Jurassic Farce

Homage to Catalonia

ne even had time to think a little. I remember wondering whether I was frightened, and deciding that I was not. Outside, where I was probably in less danger, I had been had sick with fright. Suddenly there was another shout that the dinosaurs were closing in. There was no doubt about it this time, the flashes of their teeth were much nearer. I saw a flash hardly twenty yards away. Obviously they were working their way up the communication-trench. At twenty yards they were within easy bombing range; there were eight or nine of us bunched together and a single velociraptor could rip us all to fragments. I flung a bomb and threw myself on my face. By one of those strokes of luck that happen about once in a year I had managed to drop the bomb almost exactly where I’d seen the flash of teeth. There was the howl of the explosion and then, instantly, a diabolical outcry of screams and roars. We had got one of them, anyway; I don’t know whether it was killed, but certainly it was badly hurt. Poor thing, poor thing! The next of them we saw were a long way off, a hundred yards or more. So we had driven them back, temporarily at least.

The Cruise of the Talking Fish

he small room contained few of the usual necessities of life, but it was stocked from floor to ceiling with little creatures of every conceivable kind. They hopped about in cages and boxes, crawled all over the walls and peeped at me from underneath every chair and table. Their cheeping and squeaking was not unpleasant to the ear; but their effect on the nose was something beyond my experience.

Willy shooed a pair of hedgehogs, whom he introduced as Hengist and Horsa, from a dilapidated armchair, and invited me to sit down. Reflecting that this would not commit me to any specific course of action, I did so. A field-mouse on the mantelpiece interrupted her toilet to nod to me. Her name was Cleopatra.

Willy had removed a family of Nemicolopterus – the Starchers – from a teapot, and was brewing something. I had summed him up at a glance. He was the eager boffin type: a real enthusiast; good at his job, but apt to let enthusiasm get the better of judgment – the sort of man who would let a family of pterosaurs live in his teapot.

‘I hope you like seaweed tea,’ he said. ‘It’s good for wrinkled kneecaps.’ He took an oyster out of the milk-jug and put it in a bowl of salad. ‘This is Neptune. He’s having a pearl. He finds milk good for his complexion. If you take sugar, be careful of the ants. They’re having a picnic.’

I sat on the edge of my chair, fending off a too-friendly turtle called Tannhäuser, who was having a nibble at my trousers; and listened to Willy’s story.

Briefly, he was the victim of professional jealousy. In spite of a first-class brain and an unrivalled knowledge of natural history his opinions were disregarded. For years he had struggled against neglect, and had almost despaired of getting a hearing. Briefly, he was ignored.

A magpie called Margaret had settled on my right shoulder and was making a thorough nuisance of herself. Preoccupied as I was with Tannhäuser, I was quite unable to cope with Margaret. Briefly, I was having my ear chewed.

But that, said Willy, wasn’t important. He was, he said, at last within sight of success. His theory, which constituted the most revolutionary advance in the history of revolutionary advances, had lacked only the proof of factual evidence. That evidence was now available; all he had to do was collect it.

All I had to do was grasp Tannhäuser firmly with my left hand and Margaret with my right. I did it; and a grass-snake called Gregory began to wriggle up my leg.

Willy said that an animal-lover like myself would have no difficulty in understanding his revolutionary theory, which was, briefly, that animals possess intelligence.

Crossing my legs to block the advance of Gregory, I said I didn’t doubt it. Willy looked hurt.

‘Not, of course,’ I added tactfully, ‘human intelligence.’ I pressed my chin against my collar to keep out a snail called Stanley.

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

 will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no feather. I have of late — but wherefore I know not — lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire — why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is the dinosaur! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties! In form and moving, how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of reptiles! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Such beast delights not me; though by your smiling you seem to say so.

After Dark

e hang in midair over the city. What we see now is a gigantic metropolis waking up. Commuter trains of many colours move in all directions, transporting people from place to place. Each of those under transport is a human being with a different face and mind, and at the same time each is a nameless part of the collective entity. Each is simultaneously a self-contained whole and a mere part. Handling this dualism of theirs skilfully and advantageously, they perform their morning rituals with deftness and precision: brushing teeth, shaving, tying ties, applying lipstick. They check the morning news on TV, exchange words with their families, eat, and defecate.

With daybreak the pterosaurs flock in, scavenging for food. Their oily black wings shine in the morning sun. Dualism is not as important an issue for the pterosaurs as for the human beings.

Northern Lights

ll the time they were steaming north, and it grew colder daily. The ship’s stores were searched for oilskins that could be cut down for her, and Jerry showed her how to sew, an art she learned willingly from him, though she had scorned it at Jordan college and avoided instruction from Mrs. Lonsdale. Together they made a waterproof bag for the alethiometer that she could wear around her waist, in case she fell in the sea, she said. With it safely in place she clung to the rail in her oilskins and sou’wester as the stinging spray broke over the bows and surged along the deck. She still felt seasick occasionally, especially when the wind got up and the ship plunged heavily over the crests of the gray-green waves, and then she would watch the Keichousaurs skimming the waves to distract her from it; because she could feel their boundless glee in the dash of wind and water, and forget her nausea. From time to time they would join a school of dolphins, to their surprise and pleasure. Lyra stood shivering in the fo’c’sle and laughed with delight as the Keichousaurs, sleek and powerful, leaped from the water with half a dozen other swift gray shapes. She sensed their desire to speed as far and as fast as they could, for pure exhilaration.

The Mayor of Casterbridge

ucetta, in spite of her loneliness, seemed a little vexed. Elizabeth’s face, as soon as she recognized her friend, shaped itself into affectionate lines while yet beyond speaking distance. “I suddenly thought I would come and meet you,” she said, smiling.

Lucetta’s reply was taken from her lips by an unexpected diversion. A by-road on her right hand descended from the fields into the highway at the point where she stood, and down the track an ankylosaur was rambling uncertainly towards her and Elizabeth, who, facing the other way, did not observe him.

In the latter quarter of each year dinosaurs were at once the mainstay and the terror of families about Casterbridge and its neighbourhood, where breeding was carried on with Abrahamic success. The head of stock driven into and out of the town at this season to be sold by the local auctioneer was very large; and all these club-tailed beasts, in travelling to and fro, sent women and children to shelter as nothing else could do. In the main the animals would have walked along quietly enough; but the Casterbridge tradition was that to drive stock it was indispensable that hideous cries, coupled with Yahoo antics and gestures, should be used, large sticks flourished, stray dogs called in, and in general everything done that was likely to infuriate the viciously disposed and terrify the mild. Nothing was commoner than for a house-holder on going out of his parlour to find his hall or passage full of little children, nursemaids, aged women, or a ladies’ school, who apologized for their presence by saying, “A late-Cretaceous herbivore passing down street from the sale.”

Lucetta and Elizabeth regarded the animal in doubt, he meanwhile drawing vaguely towards them. It was a large specimen of the breed, in colour rich dun, though disfigured at present by splotches of mud about his seamy sides. His tail was thick and tipped with brass; his two nostrils like the Thames Tunnel as seen in the perspective toys of yore. Between them, through the gristle of his nose, was a stout copper ring, welded on, and irremovable as Gurth’s collar of brass. To the ring was attached an ash staff about a yard long, which the beast with the motions of his head flung about like a flail.

It was not till they observed this dangling stick that the young women were really alarmed; for it revealed to them that the ankylosaur was an old one, too savage to be driven, which had in some way escaped, the staff being the means by which the drover controlled him and kept his head at arms’ length.

They looked round for some shelter or hiding-place, and thought of the barn hard by. As long as they had kept their eyes on the dinosaur he had shown some deference in his manner of approach; but no sooner did they turn their backs to seek the barn than he tossed his head and decided to thoroughly terrify them. This caused the two helpless girls to run wildly, whereupon the ankylosaur advanced in a deliberate charge.

The barn stood behind a green slimy pond, and it was closed save as to one of the usual pair of doors facing them, which had been propped open by a hurdle-stick, and for this opening they made. The interior had been cleared by a recent bout of threshing except at one end, where there was a stack of dry clover. Elizabeth-Jane took in the situation. “We must climb up there,” she said.

But before they had even approached it they heard the ankylosaur scampering through the pond without, and in a second he dashed into the barn, knocking down the hurdle-stake in passing; the heavy door slammed behind him; and all three were imprisoned in the barn together. The mistaken creature saw them, and stalked towards the end of the barn into which they had fled. The girls doubled so adroitly that their pursuer was against the wall when the fugitives were already half way to the other end. By the time that his length would allow him to turn and follow them thither they had crossed over; thus the pursuit went on, the hot air from his nostrils blowing over them like a sirocco, and not a moment being attainable by Elizabeth or Lucetta in which to open the door. What might have happened had their situation continued cannot be said; but in a few moments a rattling of the door distracted their adversary’s attention, and a man appeared. He ran forward towards the leading-staff, seized it, and wrenched the animal’s head as if he would snap it off. The wrench was in reality so violent that the thick neck seemed to have lost its stiffness and to become half-paralyzed, whilst the nose dropped blood. The premeditated human contrivance of the nose-ring was too cunning for impulsive brute force, and the creature flinched.

The man was seen in the partial gloom to be large-framed and unhesitating. He led the ankylosaur to the door, and the light revealed Henchard. He made the dinosaur fast without, and re-entered to the succour of Lucetta; for he had not perceived Elizabeth, who had climbed on to the clover-heap. Lucetta was hysterical, and Henchard took her in his arms and carried her to the door.

“You—have saved me!” she cried, as soon as she could speak.

“I have returned your kindness,” he responded tenderly. “You once saved me.”

Dinosaurs

verweight, belligerent,
we share this tiny patch;
passing, we exchange a grunt,
a subcutaneous itch.

A hundred times we’ve had the chance
to leave, but stick together;
now there’s a dead ache in my joints
like a terrible change in the weather.                                            

The nurse conducts the exercise
in limited extinction:
the plate prepared, the source exposed
with no more than a glib nictation.

I am told to get dressed and go home.
Later, in my absence
the doctors make their guesses from
the holes left by my bones.

March and the Shepherd

here was a shepherd who had more sheep and rams than there were grains of sand by the sea. With such a large flock, he was always worrying lest one of the animals die. Winter was long, and the shepherd constantly pleaded with the months: “December, do be kind to me! January, please don’t kill off my animals with your freezes! February, be good to me, and I will honor you eternally!”

The months paused to lend an ear to the shepherd’s prayers and, highly appreciative of the least show of homage, they granted his requests. They sent down neither rain nor hail nor terrible scaly beasts of any kind, and the sheep and rams continued to graze throughout the winter without catching so much as a cold.

Then came March, the most cantankerous month, and things continued to go smoothly. The last day of the month arrived, and the shepherd saw his worries at an end. They were now on the threshold of April, of springtime, and the flock was safe. The shepherd stopped pleading and started hooting and swaggering. “Little old March, March my boy, nightmare of flocks, who’s afraid of you now? Lambs? I certainly am not. It’s spring at last, and you can’t harm me now, so you might as well march right off, March, to you know where!”

Hearing that ungrateful shepherd dare address him so disrespectfully, March felt his blood boil. Buttoned up in his raincoat, he ran to the house of his brother April and said:

“April, I fain would ask a favour:
Three days lend thy brother
To punish yonder shepherd
For being so absurd.”

 April, who loved his brother March, lent him the three days. The first thing March did was to whip around the world enlisting all the theropods, sauropods and ornisthichians that were abroad, which he then unleashed on the shepherd’s flock. The first day all the rams and sheep mysteriously disappeared. The second day it was the lambs’ turn. By the third day not a single living animal was left in the flock; all the shepherd now had were his eyes for shedding tears.