Busting the Beautiful Cage: Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan on Nikumaroro Island

It seems we were trapped forever in 2020, with so many people stranded within their houses, their rooms, their studies. So many didn't make it. But it is from this vantage that we survivors may relate to Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan's desperation on Nikumaroro Island: severed from the world, watching storms and carnivorous crabs stalk their tiny camp like viral hosts. Similarly to the forsaken aviators in BUSTING THE BEAUTIFUL CAGE, we have the choice, the chance, to live, if even for a month, a week, a day. And we take that chance for all it's worth. Oblivious to our plight, we stand naked on the beach, open-mouthed and laughing in sluices of rain, kicking the cast of murderous crabs beneath the hammers of surf.