I always wondered tho, about all the starving parents and their starving children. I suppose it’s a different place or multiple countries in every age — in my own youth it was Ethiopia; in your generation, it’ll probably be most of the world. Anyway, in the late 1980s, we preteen suburbanites would receive in the mail glossy advertisements featuring photos of rail-thin Ethiopians and their malnourished children. They were so starving that you could see the shape of their bones thru their skin. And the ad would say “Send money to Private Charity Organization so that Private Charity Organization can feed these families. We promise that we’ll help these starving people and not use your money for something else.” — I wondered many things about this, but I’ll tell you just one. I still wonder this today:
Is the drive to procreate so strong that, even tho these rail-thin parents had obviously been starving for a long time, they still felt the urge to hump? For now that I’m an old man, I am wise by definition, thus I no longer believe the foolish things that I assumed were true in middle age: I no longer buy the theory that starving children are dropped like bombs upon married folk by passing storks. No — I now understand that babies are the result of prolonged humping. I have a scientist friend who works for a giant pharmaceutical company; she revealed this fact to me on my eightieth birthday; and I trust corporate science.
But, when my own food runs out (for I only have a few potatoes left) and I become a rail-thin starving old man, I wonder if I will feel the urge to procreate some starving children with something humpable. It’s weird because, being hungry myself, the last thing you’d think I’d want to do is put myself in a situation where I’m now forced to eat for two. Cuz (I’ll spell it out for you) at this point I can’t even eat for one. And, once I turn pregnant, my stomach is going to be needing a lot of food in order to sculpt it into the shape of the baby that it’s gestating — therefore a percentage of my nourishment will be siphoned away. And if I bear twins or quintuplets, as I plan to do (for I’m addicted to fertility drugs), my kids and I will be skinnier than supermodels. We might even end up on the cover of a glossy advert.
Now, I’m being a little jokey, here — accept my apologies; I’m just trying to keep me entertained. But the question stands: Why are we all producing more and more starving children? Are they the result of family planning? If so, then we should re-check our math before we begin to hump in earnest. Yet perhaps the starving kids are “miraculous mistakes” — that is, unplanned pregnancies that result from one-night stands. If this is the case, then I ask: Why are you engaging in a clandestine affair with your legal spouse? You know you’re going to run into each other the next day. You’re not going to be able to hide for long the fetus-shaped tumescence in your gut, and the fact that you are skinnier than ever.
Moreover, whether planned or unplanned, why do people ever bring pregnancies to term? I’m not even talking about starving people, now. For everyone knows that there is no future for mammalian life.
Ah, I think I just inadvertently answered my own query. Those who bring forth living young are plainly reptilian. They know that the earth shall be re-inherited by the cold-blooded. They’ve been waiting a long time for this. The sauriod kingdom shall have its revenge.
So what does this mean for the rest of us, that the dinosaurs have figured out how to turn themselves into oil, and then transform from oil to plastic, so that, as we unknowingly ingest them, they end up lodging themselves into the flesh and blood of humankind?
I’d say that it’s not that big of a deal — it’s nothing to worry about. The problem would be if the dino-folk insisted on resurrecting in a form as stupid as their last one was; I mean, when the smartest among them had a brain the size of a walnut… or a peanut or whatever. That would suck: that would be bad news. But if the thunder-lizard humanoids prove as wise and stylish as we late-stage humans were, on account of stealing our supersized minds, then let them have the planet back. I don’t care what they do with it, as long as they produce some cool new arts and crafts.
Think about it: Once we’re all dead, and their team wins the game as usual, would you rather float around with God in Heaven, and look down on all the new lizard people, watching their everyday life as if it’s a soap opera, and occasionally prank them by sending Hebrew Prophets to goad them; OR, will you be such a sore loser that you’ll immediately begin plotting revenge so that we fur-covered angels can usurp Earth?
You choose the latter? Really, again? — Jeez, I wish I shared your taste for this pastime of fumbling.
I guess it’s strife-for-strife’s-sake, then. Never give in. Quitting is for decision makers; and we’re raw force here, surging thru any tube that will take us.
I just wish that, once in a while, we could try out harmony. Why am I the only one who feels this way?
“You’re not,” sez a voice from behind me.
“Who said that? Who’s there?” I shout. Suddenly the darkness is illuminated, as the soul in question flips on an electric light switch.
“It’s me, the baker,” sez a jolly round fellow. “Have you forgotten so soon? You rescued me from Tolstoy’s estate, during your escape. You grabbed my hand and said ‘Come,’ and we jogged thru the forest all night, until we reached your two-story cabin here. You lodged me upstairs, saying: ‘Be my personal chef.’ And I just went along for the ride. — Why are you sitting in the dark and talking to yourself?”
“I’m not. You just turned the light on.”
“Yeah, but, before that. You were seated there at your writer’s desk, scribbling on your paper and murmuring passionately, until I came down here — I was just checking to make sure that you’re well. I heard the chatter from above: since this place is made of logs with uncaulked crevices, sound travels easily; and I feared that you might be having a scary dream, so I came to wake you; but now I see that you were only in a trance.”
“Don’t ever wake me when I’m experiencing a nightmare,” I say. “For then the evils that were occurring in my dream will seep out and become a permanent fixture of our shared reality.”
“That’s not true,” laughs the chef; “that’s an old silly rumor, spread by the LORD’s flying monkeys, just to keep us all servilely wicked.”
“It is?” I make a funny face while I think about this. “Hmm, OK. Then go ahead and shake me until I come to, next time you hear me all voodoo’d-out like that. Please, I insist.”
The chef laughs his jolly laugh again. “Will do, Master Bryan. Now, what do you want to eat? I was going to fix breakfast…”
“Wine,” I say.
“Ah!” the chef’s grin grows even wider, “so we are to live like winos, out here in the wilderness. I see, I see — yes, I like it very much. Good choice. I’ll go fetch a bottle…”
“Wait!” I shout, “do you know where they are stored?”
“Yes, under the pile of sticks out back is a secret door to an underground cellar.”
“Ah, alright,” say; “I didn’t know if you knew about that. I was worried that you’d maybe steal my horse and try to make a trip to town, to visit the marketplace, in which case it would take you till late afternoon to return.”
The chef laughs: “No, no, no — the only reason I’d ever steal your horse is to prepare it as your favorite meal: steak tartare. But that would only be for a special occasion. And today is a regular day, like any other; not a holiday. Just a stretch of time to pass with heavy drinking. — I’ll be right back with the spirits.”
“Thank you,” I say.
The chef returns in less than five minutes with vodka and women; and we all spend the morning singing slow hymns to God.
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