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do, man,” I declared. “That fish fought the good fight; I’d have let him go too.”
    Gil peered over his shoulder at me. “Hey, I just didn’t want to lose any more line,” he smiled, and we both started laughing. I knew why he did it: we all did.
    The lake was calm again, offering a smooth paddle back to the mainland. Earl sat in the mid-section of Gil and Seth’s canoe as I lay in the dingy being towed behind them, hands clasped behind my head and staring up at the warm blue sky as I wondered whether life would always be this perfect.

Chapter Six
     
     
     
     
    B ack at the camp, everyone was relieved to see us. Gil and Seth skinned the fish on a large rock slab a few feet from the fire. Blood ran off the stone and was swallowed up by a thirsty earth below as though we were appeasing an angry god. Shirtless and huddled around the stone, wielding knives like ancient priests at a sacrificial alter, Gil and Seth seemed to transform before my eyes. Suddenly they were wearing feathered headdresses and loincloths, and had painted faces. I turned away, blaming the vision on whatever we’d smoked out on the island, and began stoking the flames and preparing the pans.
    As dusk set in, conversation around the fire progressed from mellow dinner talk to a confrontation between Earl and Caroline over world issues. Caroline disagreed with him on the necessity of war as the great leveler. Practically every time we had a weekend away, Earl got into a debate with someone on this subject.
    “ Earl,” I said, “we’re not on this again, are we?”
    He smirked, took a sip from his pint, and kept up the discussion with Caroline.
    “ Do you think this’ll lead into his infamous end of the world speech?” I asked Connor.
    “ Is the pope Catholic?”
    It didn’t take Earl long to find the opening he’d been waiting for. I heard Caroline say, “You actually believe we need world wars, famine and disease??? You think we need these things, things that extinguish the human race?”
    “ Do you really think that with all of the pollution we pump into the atmosphere and the theft of the planets natural resources, it wouldn’t fight back to rid itself of the disease that’s killing it? Like a surgeon cutting out the cancer.”
    John attempted to speak but Earl raised his hand and continued.
    “ With all of the new diseases popping up, earthquakes, forest fires and tornados, you have to see that the world is actually fighting back. It’s karma. There are too many people on the planet with no respect for what it can do for us. What it is doing for us. Nature’s a bitch, 300 million killed off in the 20 th Century from smallpox alone, the Spanish Flu wiped out nearly 100 million during the Great War, the Black Death, 75 million over the course of 300 years.” He paused again, hand still up. His index and forefinger started to wiggle. “Jake, set me up with a butt.”
    Jake threw a cigarette to him without missing a beat. Earl lit it and continued. “And we’re not much better, nearly 60 million people killed during the second world war. Horrible statistics - but necessary? You bet! With fewer people to shelter and feed, the planet isn’t hit as hard by mankind’s abuses. Right now there are too many people on earth, so you can expect to see one of two things happening soon: war or global retaliation. Read Malthus man, it’s all there in black and white . My money’s on war. Look at the history of the world – did you know that in all of recorded history there have been only seven days of peace? And that’s seven in total , combined, taking an hour here, a few minutes there. War has been controlling population ever since we learned to fight.
    “ So in answer to your question, Caroline: yes, we do need world wars. Imagine the damage the planet would unleash if we didn’t have them. The unfortunate thing about a world-wide war right now is that most life on earth would be devastated. That’s why we never see countries