Our fish and loaves

It is written in the Bible that Jesus performed a miracle where he fed five thousand people from five loaves of bread and two fish. There was a time when I thought that such stories were historical events; many members of Christendom still believe them to be, notwithstanding how illogical they seem. However, later I would view them as metaphorical.

The story came to my mind after I made a visit to the Stabroek Market fish section earlier this week. It had been months since I braved the bustle to experience the damp concrete structure, ripe with the odour of ocean life. The fish market was almost empty. There were about four vendors and each of them had little to offer. Usually that had never been the case at that time in the morning. It was peculiar that most of the fish stands were unoccupied and silence had replaced the usually loud calls of vendors begging one to buy.

I enquired about the emptiness and scarcity of fish from the vendor from whom I purchased. She suggested that the drilling for oil was chasing the fish away and that soon they would have no fish to sell. The vendor next to her joined in to support her.