Once, walking the path along the bay, I saw a family of ducklings paddling after their mother. I stopped and watched as they neared the water’s edge. For a moment, I felt chosen by a greater force, as if a hand of light had reached through the clouds to reveal this miracle of life specifically to me. I couldn’t take my eyes off those baby ducks, their small hearts beating new and wild in the world.

Out of nowhere a crow descended and snatched one of the babies. It didn’t look real, but it was: the duckling in that black beak, in the air, then slammed against a rock until it went limp, the ruthlessness of nature horrifying me.

The office churns on around me. The receding water reveals: the bones of fish, rotting wood, empty chip bags, bright crushed soda cans. It feels good to see ugliness on the otherwise immaculate campus, where everything is polished to a sheen. The truth of the world bares itself when the tide goes down: devoured, used, rotting.