depend on other fellow humans.
And the society of humans made it even more difficult for these disabled humans to even move out of their dwellings. No special ramps, allocating apartments located at lower ground floors (no lifts to get to LG, only stairs! How did one expect a wheelchair bound human to ascend and descend a flight of stairs?) There was even a case cited by Owner’s friend that one of the special humans were told by a taxi driver that he had to charge her 30 dollars just for a 3km journey, reason being that her condition and wheelchair were a burden to him i.e. waste of his precious time and troublesome. grr…! If only I were a human instead of a minute fish, I would hunt down that cabbie and bludgeon him to a pulp!
This was apalling. Were not the superior beings of the humans, the ones that ruled the country, doing anything to make this easier for these special humans?? I understood from Owner that the superior humans were in fact assisting this particular group of human ones but it didn’t seem enough. If anything, these people should be prioritised, not forgotten. Stowed away in institutions which other humans hardly knew about, with meagre living conditions and minimal allowances, it was disheartening. There were only a bunch of them who were truly independent.
I managed to sneak a peak at Owners computer screen. There was a picture of owners human friend with a group of her disabled friends. What struck me as amazing was that these wonderful people had amazing smiles, sincere and without any hint of bitterness or anger. They seemed to have developed an immunity against the world and its ways. I wished I could smile like that, but I was too deep in my own world to ever feel completely weightless and happy..I was far too bitter.
Later in the day, Clarence told me that the common perception of disability, and more particularly of people with disabilities, had resulted in a general lack of understanding of their real needs, desires and aspirations. Instead they were usually seen as being helpless or needy, objects of pity and charity rather than being deserving of equal rights and opportunities.
It seemed that the disabled faced major problems and disadvantages on all forms of transport and in the built environment and there wasn’t any immediate action being taken to rectify this situation. Instead the superior humans spent their precious time on earth bickering amongst those in power rather than actually contributing to the greater good of their people. Clarence was punching in his own digits in anger as he spoke to me.
The whole scenario was sad. And pathetic.
I wondered if the able humans, who were now currently fit and well, knew that it was crucial to prepare and make available all the facilities for the disabled because as they grew older in perhaps twenty or thirty years from now, many of them may be disabled through illness, disease, or old age. I guess they wouldn’t really know for sure unless they experience it for themselves.
These humans, they weren’t really very bright at all, as they so often claimed they were.
Even Idiota Schmidiota paled in comparison compared to them.
