Genesis Zoo

‘Dino knickers. Wanna see dino knickers.’

Squabbling kids, pestering parents to lift them high over the heads of the adults so they could stare through the double mesh electric fencing, across the twenty foot wide water ditch and on to the hill of stacked boulders.  Gnawed cattle bones littered the rocks.  Here a shoulder blade.  There a broken femur, juices sucked out by a prehensile tongue. But it wasn’t these that attracted their bloodthirsty cries. On top of the pile the strange creature crouched, lashing its mournful tail through a jumble of autumn leaves.

‘Why don’ ’e stand up?’

‘Wan’ it t’run arter cows.’

‘They always run on telly.’

Judith, adult but small, pushed under the raised parental arms, lifted her hands to knock aside children’s waving legs and reached a viewpoint next to a fat guy whose jiggling belly and simian arms kept back the crowd.

The cage caption showed a photo faded and blurred into pinks and greys.  Deinonychus. Resurrected by Genomic Ornithiscian Developmental Society.  Research Project Funded by Popular Subscription. Savage Pack Hunters. Common in the Cretaceous. 140 to 65 million years ago.

Why are the dates backwards? Judith wondered.

The deinonychus rose up from its sad squat. It was tall as a young child.  If, heaven forbid, it stood in Judith’s living room, its nose would slime mucus on the window while its tail wagged and scratched against the fireplace.  Thoughtfully it preened the bronze feathers of one arm with the claws on its other hand.   It extended a leg, the thigh feathers fluttering in the cool wind. Strange fluffy feathers, lacking a firm shaft and solid vane like those on a bird’s wing. But it wasn’t the feathers that caused the crowd to hush and whisper. The scaly lower leg carried a huge sickle claw on its upper surface.

‘Slashers,’ said a boy with satisfaction.

‘Into ribbons,’ said his sister licking her lips.

 The deinonychus’ dark green python neck rocked from side to side, and the short gold feathers on forehead and shoulders shimmered in the wintry sun.

How beautiful! sighed the mothers.

Its blunt head, thick as its neck, turned towards the crowd. Long grinning jaw, small inscrutable eyes, nostrils wrinkling and snuffling. 

It opened its crocodile mouth wide.

Children screamed, were dropped.  Adults at the front jumped backwards onto toes, elbowed themselves away from the fence.

‘Watch it,’ ordered the fat guy, thrusting out billowing stomach so Judith was protected from the fray.

She was unfazed by the brute’s teeth. In fact she smiled.

            It was Auntie Hilary in a strop.

            Yesterday, Auntie, didactic, ‘Leo’s no good for you.’

Bold for once Judith replied, ‘That’s my business.’

Auntie, grim determined face that still scared Judith silly, ‘It’s mine too.  Who took care of you all these years after your mother. . .?  It’s my duty.’  Bronze and gold highlights in her dyed hair shimmered under the kitchen lights.  ‘Postman! Walking the streets all weather.  Not a proper job is it?’

‘It’s a worthwhile job.’ How weak!

Auntie steamrollered on. ‘You’re the one bringing in most money. If you ever decide to get married and have a family, how will you manage then? It wasn’t like that. . .’

‘. . . in your day. I know.  I know! You’re always telling me!’

‘Don’t get hysterical, dear.’  She smiled, her chipped teeth pointed with age, tobacco yellow. She didn’t have a talon on her leg, but she gouged Judith’s heart.

She reached into the fridge with clawed arthritic hand, brought out a large plastic bottle. ‘Soup, dear. Butternut squash and ginger, just as you like it.’  Her curls bobbed again. ‘I know you don’t have time to cook these days and Leo. . .’

Judith grabbed the bottle and tipped the contents down the sink.  ‘Stop interfering, you old bag. Get a life.  Leave me alone.’  She drew herself to her full height, still two inches shorter than Auntie (‘If only Elaine had fed you properly when you were little. In spite of all my good food I’m afraid you’ll always be stunted.’) and marched out of the kitchen shouting, ‘Don’t you ever wonder why your own son’s living in Oz, as far away as possible from you? He couldn’t stand you nosing around either.’ That’s telling her, she thought with pride.

But she made the mistake of looking back.  Auntie, collapsed, a tiny old woman, mouth gaping, eyes. . .  Judith refused to read her eyes.

Back in its cage the deinonychus shrank back down, head on chest.  Became uninteresting.

The crowd moved on.  Judith followed in the safety of the fat man’s wake.

In an extensive paddock a monster hairy elephant waved its trunk disconsolately. Its tusks were much smaller than the artist’s representation.  Another unpronounceable Latin name.  Underneath, for the hoi polloi, Hairy Mammoth.  Extinct for 10,000 years.  

Judith wriggled past the fat man.

‘Hoi you. Who d’ya think ya pushin?’

He smelt of sweat, unwashed pants. Hadn’t she read recently that some people boast they change their underwear six monthly?

He placed a plump hand on her shoulder. Turned her to face him.

Wet mouth, panting with the exertion of his stroll. Countless chins, part shaven. Eyes peeping between folds of fat.  Ignorant as they come.

‘Don’t you assault me,’ she said loudly.

‘Salt?’ Pink lips gaping.

Dumbo.

Her nearest neighbours turned from the idle mammoth towards the more active and interesting ogre gawping at Judith. Gradually they edged away from a possible Sumo wrestler.

He dropped his paw. Judith slithered into a gap by the heavy duty fencing.

The mammoth didn’t flinch from a kid’s well aimed apple. Shaggy corrugated hide, impervious to stone age spears.

Like Leo.

She giggled. She’d tell him tonight.  Hairy as a mammoth. But thin skinned.   Couldn’t take a joke against himself.

Long before cockcrow – silly expression, when does a cock ever crow here in Wolverhampton? – she’d yanked the coarse hairs on his arm.  ‘Why don’t you bloody well shave them?’ Then pulled all the duvet her side, eyeing his furry nakedness as she snuggled under the covers.  ‘Caveman.’ He’d offed in a huff.  No kisses. No sense of humour.

The King Kong abducting Fay Wray joke was long since passé. Sometimes she wondered why she lived with him. The inertia of three years’ relationship?  To annoy Auntie?

Thankfully he wasn’t stupid like the Sumo guy waddling away to the next exhibit.

Judith bypassed him, strode further down the path.  A man in a fur coat was raking leaves in one of the pens.  She stopped to watch, wondering idly what animal lived here and where it was housed.

The man turned to face her.

He wasn’t a man. A sort of monkey. With an almost human face.  Heavy brows, thrusting chin, no forehead to speak of. Upright, as tall as herself.

The label read Homo erectus. Early man. Limited vocalisation. Stone tools. Possibly controlled fire.   Hunter gatherer.

This one was much more like Leo. Definitely male. And currently not erectus. Wicked!

The creature shambled to the fence. An ancient Dumbo, thick headed as they come.

They stared at each other, the before-Adam and after-Eve. The whites of its eyes showed clearly, unlike those of the other animals. The irises were brown.  The pupils deep as oceans. Sad as Leo’s.

I love you. I cherish you. Why do you always make fun of me? said the eyes.

‘You can’t take a joke, can you?’

I cannot stand your jeering. It hurts. The animal rubbed its chest mournfully.

She felt its pain in her heart. ‘I don’t mean it.’

You enjoy my discomfort.

‘Of course I don’t. I’m not cruel.’

 It continued to stare. Its face shrank into wrinkled age.  Its eyes grew old.  I’m lonely since your uncle died. Frightened at night lest the robbers come.

‘I don’t want to know.’

My dear cousin.  We were closer than sisters. I love you.  I cherished you. You look like her, my memory of past happiness.

‘Don’t expect me to take my mother’s place.’

You haven’t her loving nature. How did I rear such a cold child? Where did I go wrong?

‘I’m not cold. I’m amusing, enjoy a laugh. I’m independent.’

Yes.

‘Young, not old and boring.’

Not yet.

‘I’m successful. My career, my flat, my car, my clothes. Oh, and my Leo. I’m on the up.’

Indubitably.

‘I’m not a loser.’

‘A loser,’ echoed a voice she recognised from behind her.

The man-ape turned his gaze on the fat guy for a long long moment. The fat guy wobbled, covered his sagging face with those podgy hands.

‘Eyes of God,’ he muttered. ‘Eyes of God.’