vortexes and wumps
they are cutting the humanities program at my study abroad uni
There are moments where reality hits you. The tasks you busied yourself with fall away, and you face it: the ugliness, the rawness, of watching all you care about get shoved closer and closer to the edge of the cliff.
[Societal disaster] and [the end] are concepts that I’ve had in my head since being a little girl. I wonder if many children feel this way? Back then, my end-of-the-world came wrapped up in a ribbon of bitter-flavored “why is our horror movie protagonist opening the door to the obviously haunted house?” and was nested upon a stuffing of “so much was lost” and “the world that emerged after would never be the same.”
My end-of-the-world image falls somewhere between Shel Silverstein’s cover art of a broken sidewalk and The Wump World’s scene where the wumps emerge from their caves to a destroyed world. I always picture it as if I have already lived it: the ickiness of feeling safe amongst disaster, and the shock of a world that changed without you in it. Perhaps that’s why I hate caves. Perhaps that’s why I chased spaces like the UN climate summits.
The rawness of climate grief is not something I let myself feel much anymore, but this is partly to do with the newfound complexity that my end-of-the-world image has gained. It is no longer a neatly wrapped present; it has taken the form of a vortex. The end-of-the-world whips through my hair and curls smoke under doors. I can will it to be if I really want, but most often it arrives unannounced.
Today I shared its company with others. I was sitting in an empty classroom in Universidad Carlos III Madrid (UC3M) and a few of my Spanish friends summoned it. “They are taking away the entire humanities program,” they announced to me. “Did you hear?” (It should be mentioned that we met in the humanities program. We take classes together on sociology, economic theory, and technology policy.)
They said: “The city of Madrid authorized the removal due to budget cuts. The only classes they are keeping are the ones related to AI and digital technology.” “I’m scared what will happen.” “The rest of the school doesn’t think like us, doesn’t learn like us.” “Being in the humanities program teaches us how to think critically about the world.”
“There’s no way to submit a complaint?” I asked. No, it was already decided.
“It’s that all of Madrid’s schools are losing money.”
“Well, at least your Department of Education will still exist,” I added, immediately regretting the sarcasm. They knew what I was referring to.
I looked at one of my friends. He and I are always speaking up in class, but now he was silent. “What are you thinking?” I asked. My mom asks that. I like to ask it. “Everything,” he responded. I could see the vortex in the back of his eyes.
I felt words leave me too, and images came: a broken staircase—kids working in computer server warehouses—the glare of endless Instagram feeds at night—elbows jutting out for protection in the suffocation of a crowd—the migrants on the TV arriving at Spain’s shores—dry rivers—the how-to-maximize-AI book I spotted next to the bros at the coffee shop.
Only the Ivy League universities will have private endowments to feed from.
The other day in my ecology class I had said casually, as if it were a breath of fresh air: “All of us and the careers we choose will have to contend with mass human displacement caused by climate change.” The Duke students looked at me with blank faces, as if this had never occurred to them. As if I had crawled out of a cave to declare the worst. I sighed to myself and paused to hear words run through my mind: “The air is still breathable.” “Look: these are the people that will save themselves.” “If you play it right you’ll be one of them.”
The vortex dissipated from the empty classroom but left my Spanish friends and I with a rawness. We shoved it around like leftover paint and got to talking about autumn leaves. “You know when ice freezes over and creates a shell, mimicking the careful curves and veins of the leaf?” They did. “We don’t get much snow here anymore though.”
We tried again.
“I’m reading this good book”—my friend waved it in the air— “its about fairies. She’s destined to save the world…well, things change…”
We tried again.
“I love when the leaves fall because you can see the birds nests in the empty branches of the tree.”
The vortex disappeared.