misery.”
“That’s not so.” But said wearily, knowing what had to come.
I found a Michelob in the fridge, and sat in a rattan chair to consider that it might not prove so easy to break my news to my sister, as I had imagined; but I had volunteered just for the sake of seeing Benkoelen for what I believed would be the last time.
Switching on an old-fashioned TV, I listened to an announcer, possibly speaking from Jakarta, announcing that China had invaded South Korea. Indonesia had bombed Australia, in return for Australia’s strike against the blowing up of terrorists from Surabaja. Cass came into the room and switched the screen off.
She entered the room in a controlled way, still clutching a handkerchief, and with the dead baby orang-utan clutched to her breast. “I’m surprised to see you. Why didn’t you call me first?”
She wore a rough overall with an apron over. Her hair was ragged and untended. She had aged—by which token I saw that I had aged myself.
I stood up, to speak to her nonchalantly, gesturing dismissively, as if what I said was of no importance.
“I had to hire a boat to get over. Benkoelen will soon be cut off entirely. The damned boat overturned and sank at once. All my kit is now down on the seabed. I’m lucky not to be there myself.”
She made a gesture, simultaneously raising her eyebrows and shaking her head. “And you’re still with Bainya Hosta?”
“With her? I work for her, yes.”
“She kicked you out?”
“She has serial lovers. Not so many now as once she did. Look, Cass, this is really none of your business. Remember it was through my affair with Bainya you got this job. You’ve been here a good long while but now it’s over. There’s some bad news for you. It’s not personal, as you may think. It’s just the way the world is with this bloody climate change.”
“Oh yes? Bainya’s coming to live here. One more baboon…”
“Never mind the cheap sarcasm, dear. You know Bainya was briefly married to the richest man in the Middle East? Most of that money has gone on good causes. Causes such as this one. That’s all over now. The climate is tearing everything apart. Various funded enterprises are having to close. It has now become necessary to close down the chimp sanctuary. Funding must close last day September next.”
I pulled from my pocket the official form, rumpled, still slightly damp.
She took it and dropped it without looking at it. She sat down. “
Where will we all go?” Asked in a small voice.
“You will be permitted to take six orangs of both sexes to captivity in the Jakarta Zoo. Rest of the animals remain here.”
“They’ll die.”
“They’ll have to take a chance. Like the rest of us…”
She asked me to come and see the creatures. She praised their innocence, their playfulness. I said I did not wish to see them. I just wanted to drink.
She stood by the window, face in shadow, hugging the dead baby. “What chance have they got?”
I said quite calmly, “That’s the question we’re all asking.”
DAMNED WHEN YOU DO
Jeff Carlson
It was not a virgin birth, I can tell you that much. The boy never could fly or stop bullets with his teeth, and those people who say he was twenty feet tall are full of it. He didn’t have God on the phone, either. I guess I’m not the one to say he wasn’t Jesus come again, but if he was, the Book’s got everything mixed.
There were signs before his birth. We had tremors, then record heat waves and drought and flood and drought again. Margie and me didn’t think anything about it. The world was already going to hell in a handbasket. Every disaster was just business as usual— earthquakes in China, nukes in Iran, war, poverty, and hundreds of millions of people pumping carbon whatever into the sky, everybody knowing it was causing global warming but not changing their routines a bit.
I was one of them.
In the documentaries, they always show L.A. freeways and New York taxi jams. My
“That’s not so.” But said wearily, knowing what had to come.
I found a Michelob in the fridge, and sat in a rattan chair to consider that it might not prove so easy to break my news to my sister, as I had imagined; but I had volunteered just for the sake of seeing Benkoelen for what I believed would be the last time.
Switching on an old-fashioned TV, I listened to an announcer, possibly speaking from Jakarta, announcing that China had invaded South Korea. Indonesia had bombed Australia, in return for Australia’s strike against the blowing up of terrorists from Surabaja. Cass came into the room and switched the screen off.
She entered the room in a controlled way, still clutching a handkerchief, and with the dead baby orang-utan clutched to her breast. “I’m surprised to see you. Why didn’t you call me first?”
She wore a rough overall with an apron over. Her hair was ragged and untended. She had aged—by which token I saw that I had aged myself.
I stood up, to speak to her nonchalantly, gesturing dismissively, as if what I said was of no importance.
“I had to hire a boat to get over. Benkoelen will soon be cut off entirely. The damned boat overturned and sank at once. All my kit is now down on the seabed. I’m lucky not to be there myself.”
She made a gesture, simultaneously raising her eyebrows and shaking her head. “And you’re still with Bainya Hosta?”
“With her? I work for her, yes.”
“She kicked you out?”
“She has serial lovers. Not so many now as once she did. Look, Cass, this is really none of your business. Remember it was through my affair with Bainya you got this job. You’ve been here a good long while but now it’s over. There’s some bad news for you. It’s not personal, as you may think. It’s just the way the world is with this bloody climate change.”
“Oh yes? Bainya’s coming to live here. One more baboon…”
“Never mind the cheap sarcasm, dear. You know Bainya was briefly married to the richest man in the Middle East? Most of that money has gone on good causes. Causes such as this one. That’s all over now. The climate is tearing everything apart. Various funded enterprises are having to close. It has now become necessary to close down the chimp sanctuary. Funding must close last day September next.”
I pulled from my pocket the official form, rumpled, still slightly damp.
She took it and dropped it without looking at it. She sat down. “
Where will we all go?” Asked in a small voice.
“You will be permitted to take six orangs of both sexes to captivity in the Jakarta Zoo. Rest of the animals remain here.”
“They’ll die.”
“They’ll have to take a chance. Like the rest of us…”
She asked me to come and see the creatures. She praised their innocence, their playfulness. I said I did not wish to see them. I just wanted to drink.
She stood by the window, face in shadow, hugging the dead baby. “What chance have they got?”
I said quite calmly, “That’s the question we’re all asking.”
DAMNED WHEN YOU DO
Jeff Carlson
It was not a virgin birth, I can tell you that much. The boy never could fly or stop bullets with his teeth, and those people who say he was twenty feet tall are full of it. He didn’t have God on the phone, either. I guess I’m not the one to say he wasn’t Jesus come again, but if he was, the Book’s got everything mixed.
There were signs before his birth. We had tremors, then record heat waves and drought and flood and drought again. Margie and me didn’t think anything about it. The world was already going to hell in a handbasket. Every disaster was just business as usual— earthquakes in China, nukes in Iran, war, poverty, and hundreds of millions of people pumping carbon whatever into the sky, everybody knowing it was causing global warming but not changing their routines a bit.
I was one of them.
In the documentaries, they always show L.A. freeways and New York taxi jams. My
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