Midmorning and a crowd have started to gather.
We know why we’re here, the exclusives.
We’re here to see the final, lingering remnant of God’s oldest and truest design. He gave us dominion and this...this is the result of our taking.
She stands there, naked but for a few sparse patches of fur, the kind of grueling patchwork you might see on a pup with mange. Only, there’s nothing wrong with her. This is how she was born, a little misshapen, a little ugly. She is all we have left, and we are trying to be grateful.
“Hermogena Calespecia, the last of her kind. Isn’t she beautiful?” The Speaker stands before her cell, his bright green eyes welling up behind clear rimmed spectacles.
There’s no wired fence, no cage. Just walls of glass, a stainless-steel food chute. I hope more than anything that we will see her feed, but the Speaker seems in a rush for the two of them to be alone.
“Now, you’ll only have a few moments to take your photographs, and remember, no flash. I would encourage you all to make as many notes as you can, to soak up every little detail. How does she move, how does she stand, what’s her breathing like? This will all be history...” He says, lips struggling to shape that final word.
“Soon, it will just be us.” The Speaker nods, making eye contact with me for one brief, unnecessary moment.
You’re right, I think. Soon it will just be us. Us and the flies.
My stomach gives a low rumble. This must be how the Earth feels under our incessant trampling.
I wet my lips, and the sound of blinking shutters tickles my ears like the wings of a thousand tiny insects. It wouldn’t surprise me to find a few of them buzzing around our heads. After all, they only have us left to bother now.
Hands scribble furiously, mouths spit inaudible dictations onto misted phone screens, and I stand, watching, waiting, committing her to memory. The Speaker sees me, and I hope he can read my thoughts. I open my mind to him, the edges peeling away like overripe fruit, its juices spilling forward, leaving us wide eyed and glossy.
When I blink, the crowd are being ushered away from her cell. Time to leave. Corralled by the tide of bodies, I find myself swept towards the Speaker, his chin raised in a look of expectation. When he speaks, his dulcet tone barely carries.
I strain to hear him when he says, “I know what you want.”
No, you don’t, I think. How could you possibly know?
He doesn’t wait for me to correct him.
“Like all the others, you want to save her.” The Speaker is starting to soften. He smiles weakly. “You want to see her in the wild, as God intended. You want to set her free.”
My lips curve upward, mimicking his own.
“And you...?” I ask. “What do you want?”
He turns away. We’re both watching her now, and as always, she remains oblivious, spine hunched as she folds her body into sleep.
“I want what’s best for her.” The Speaker says, his lenses bearing the reflection of a small, pale mound. “I want what’s best for us all.”
---
For a while, I toyed with the idea of letting him go gently, clutching those painful ideologies to his chest like a child’s bouquet. But that didn’t seem just.
Animals know when their time has come, they sense it like the rogue scent of prey, or the silent groan before a dam is set to burst. Their eyes may plead, but only for a second. Instinct tells them it is time to go, and they do not fight to stay here with us.
There’s a newspaper clipping pinned to the corkboard in the Speaker’s study. I try not to let my eyes wander over the smudged text. After all, I’ve read it before. But the words are beginning to pulse now, and they don’t stop until I pluck the square of paper from the wall.
‘Members of the recently infiltrated Glutton Club met tonight at an undisclosed location to talk with The Shropshire Star. Although the group’s leader, the infamous Lester Mulvaney, remains incarcerated for the foreseeable future, we were able to talk to some of its other members. A man in his thirties who refused to give his name referred to Mulvaney as a missionary, stating that “the club was founded on Darwinian beliefs” and that “Evolution is not only to be observed, but also tasted”...’
I feel the paper crumpling in my hand.
No, I think. No more of this.
It’s enough to be misquoted once, but twice...
With the Speaker’s pass card tucked neatly into my breast pocket; I make my way back to the lab. I look enough like him that this shouldn’t be a struggle. Upon my initial examination of surveillance footage, the security guard doesn’t seem the type to distinguish between faces. For weeks he’s been sitting at his post, feet propped up on the desk, swatting flies from his face and neck.
I feel bad for him in a way. He doesn’t know what he’s guarding.
But when I reach the desk, it’s empty. I lean over the counter just far enough to see that the computer’s been left unlocked, and there’s a walkie-talkie next to the mouse. It beeps once, then surrenders to static.
For a while, I toyed with the idea of letting him go gently, clutching those painful ideologies to his chest like a child’s bouquet. But that didn’t seem just.
Animals know when their time has come, they sense it like the rogue scent of prey, or the silent groan before a dam is set to burst. Their eyes may plead, but only for a second. Instinct tells them it is time to go, and they do not fight to stay here with us.
There’s a newspaper clipping pinned to the corkboard in the Speaker’s study. I try not to let my eyes wander over the smudged text. After all, I’ve read it before. But the words are beginning to pulse now, and they don’t stop until I pluck the square of paper from the wall.
‘Members of the recently infiltrated Glutton Club met tonight at an undisclosed location to talk with The Shropshire Star. Although the group’s leader, the infamous Lester Mulvaney, remains incarcerated for the foreseeable future, we were able to talk to some of its other members. A man in his thirties who refused to give his name referred to Mulvaney as a missionary, stating that “the club was founded on Darwinian beliefs” and that “Evolution is not only to be observed, but also tasted”...’
I feel the paper crumpling in my hand.
No, I think. No more of this.
It’s enough to be misquoted once, but twice...
With the Speaker’s pass card tucked neatly into my breast pocket; I make my way back to the lab. I look enough like him that this shouldn’t be a struggle. Upon my initial examination of surveillance footage, the security guard doesn’t seem the type to distinguish between faces. For weeks he’s been sitting at his post, feet propped up on the desk, swatting flies from his face and neck.
I feel bad for him in a way. He doesn’t know what he’s guarding.
But when I reach the desk, it’s empty. I lean over the counter just far enough to see that the computer’s been left unlocked, and there’s a walkie-talkie next to the mouse. It beeps once, then surrenders to static.
This guy is a little dim yes, unobservant, but focused enough on his wage not to disregard the job entirely. Something isn’t right here.
Turning my attention to the monitors on the far wall, an image draws my eye. All the screens show normal activity, there are several empty bathrooms, the central laboratory, and the Speaker’s office. Then the Show Room flickers into view, the glass cell illuminated as if by lightning. She sits there, wide awake, her black eyes staring down the lens. But she is not alone.
A crowd has once again gathered, though this time, like me, I don’t believe they were invited.
My hunger all but dissipates, replaced by a rage so strong it threatens my vision. If anything could bring me to tears it would be this, the sheer audacity of it. I’ve got to stop them; they have to know their place.
The hallways are a blur, the overhead lights triggered by my footsteps. I scan the pass card twice before I realize the door is already open. When I enter, no one bats an eye. They’re pushing themselves right up against the walls of her cell, their breath fogging the glass. There’s a low hum, like flies swarming rotten flesh. Yearning, I remember, has no vocabulary. It simply moans.
“What are you doing?” I ask, struggling to rise above the noise.
A few heads turn. Some of the faces I recognize from this morning, journalists with deep set eyes, their skin marbled with sweat. Near the front of the crowd, the security guard eyes me for a moment. His jaw slackens, a web of saliva mapping two lines from his lower lip to the tip of his chin.
My stomach clenches. How dare they dishonor her like this!
“We couldn’t wait any longer.” Says the guard, facing away from me.
Hands reach out, tugging at the food chute. It opens, but there’s not nearly enough room for an arm, let alone a body, to pass through. In frustration, the hum transcends into pining, then a deep growl, fists begin to pound against the glass.
As the guard brings his nightstick up above his head, I push my way through the mob, grabbing his wrist and forcing him back.
“NO!” I cry, breathing through gritted teeth. “You can’t do this, you-”
The guard stops me in my tracks, swinging the truncheon like a Neanderthal would a club. He strikes my temple once, twice, before I fall back, my ears filled with the sound of my own blood, and the unmistakable shattering of glass.
I cannot hear their feet as they trample one another, but I can feel the earth around me shake. They’re standing on my hands, my ankles. The pain eludes me. All I can do now is watch the scene above me, grey hands shoveling scraps of meat into blood stained mouths. Everything is red and wild and glossy, a perfect vision I once longed to savor, now sullied by their debauchery.
For a short time, it stays like this. The frenzy of it. Until their jaws begin to slow, and their hands grow empty. But that fire in their eyes, it doesn’t leave, it barely simmers. Soon they’re seeking each other out beneath the artificial lights, the slow dance wrestling of their bodies turning her cell into a coliseum, the floor sealed with blood.
Before long, they will remember I am here, and their hands will find me spread out among the spray of glass. I close my eyes and imagine her feeding on a bundle of hay. Her teeth graze my skin, and I feel everything.
Turning my attention to the monitors on the far wall, an image draws my eye. All the screens show normal activity, there are several empty bathrooms, the central laboratory, and the Speaker’s office. Then the Show Room flickers into view, the glass cell illuminated as if by lightning. She sits there, wide awake, her black eyes staring down the lens. But she is not alone.
A crowd has once again gathered, though this time, like me, I don’t believe they were invited.
My hunger all but dissipates, replaced by a rage so strong it threatens my vision. If anything could bring me to tears it would be this, the sheer audacity of it. I’ve got to stop them; they have to know their place.
The hallways are a blur, the overhead lights triggered by my footsteps. I scan the pass card twice before I realize the door is already open. When I enter, no one bats an eye. They’re pushing themselves right up against the walls of her cell, their breath fogging the glass. There’s a low hum, like flies swarming rotten flesh. Yearning, I remember, has no vocabulary. It simply moans.
“What are you doing?” I ask, struggling to rise above the noise.
A few heads turn. Some of the faces I recognize from this morning, journalists with deep set eyes, their skin marbled with sweat. Near the front of the crowd, the security guard eyes me for a moment. His jaw slackens, a web of saliva mapping two lines from his lower lip to the tip of his chin.
My stomach clenches. How dare they dishonor her like this!
“We couldn’t wait any longer.” Says the guard, facing away from me.
Hands reach out, tugging at the food chute. It opens, but there’s not nearly enough room for an arm, let alone a body, to pass through. In frustration, the hum transcends into pining, then a deep growl, fists begin to pound against the glass.
As the guard brings his nightstick up above his head, I push my way through the mob, grabbing his wrist and forcing him back.
“NO!” I cry, breathing through gritted teeth. “You can’t do this, you-”
The guard stops me in my tracks, swinging the truncheon like a Neanderthal would a club. He strikes my temple once, twice, before I fall back, my ears filled with the sound of my own blood, and the unmistakable shattering of glass.
I cannot hear their feet as they trample one another, but I can feel the earth around me shake. They’re standing on my hands, my ankles. The pain eludes me. All I can do now is watch the scene above me, grey hands shoveling scraps of meat into blood stained mouths. Everything is red and wild and glossy, a perfect vision I once longed to savor, now sullied by their debauchery.
For a short time, it stays like this. The frenzy of it. Until their jaws begin to slow, and their hands grow empty. But that fire in their eyes, it doesn’t leave, it barely simmers. Soon they’re seeking each other out beneath the artificial lights, the slow dance wrestling of their bodies turning her cell into a coliseum, the floor sealed with blood.
Before long, they will remember I am here, and their hands will find me spread out among the spray of glass. I close my eyes and imagine her feeding on a bundle of hay. Her teeth graze my skin, and I feel everything.
No comments:
Post a Comment