Desolation
The jellyfish drifted in the darkness, pulled by the tide, pushed by the flutterings of the otters who splashed in the waters in front of the rock. In, out, in out, up, down, up, down. Sometimes a piece of food brushed past its mouth; the jellyfish curled its mouthparts around the tasty treat and drew it deep inside to its stomach.
The child peered over the side of the boat into the green water. He could see translucent white blobs, suspended in the dark, like stars in an inverted sky; only these stars moved, forming unknown constellations, a mysterious, momentary zodiac before they broke up, torn apart by the slice of the oar.
The woman pulled on the oars with a steady rhythm: forward, up, in, back, down, out. The fluidity of the motion spoke of years of practice. She did not speak, just stared ahead, her eyes fixed on the shore. Occasionally she glanced over her shoulder and adjusted their course with a stronger pull on one side or the other.
Overhead an eagle circled, soaring effortlessly through the trees.
“Oh look, Mum, look at all the jellyfish! Look at them moving! Don’t hurt them with the oars!”
The boy reached out into the water to touch one of the fragile creatures. The woman, halted in mid stroke, positioned one of the oars under the jellyfish and slowly lifted it up to the surface, where it slithered off the wood and plunged back into the watery grotto.
The jellyfish did not know it had been moved; it just resumed its pulsing, drifting back among its throbbing family.
“What do you call that Mum?” asked the boy, “what’s the jellyfish doing?”
“Womphling,” murmured the woman.
“Oh,” said the child, and turned back to stare into the depths.
Womphling. Her mother had invented that word, years ago, to describe the lolloping movements of a puppy; a long-haired bundle of energy that undulated across the room, falling over its own paws. The puppy was long gone, grown and given to a good home, passed on and mourned many years ago. Her mother was gone too, passed away before her son was born.
The woman brushed away a tear, took a deep breath and resumed her rowing. She wanted to pull against the years, to get back to the time when she was a young girl, when her mother took her to the shore to explore tide pools and look for sea creatures.
“Womphling,” repeated the child, trailing his fingers in the water, “look, the jellyfish is womphling again.”
He looked up at his mother. “I like that word.”
The woman smiled.
“Yes,” she said, “I like it too.”
This was inspired by the afternoon I rowed my daughter around Grace Harbour in Desolation Sound, British Columbia. The word, ‘womphling’, which is pronounced ‘wum-fel-ling’ was indeed invented by my mother and applied to our boisterous, short-staying puppy. My mother did see her first grandchild before she died, but only by a matter of months.
A Misunderstanding
The tree was magnificent. It stood over 80 feet tall on the edge of the bluff and could be seen for miles. Eagles nested in the topmost branches, squirrels scurried around on the lower limbs and children built forts at its base. The locals used it as a landmark when they drove far away from the village and a picture of the tree, taken over fifty years previously, before the hotel burned down, hung in the library.
The tree had survived the fire that destroyed the hotel. It had also survived storms, lightning strikes and floods. The tree was invincible. Everybody expected that the tree would live forever so it was a surprise to the mayor and the council to receive a report one day on a fungus infestation in the area.
“Mycelium? What’s that? We don’t have any mycelium here!”
“I’m sorry, Mr Mayor,” said the ecologist who had presented the report, “we’ve studied the bark and taken our measurements and we’re certain that there’s infection among your trees. You’re fortunate that not all trees are affected so there will be minimal removal but we must start right away before it spreads any farther.”
“But you can’t cut down our trees!” said the horrified mayor. He would never be re-elected if he allowed trees to be cut down.
“I’m afraid that’s the only way to stop the spread of the fungus,” said the ecologist. “Here, my department has drawn up a chart showing the infected trees and those with a watch on them.”
He passed a plan of the area to the mayor and the council members gathered around eagerly to study it. The plan showed the park areas shaded in blue with red and green dots splattered all over it, as if a young child had held a dripping paint brush over the paper.
“What do these spots mean?” asked a councillor.
“The red ones are the trees that have to be removed and the green ones indicate trees where the results were ambiguous, so we’ll test them again in another month.”
The mayor and the councillors pored over the map, muttering to each other.
“Look, the rows of silver birch trees on Main Street are marked as having to come down.”
“At least the cedars in the park are spared.”
“Hey, look, if these trees over here are removed we could extend the playground and maybe add another exit to the east end of the park.”
“My neighbour’s not going to like this.”
Nobody liked it. Letters were written to the newspapers, meetings were held, coffee shops came alive with chatter but there was nothing to be done. The ecologists had been sent by the government and the law was the law. However, once it was discovered that the tall tree on the bluff was among the doomed trees some citizens decided to take action.
Over the course of a weekend they erected a makeshift campground at the base of the tree, and then stood around in groups, chanting slogans and spilling coffee on the surrounding streets.
“Save our tree!” proclaimed the banners.
“Take your fungus and put it elsewhere!” read another poster.
The local pharmacist vowed he would treat the tree with anti-fungal creams from his store and some members of a women’s group set up a sanitising station to ensure that everybody who touched the tree washed their hands before and after.
Soon the protest spread from the single landmark tree to the condemned row of birch trees and every other tree marked by a red spot. When the tree-cutting crew arrived the following week they were met by a mob of angry townsfolk and a barricade across the road.
“You can’t come through,” said the spokesman, a large red-faced man who had been elected more for his physical appearance than for his negotiating skills.
The tree-cutters, good union members who knew a picket line when they saw one, parked their tree chipper and sat down to have their lunch. They would be paid for their time whether they cut down trees or not. The townspeople declared a victory and gave a big cheer for the spokesman, clapping him on the back so much that his face turned from red to purple.
After a couple of hours, and following a telephone call from the ecologist, a car arrived at the barricade.
“Make way for the Minister of the Environment,” said a rather pompous voice from the driver’s side.
The crowd hesitated, mumbled to themselves and decided that a Minister would not cause too much of a problem so they pulled the barrier away. The car drove up to the town hall and the Minister, a tall, thin lady stepped out.
The ecologist, the mayor, several councillors and the spokesman, who had arrived at a run and was panting heavily, gathered around the Minister and all began speaking at once.
“The report clearly says-”
“You can’t take our trees!”
“I won’t let them through!”
“Minister, we can contain this fungus if you’ll only-“
“One moment please!” The Minister’s clear voice carried above the hubbub and everybody fell silent.
“I’ve come to review the conservation and preservation order that was placed on the trees of this area, as it has been drawn to my attention that there has been some confusion between the reports issued by the Conservation Department and the Natural Resources Bureau.”
The Minister frowned at the ecologist, who looked rather taken aback; the other people just stared at the Minister, not really sure what was going on.
“Please, come inside,” said the mayor, remembering his manners.
The whole assemblage, including most of the protest group who had come up to hear what was going on trooped into the town hall. The donuts and coffee cups were hastily removed from the council table and the Mayor offered the Minister a seat in his own chair.
The Minister opened her briefcase and withdrew a plan of the area identical to the first one, only with red and green spots in different places.
“This is the report of the fungus inspection,” she explained, while the council members and the spokesman looked back and forth between the Minister and the ecologist. The ecologist in turn glared at the Minister.
“The plan that you’ve been looking at is the preservation order – all these trees marked here in red and green have special heritage significance and cannot be cut down without a permit.”
“What do you mean? You were going to cut down our trees! How dare you!”
The ecologist was in danger of being lynched. Everyone in the room was standing now, waving their arms around and shouting at him. The Mayor banged on the table to ask for order but the room was too full of people for it to do any good.
The Minister sat quietly in her chair and after some time the noise died down and faces turned to her expectantly.
“So, Minister,” said the Mayor, “what does the real fungal report have to say?”
The Minister unrolled the chart again and asked two councillors to hold it up.
“Here, here and here,” she said, indicating three red spots on the outer edges of the town, “a severe case of fungal infection has been found. These three trees and several others farther along this field will have to go.”
The Minister pointed to the green dots closer to the town centre.
“These trees will be treated with a chemical solution and their progress monitored.”
There was a collective sigh of relief in the room while the councillors and townspeople digested the information on the chart and realised that their trees were saved.
“But I don’t understand,” said the Mayor, “how could this mistake happen?”
“I’m so sorry,” said the ecologist, “there must have been a misunderstanding in the department that prepares the charts; that’s the only explanation I can think of.”
“Sorry! Sorry! You nearly caused us to lose our oldest trees, our heritage! How can you just say it was a misunderstanding?”
The noise level rose again as everybody spoke out at once, most accusing the ecologist, some thanking the Minister, some demanding the Mayor’s resignation for not investigating the matter thoroughly.
Outside, the tree cutters finished their sandwiches and, seeing the barricades removed and nobody opposing them, got on with the work they had been contracted to do. The big tree shuddered under the impact of the chainsaw, swayed once towards the town it had stood over for almost a century then plummeted over the bluff to the beach below.
“Hey Jim,” said one of the men, “reckon we’ll get overtime for this job, eh?”
Seven Minutes After Midnight
A few years ago I visited a crocodile farm in the Philippines, and after wondering what would happen if the crocs were to escape, I wrote this story. A few days ago I read a news report about crocodiles escaping from a farm in South Africa, so my account is maybe not as fictional as I had thought!
It was seven minutes after midnight. The last of the fireworks were sputtering into the sky: showers of red, yellow and pink sparks silhouetting the palm trees and banana branches and Alfonso was eager to go and join the party in the town. He remembered other New Year’s Eve nights, when, as a young student, he had drunk himself silly on coconut wine, flirting with the girls in the house next door. Then there was the time uncle Pedro had wanted to roast the pig and Alfonso had spent all afternoon digging the pit and sharpening the poles but when the time came to kill the pig the creature got away and was not found until three days later so they had eaten rice and beans instead.
This year, however, Alfonso had a job and was not allowed off duty until the farm was locked down properly so he rushed around the sheds, closing down tanks, shutting off the lights, except where they were needed for incubating the eggs, and generally making sure the place was secure. He had already checked the hatchling tanks, or had he?
Alfonso stopped and scratched his head. Of course he had; that was where he was headed when the fireworks started. They had been good fireworks, for a small town: lots of the big coloured ones, shooting up high then drifting back down like twirling umbrellas and not so many of the bangers. Bangers were only fun when you lit them yourself, creeping up behind somebody and letting them off so that the poor person jumped out of their skin.
Alfonso pulled off his uniform and threw it in the guard house; he would retrieve it in the morning. Everon was on duty; he had already had a couple of beers and he wished Alfonso a slurred Happy New Year. Alfonso replied, feeling sorry for Everon. Who wanted to be stuck out on the edge of a field guarding a crocodile farm on New Year’s Eve? Did they think the goats were going to rush across the road and storm the place?
Walking out of the gate he quickened his pace, past the goats, still nibbling at the lush, green grass drenched in moonlight. A stray rooster darted out of the shadows and strutted beside him, fluffing up his feathers in preparation for the dawn – the fireworks had probably put the bird out of sorts. Alfonso strode across the bridge, pausing briefly to see if Gisella had laid out her washing as usual on the river bank. Something white caught his eye and he grinned. One of these days Gisella’s washing would be borne downstream on the current, past all the children playing games and the women drawing water and the whole town would see her laundry. There were plenty of pools and logs for the pants and dresses to snag on and then she would be a laughing stock.
Alfonso thought again about his plan for stringing a net across the river, just above the farm. He could catch fish, perhaps, in his lunch breaks, but it would also stop all the debris from the stores up the hillside from floating down the river and ending up outside the school where the kids played with it. And of course, it would catch Giselle’s laundry too. He smiled as he thought of her squatting by the river every morning, hair tied back out of the way, scrubbing hard at the sheets, waving to him on his way to work. Then the sounds of the New Year celebration rang out louder and he hurried along the road to join in the festivities.
Inside the dark hatchling shed the year-old crocodiles clambered over each other, scaling leathery skins, competing to be on the top of the pile with their snouts out of the manky water. The unlucky ones bided their time underwater, slowing their metabolism to a mere heartbeat, waiting for their turn on top. Some had been in these tanks for almost a year, others were recent arrivals, relocated while their shed was being repainted. The loud bangs earlier in the evening had unsettled some of the young reptiles and they moved around the tanks, trying to settle, opening and closing their long jaws, displaying rows of sharp teeth.
One tank at the end of the row contained several restless crocodiles who had all gathered at the same end of the tank, pawing at the smooth sides. A bout of leap-frog caused the tank to lurch to one side and the crocodiles paused briefly in their mountings but soon resumed their climbing. The sudden shift of weight unbalanced the tank and with a crash it fell on its side, spilling water and young crocodiles onto the concrete floor. The water soon drained away down the channels but the crocodiles remained, crawling slowly, testing the limits of their new confinement.
The hatchling shed was not particularly large and the immature crocodiles soon found the open door which Alfonso had forgotten to secure. A shaft of moonlight pointed the way to freedom. Poking their snouts through the opening they sensed earth and water and vegetation and ventured out. Nearby, barred gates and fences secured the open-air tanks of the larger crocodiles. The young ones slithered past their slumbering fathers, mothers, uncles and grandfathers and headed, like homing pigeons, for the river which rippled along the edge of the farm like a silvery snake.
Ah, the cool feel of wet sand and mud against the skin, the satisfying sensation of sinking into the water, without a brother or neighbour standing on one’s nose.
The young crocodiles slithered into the river. Some stayed at the bank, burying themselves in the sand like sticks. Some submerged themselves completely, revelling in the dark depths; some floated like logs, their eyes barely breaking the surface. Others followed the tug of the current and drifted downstream, twirling and spinning in the eddies, coming to rest in the shallow pools where a myriad footprints nearby told tales of the many visitors to the river. A few of the hardier beasts swam upstream, the powerful kicks from their legs propelling them against the current until they too flopped down in a crevice, exhausted from the evening’s excitement.
Gisella’s washing stone, the toddlers’ paddling pool, the youngsters’ swim hole and the unofficial village well all gained lodgers overnight. The new arrivals gulped the fresh, river air, closed their translucent eyelids and settled down in the shallows to wait for breakfast. They were in no hurry; the pale pink of dawn was barely showing through the trees and the roosters were just beginning to stir, announcing the arrival of a new day. Something good was bound to come along soon.
A Penguin Comes to Tea 