Day Twenty Three

Ralph was dying and he knew it. And if he lived, it wasn’t going to be a whole lot of fun anymore. Getting shot in the leg—in the thigh—was not a good thing. There were too many hospital consultants hanging around him looking at his notes and far too many policemen snooping around. He was a wanted fugitive and it was only a matter of time before someone worked it out and arrested him.

Ralph just didn’t get it: the only thing he needed to get out of the country was a car. He had it all in hand: it was only going to be a matter of taking the nurse’s car and getting over to Canada. All he had to do was persuade her to drive. He had the gun and the situation under control. And what happens? He shoots himself in the leg! He just couldn’t believe his dumb luck.

Of all the places on earth that Maurice was now free to roam, it was airports he liked best. Humans were odd creatures, to be sure. For example their liberal use of deodorants to hide their smell as if disguising their nasty scent was ever going to be achievable. Shaving their body hair: what was that all about? But mostly what Maurice found hard to understand was family in fighting. Sure, family members fell out and in his own herd, sometimes an elephant did something that could put everyone in danger. Like maybe, for example, calling attention to the whole herd which might in turn attract an enemy. For little indiscretions such as this, a little isolation might be necessary just to ensure it would not happen again. But then again, he had never lived in the wild and had never heard any firsthand accounts of another elephant who had roamed the savannahs or who had been chased by a hungry lioness.

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Maurice’s favourite place to people watch was the security gates for here all manner of bad human behaviour was present: an annoyingly polite security officer, the smuggler who couldn’t quite pull off the smuggle. The harried parent and the irritated other people who blamed the parent because the child was screaming the place down. Little kids and the way they would talk to anyone—including him if he were lucky.

“Hello,” said one little kid looking right him.

“Are you talking to me?” asked Maurice.

“Yes I am,” said the kid.

It was so thrilling that Maurice could never resist busting a few moves, sometimes even demonstrating his newly discovered jete skills. His battements needed a bit more practice.

“Who are you talking to?” the parent would ask anxiously and looking straight through Maurice.

“I’m talking to that dancing elephant,” said the kid watching Maurice plie.

And the parent would of course put it down to an over active imagination.

Stress affected people in funny ways but it was odd how a person might not even look like they were going to explode until they finally did. Right up until they lost their rag, some people had the ability to look cool. He had often heard a zookeeper explaining that elephants were hard to predict but Maurice though pachyderms had nothing on humans. Still, he was fairly confident he could tell when someone was close to losing their temper.

So he was a bit worried about Alfie and Sarah because he recognised there were hints of stress showing in Alfie’s expressions and mannerisms. He wasn’t sure exactly what Alfie could do to Sarah if he did lose his patience but he understood a long brewing disagreement between them could have dire consequences on a lot of things. He felt this had something to do with Julie although he could not pin the feeling down or think of how their disagreement could affect her. But all the same, he didn’t want to take any chances.

Brandon’s head felt as if it were made of frozen pineapple. He had had a CAT scan and was now resting in a hospital room waiting to hear if he had concussion or any bleeding on the brain. He didn’t feel right and the long day he had just experience seemed very far away.

Janie, he thought randomly. Who cares? Of course, Brandon was completely oblivious to the fact that there were three ghostly birds watching and listening to everything that was said around him.

“Janie,” he said out loud, testing to see if there was an emotional reaction to the word. There wasn’t.

Brandon had met Janie the very evening he had been promoted. When he looked back on that night, he didn’t think he had consciously intended to pick someone up but she had been very special. Her team had just won a softball tournament and she had played a great game. Still sweaty and smudged in dust, she had caught his eye across the bar. Actually, when he really thought about it, it hadn’t been too much of a bar. It was just a flimsy large room that looked like any ordinary basement in anyone’s house. There was a crappy pool table that took centre stage although very few people seemed to be interested.  That evening it had only been the guys from work and Janie’s softball team so perhaps it was unsurprising Janie had caught his attention. She had the flat belly and small breasts of an athlete. Brandon disliked large breasts and full hips. For most of the evening, Janie pretended not to be interested in him and inexplicably, this turned him on. He would take a sip of his beer and look at her just in time to see her look away. He knew she had been watching him. The other guys poked and ribbed him and eventually cajoled him into making the first move.

“I must have wanted her bad,” Brandon said to himself, frowning.

“And I-I-I-I-I-I-I- will owlways love yooooooooooo,” sang the puffin.

As usual, the flamingo high fived him.

“This is no joking matter! No joking matter!” said the emperor penguin. Like Maurice, he knew humans were very strange creatures that they had no hope of understanding. Brandon was supposed to fall in love with Clarice but that was never going to happen if he was still in love with Janie.

As if summoned, Clarice entered the room. She knocked on the door which the penguin thought very odd as she worked there.

“Hey,” she said to Brandon. She picked up his chart.

“What does it say?” asked Brandon. He tried to push himself into a more upright position but winced with pain.

“It says you shouldn’t exert yourself for awhile,” she said. It sounded like a scolding.

Brandon made a helpless gesture.

“Should I tell him to kiss her? Tell him to kiss her?” asked the penguin.

The flamingo gave him an are you stupid look?

“I think they should kiss,” said the puffin. “It’s what they do on the soaps!”

The penguin was just taking a deep breath to give a good old shout.

“Don’t you dare,” said the flamingo. “Don’t you remember that’s what caused this whole mess?”

There was the sucking sound again and Maurice was dropped into the room. “Don’t do anything!” said Maurice. “I think I have the secret for understanding humans.

Persephone morphed into the room to listen. The birds exchanged uneasy glances.

“Well go on then,” urged Persephone. “Let’s see if you can work them out better than I can.”

Maurice cleared his throat. “So they are both under stress, right?”

Everyone looked doubtful.

“OK, he’s been dumped and she’s miserable in her relationship, right?” Maurice, being a creature that mated for life, did not understand this at all. “That’s stress,” he added knowingly.

Everyone still looked doubtful.

“Look at me, am I stressed? I’m away from my mate!” shouted the puffin.

Maurice rolled his eyes. “You’re dead, dummy,” he said as if the puffin had forgotten this.

“I don’t get it! I don’t get it!” said the penguin.

Maurice puffed up and rolled his trunk up and then out. “What I’m saying is: There is going to be one hell of a row in a few minutes!”

The birds looked at each other and then at Alfie.

Persephone paced backwards and forwards on Brandon’s bed. “I’m not sure how Maurice is getting this,” she said, “But I would have to say I agree: there is one hell of a row building up.”

In unison, the birds said “Ooooooo-oooo-oooo!!”

Marvin, who had no experience in the dating department, had just impressed the only girl who had ever shown an interest in him. He was half crocked on stolen whiskey but felt a deep regret for this. She was still in her basketball kit she had been wearing since lunchtime and fat beads of perspiration shone on her upper lip.

“We won!” she said to Marvin. She gave him such a big smile he couldn’t help but smile back.

“Would you like to celebrate?” he asked. “I have a bit of whiskey left.”

“Whiskey?” she asked. She frowned deeply. “I don’t drink that stuff!”

Marvin was confused. Surely all women liked a drink?

“Um, we don’t have to have a drink,” he rummaged through his mind for something they could do that did not involve drinking alcohol. He could think of nothing. For the past few years, drinking everyday had been a part of his life. He wasn’t hurting anyone!

“Let’s just go for a walk,” she suggested.

Her name was Tonya and she was a Scorpio. Right, Marvin thought. He himself was a Pisces. He was supposed to like losing himself in his work and day dreaming about better things but he did not recognise them in himself. On the other hand, Tonya liked to look at life in a deep and profound way. It all seemed very suspicious to him.

He followed her to a garden very near to where his lived. Except it was very unfamiliar to him. Tonya told him it was supposed to look like a Japanese garden but Marvin didn’t have a clue what Japanese gardens were supposed to look like. But being in this garden made him think of his mother. She too loved to look at plants and animals and have a connection to the earth. She had always said the way one perceives the world is the way one actually experienced the world. It made him wonder about his mother, if she was happy, if she was coming back and most importantly, if he was anything at all like her.