198. Crimes

We were fishing, C.W. and I. That man. Uh, that thing. That … whatever … loves to fish. He says they have nothing like it on Falloonia. He tends to take on the appearance of a character straight out of a Steinbeck novel when we go, slouch hat, grizzled beard, patched work clothes—the full image. He once even tried to smoke a cigarette, with disastrous results.

On this day, he was ecstatic. “Just read,” he said as he watched his bobber intensely, “that a state in your country is doing something extremely wise.”

“Oh really,” I said. “Which one?”

“The one just south of here. The one where they like to party so much and make hot sauce. Loo, Loozi …”

“Louisiana?”

“That’s the one.”

I said, “They did something wise?”

“Yes. Real sensible, in my rough calculation of the value, number, quantity, or extent of something.”

“Just what, in your estimation, did they do that was so wise?”

“They voted on a law to prohibit crimes against nature.”

“Oh yes,” I said. “Seems I read something about that.”

“That’s one of the first sensible things I’ve seen in a long time.” He raised his line, checked the bait, and swung it to a new location.

I was intrigued. “Why do you say that?

He looked at me as if I had just asked him if the sun came up that morning. “Your species spends so much time enacting laws protecting things like the wealthy, fertilized eggs, and mythology cults, don’t you think it is time nature deserved some protection?”

“Uh ...”

He interrupted. “Just think,” he said. “No more clear cutting of forests, removal of mountaintops, polluting of rivers, exhaustion of sea life, … it could be the start of what you call ‘governing by the rational model.’”

“Uh, C.W.”

“No more extinction of other species.”

“C.W.,” I said forcefully.

“Burning of fossil fuels …” He stopped. “What?”

“That’s not what they meant.”

“What who meant?”

“The legislators in Louisiana.”

“What they meant by what?”

“Crimes against nature.”

He looked at me in disbelief. “Of course it is.”

“No. Afraid not.”

“What then?”

I told him. At least I began to tell him before he broke in. “You mean like they do in those …, I mean like I’ve heard they do on those internet videos?”

“Yes. Afraid so.

Your methods of governing are best considered
during moments of peace and solitude. - C.W.

I now know what is meant by the description “stunned disbelief.”

“That’s insane,” he said. “completely contrary to nature, reason, or common sense.”

“I think you mean ‘preposterous,’” I said, “and I suspect the folks in Louisiana would be quite proud to hear you say it.”

He looked me in the eyes. “How on earth,” he said, “would you enforce such law?”

“That, my friend, is something you will have to talk to them about,” I said.

“I’d rather talk to a mountain goat,” he said as his bobber began to bounce.

 

 

Also see: www.wattensawpress.com

153. Worries

“Your species sure has a lot of things to worry about. I’m compiling a list for the Falloonian Elders. What a mess.”

I couldn’t disagree, although this was coming from the mouth of a comely young lady who appeared to be on the verge of childbirth. That is to say, it was the Alien himself, or herself, in this case, it having joined me on my walk through the park.

“You are right,” I said. It is disturbing if you think about it.”

“Oh, I do,” she said. “I think about it even more now.” She patted her belly.

“One would think so,” I said, playing along with the scenario.

“I’m having a baby, you know.”

“I had guessed as much.”

“I want to have several.”

“Good luck with that.”

“But the news worries me.”

“That seems natural. There are certainly things in our future that should concern us.”

“Oh? What’s bugging you in particular?”

I looked at her. “Well, the planet will start to run out of drinking water during that one’s lifetime.”

She stopped and turned to me with a look of total shock. “Who says so?”

“The world’s scientists,” I said.

She relaxed, “Oh them.”

“Yes them, the ones who also say our planet is in the process of frying.”

“Don’t you worry about them. That’s all just stuff they say to scare us.”

“Who told you that?”

“It’s on the news every night. You just have to watch the right channel.”

I was confused. “I thought you were worried about things.”

“Oh I am,” she said. “But real things, not that sort of stuff.”

“Like what, then?”

“You silly. No wonder everyone calls you ‘Big Dope,’ the way you act.”

“You’re the only one who calls me that,” I said. “Other than my wife. But anyway, what things are bothering you?”

“Well, for one thing, we still don’t know who killed President Kennedy.”

This time it was I who stopped. “Uh, yes we do. It was Lee Harvey Oswald.”

“Well that’s what they want you to think.”

I sighed.

“So what real things do you worry about?” She said. She looked at me with a blank look on her face.

“Well,” I said. “In addition to the ever-increasing likelihood of a nuclear weapon falling into the hands of terrorists, there is the matter of the Amazon rainforest.”

Her look changed to one of suspicion. “What about it?”

“Other than it cools the entire planet by one or two degrees, Celsius, or that one-fifth of the world’s fresh water flows through it, or that it absorbs 300 million tons of carbon dioxide per year?”

“And? What’s your point?”

“It could disappear by the year 2080, according to some estimates,” I said. I gestured toward her protruding stomach.”

“Oh, fol de rah,” she said. “Here’s what’s really got me worried.” She pointed to a newsstand where the daily posted a headline announcing that another state (not ours) had approved same-sex marriages.

“This worries you?”

“Do you think I want my little boy to marry another little boy?”

“Wouldn’t you, if it made him happy?”

“He’ll be happy about things I tell him to be happy about,” she said, snipping her words.

“Well he couldn’t be happy about the possibility that there won’t be any middle class in his America.”

“There you go again, worrying about silly things while there are real concerns.”

Don't you worry about the Amazon Rainforest.
By the time it is gone, I'll be basking in the
tropical sun at my cabin in northern Manitoba. - C.W.

“Such as?”

“Buy me this newspaper and I’ll show you.”

“Show me what?”

“Wanda Sue may have been kicked off American Idol last night.”

19. Collapses

I almost missed him, being deep in thought with a deadline looming. I was imagining scenarios when he stopped to ask the time. I told him and then couldn’t help staring. Since they built the President William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library in my neighborhood, it is not unusual to see someone famous, or near famous strolling about. “Aren’t you someone?” I asked.

“Could be,” he replied. “Who did you have in mind?”

I thought, then the book cover appeared in my head.

:You’re the author,” I said. “You wrote the book Collapse. Jared Diamond. Right?”

“I did pretty well,” he laughed. “Had you fooled.”

Shit! It was C.W.

“What in the world?”

He enjoyed my discomfiture for a moment and then led me to a bench. “Did you enjoy my book?”

“I enjoyed his book. Why are you he?”

“Went back in time doing research,” he said.

He had been “enphasing,” as he calls it—a process by which he places himself so mentally deep in a time that he is able to visit it.

“Why Mr. Diamond?”

“To answer a question he asked in his book. It involves a matter of behavior among your species in which I am particularly interested.”

“And that is?”

“It involves Contacura++. You remember that, don’t you?”

“I think it means Literally, the act of sitting on a baby’s face, or a foolish course of action.”

“Precisely. The kind your species is famous for.”

I winced. “So what have we done now?”

“Remember the Easter Islanders?”

“Oh yes. They exhausted the timber resources on their planet with no conservation measures so that the species died out. And they left those famous giant statues as their only legacy.”

“Well, Contacura++ was their legacy as well.”

“Oh yes.”

“Remember the haunting question I asked in the book?”

“You mean that Mr. Diamond asked?”

“If you must.”

“I think he wondered what was said when the last tree was cut, spelling society’s collapse”.

“Yes. He suggested maybe: ‘Jobs, not trees’ or ‘We don’t have proof that there aren’t palms somewhere else on Easter, we need more research, your proposed ban on logging is premature and driven by fear-mongering.’”

“So you went back to verify?”

“Yep. You want to guess what was said just before they cut the last tree?”

“It’s my property and I can do what I want to on it?”

“Nope.”

“We can’t do anything that might hurt the economy?”

“Wrong again.”

These summbitches are ugly and dumb. - C.W.

“Okay, I give up.”

“There was this big meeting and the head man spoke. It took me awhile to master their language but I think I got it right.”

“And what did he say?”

“Well he first said: ‘Facts are stupid things.’ Everyone winced. Then someone said it was the Village Council’s duty to save the society from ruin. That’s when the chief made his final pronouncement.”

“And he said?”

“Government is not the solution. Government is the problem.”

“And they cut the tree down.”

“Without another word.”

14. Extinctions

C. W. came to me in a dream last night. At least I think it was a dream. You never know about him. I was sitting on a fallen tree by a well-worn path in a tropical rain forest. I knew the place from the slightly sweet rotting smell of fecundity and the bright colors of the forest flowers flashing against the dark background of the giant trees. I remembered it all from a trip to a similar place in Puerto Rico taken long years ago courtesy of the United States Navy.

A group of children came along the path laughing and singing. One split from the group and came to me. She was six or seven years old and a throwback to a time around the end of the 19th Century. Rope-like ringlets dangled from each side of her head in blond profusion and she wore a white dress adorned with lace and embroidery. She could easily have been Carroll’s Alice.

She walked silently up to me and then spoke. “Want to see something interesting, Mister?” Then she shook the front of her dress and looked down. The small green head of a snake appeared from beneath her bodice and looked around with interest. It nuzzled her cheek, looked at me with what appeared to be a grin, and slid back into hiding.

“You do know, don’t you Jimmie,” she said. “That in the Victorian era young girls used to keep green tree-snakes in their dresses for sport and to keep cool?”

“I have read that, C. W.” I said.

“It must have kept the snakes warm as well,” he said. “You don’t see such co-dependency among the two species these days. You know that don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then you must also know that Homo Sapiens are one of the most destructive forces on the planet.”

“True that.”

“Why, do you suppose?”

“It may be that we are evolutionarily disposed to have a short-term perspective on life.”

“Hmm,” she said. “You know it means your ultimate destruction.”

“I suspect so.”

“Want to know the saddest image I will take from your planet when I leave?”

“I would hate to guess.”

Martha - The last Passenger Pigeon

“The image of Martha.”

“Martha Washington?”

“No, Martha the last Passenger Pigeon. The one who lived out a long, lonely life in a Cincinnati zoo without a mate to save her species. Just sat on a perch, staring into space and, we may hope, not thinking about being the last. I think they stuffed her when she finally died.”

The young lady straightened her blouse and felt to make sure her pet was safe and then brushed her hair from her shoulder with her hand.

“I have to leave now,” she said. “Enjoy the forest.”

She turned to leave, but then said over her shoulder: “Next year it will be a golf course.”