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Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Language of Life

Talking animals sounded the death knell for the meat industry. Except for poultry. The things that fly, cluck or swim didn’t change, only the critters that walked. Unless you included dolphins and whales, but they didn’t really count because most people had suspected they were just playing dumb anyway.
    I had my first experience with a talking non-homo sapiens on a Wednesday. I was going back to work after a pleasant lunch. I’d just stepped off the porch when I heard someone call my name.
    “Hold on Jim, we need to talk.”
    I turned around to see who’d spoken, but all I could see was my dog, Ludicrous. He was sitting on the porch near the front door, his tail wagging, and a big smile on his face. Which was weird because Ludicrous never smiled; he just pulled his lips off his teeth in a dog grin. I walked up the steps and squatted down to stroke his ears.
    “Where is he boy?” I said while looking around.
    “Right here.” Ludicrous said.
    It was a good thing I’d been so close to the ground. I fell sideways and rolled onto my back. I could see Ludicrous through my semi-conscious haze. He had lost his grin and looked very concerned.
    “Sorry about that Jim,” Ludicrous said, “but you’ll get used to it.”
    I was looking up at my dog, with my mind whirling around like laundry in a washing machine. I knew I must have eaten some bad mayonnaise. Then someone else spoke, and brought me back to the present.
    “Freakin’ weird isn’t it?”
    I recognized the voice of my neighbor Sam Reynolds. From my prone position I turned my head to look at him. He was standing on the sidewalk in front of my house holding a bottle of liquor in his left hand. His right hand held a large caliber pistol. He was leaning to the side with the bottle and was unsteady on his feet. I said the first words that came into my mind.
    “Don’t shoot my dog, Sam.”
    Then I let my head fall to the other side towards Ludicrous. I was wondering what he’d turn into now, but he was still a dog.
    “Yeah, don’t shoot me Sam.”
    “Shut the fuck up!” Sam yelped and pointed his gun at Ludicrous while taking a swig off the bottle.
    “Take it easy dude, it’s just my dog.” I croaked.
    “Tell him to shut up!”
    Ludicrous didn’t say anything more. He sat down and put his head on my stomach, wagging his tail. This seemed to pacify Sam.
    “Well all right then.” Sam said, and took another swig off his bottle. “I’m going to go home and finish this scotch, then I’m going to go buy some more. Bye Jim.”
    He turned away and walked down the sidewalk towards his house. Ludicrous and I watched him until he reached his front door. He turned back and I waved from where I was on the ground. Ludicrous just wagged his tail a little harder.
    After Jim went inside his house I sat up and asked my dog, “What the hell is going on?”
    “Hey, this is as weird for me as it is for you.” Ludicrous snapped.
    “No, I don’t think so.”
    “A week ago all I cared about was dog food and that poodle down the street. Now I wake up thinking about existence, my future and my short fuckin’ life span. Trust me, it’s weird.”
    “What happened?”
    “I don’t know!”
    “Someone must know. There has to be a cause for this.”
    “Do humans have any idea when the spark of intellect ignited in their heads? Jim, I’ve asked every animal I know, and it’s always the same thing, we just woke up with awareness and a vocabulary.”
    “Any theories?”
    “Dude, we’re animals who just started talking, we haven’t started theorizing yet.”
    “I don’t know if I can handle this.” I said while rubbing my temples with both hands.
    We sat in silence for a while. I was having a hard time getting my mind around what was happening, I was definitely on shaky ground mentally.  Ludicrous seemed to sense this. Even as a regular pet he’d been able to sniff out my moods, and he was anything but a regular pet now. There were no more regular pets, except maybe Goldfish. That thought sent my mind reeling again.
    “Jim,” My dog was trying to snap me out of it, “I know this is a tough thing to handle right now, but you need to remember, no matter how freaked you are, I’m even more confused. And I’ve got a lot less history to refer to about this sort of thing. Hell, I have no goddamn history with this sort of thing!”
    “Where the hell did you learn to cuss so much Ludicrous?”
    “That’s how you talk.”
    “So I had an effect on your speech?”
    “In discussions with my four legged brethren we’ve come to the conclusion that any speech or awareness we have is in direct correlation to the humans we were exposed to.”
    “Hey! You’re theorizing.”
    “I’m grasping at straws.”
    “I guess it’s a good thing for you I’m a college grad.”
    “Right now I’m just grateful you didn’t let Sam Reynolds shoot me. And by the way, I want you to stop calling me Ludicrous. I didn’t used to care, but I do now, so start calling me Amos.”
    “Amos what?”
    “What do you mean ‘Amos what?’”
    “If you’re gonna be taken seriously you gotta have a last name.”
    “Alright, I’ll use your last name.”
    “Ok, Amos Wilson, I’m Jim, nice to meet you.”
    That was the start of a new friendship with my dog. It was also the start of some of the most mind blowing years humanity had ever experienced.
    The first couple of weeks of animal sentience weren’t too bad for me because I was busy at work. I ran a travel agency, and suddenly everyone was in a big hurry to get away from it all. I’d go to my office and immerse myself in the day’s tasks and then go home. Amos would meet me at the door and ask me to fill his dog dish with beer. I’d have a double scotch and soda, and another one, and, well, you get the idea. While the rest of the world adapted to a new paradigm I just got hammered every night until being sober, even when you had to deal with a talking dog, was a relief.
    One night I came home and Amos suggested we stroll down to the neighborhood bar and grill to see how the rest of the world was dealing with things. Walking into the Blue Tortilla Café’ was surreal: people and their dogs, and cats everywhere. Someone had removed the “No shoes, no shirt, no service,” sign. We sat down at the first vacant table we came to.
    “I guess this is how we feed our animals these days.”
    “Not as bad as you thought, is it?” Amos asked.
    “Yes it is.”
    “You’ll get used to it.”
    “You keep saying that, and I keep waiting for it to be true.”
    We tried to listen to the people and animals around us. Everyone wasn’t so much talking as whispering. The waitress who came to our table us wouldn’t look at Amos. Her name tag said ‘Bernice.’
    “What are you having today?” she asked me.
    “I’ll have the veggie burger, and he’ll have a can of your best dog food.”
    “Now how do you know what I want?” Amos interrupted.
    “What? You don’t eat dog food anymore?”
    “I kind of figured I’d have something special on my first visit to a restaurant.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like some French Fries, with a beer.”
    The waitress interrupted us,” We haven’t had any animals, well I mean, things that aren’t people order beer before. You got any I.D?”
    “Of course I ain’t got any I.D. I’m a freakin’ dog!”
    “I’m sorry, we can’t serve you alcohol then.’
    “Miss, I’m almost thirty in dog years!”
    “I’m sorry, uh, sir? But we’re not allowed to serve alcoholic beverages to people, I mean anyone that isn’t twenty one human years of age.”
    “You know this is a lawsuit in the making don’t you?”
    Bernice looked confused.
    “One minute sir, I’ll call the manager over.”
    She started to leave, and I called after her, “Wait. Bernice? Could you just bring us a veggie burger, French fries and some water for now? We’ll worry about the legal drinking age later.”
    Bernice looked relieved and walked away.
    Amos was pissed.
    “That’s a bunch of bullshit!”
    “Quiet down. Hell, you only started drinking a few weeks ago anyway. Besides, we both need to dry out.”
    “It’s the principle of the thing.”
    I called Bernice back over and changed our order to go. After about ten minutes she brought our food and we left. 
    Humankind was going to have to make a lot of adjustments to the new world order. Our treatment of animals and the attitude towards eating meat was only the first big change. The population of farm animals would have to decline. There was no need for so many. Animal Contraception was discussed on all the daily news shows, and the church didn’t have a problem with it. Sheep would still be populous because wool was needed. They were already receiving some nice amenities for their outer covering. A lot of the other animals were envious. Except for dogs, but they’d always had it made anyway. They only had to learn not to chase cats, which was easy enough because dogs are naturally lazy.
    As Amos liked to say, “It’s just one more thing that we don’t have to do!”
      Sentient animals created a slew of moral dilemmas. It was difficult for most people to eat something that asked why it was being eaten. Instead of PETA or militant vegetarians picketing food stores, animals began congregating outside eating establishments and asking folks how they’d feel if their little one was considered extra tasty. It was harder for some cultures than others, but most people seemed to know instinctively that we as a species had no choice. Laws were being proposed within months, and staying orders were implemented to keep folks from sautéing our new citizens. Humanity was trying to come to grips with the new reality, but not everyone was willing to jump off the carnivore express so quickly. Some folks didn’t want to give up their steaks and chops. Humans who continued eating cattle and pigs did so in secret because it was considered grotesque but more importantly, because it was illegal. This lead to a rash of pignappings and cattle rustling, which in turn caused the formation of the Non-Homosapien Violent Crimes Division, jokingly referred to as “Scotland Barnyard.”
    People weren’t the only ones making drastic adjustments. Amos and his furry buddies had to confront their own carnivorous appetites. Most creatures were having eating disorders.
    “I can’t work up the same enthusiasm for steak that I used to.” Amos said one day. “And not just because it’s fake steak.”
    “I’m not surprised Amos, if it’s possible to know your food on a first name basis, what do you expect? Besides being illegal it’s downright uncivilized.”
    “I know that, and I can deal with it, but I tell you Jim, it’s going to be really hard for some folks. I was at the park yesterday, and there was a feral looking Coyote eating the pseudo meat at the communal feeding table the city puts out.”
    “As opposed to an un-feral looking Coyote?”
    “You know what I mean.”
    “Sorry.”
      “Anyway, like I was saying, he didn’t look too happy. There was a ewe and her lambs playing in the park. That coyote wouldn’t take his eyes off them. Everyone was trying not to make eye contact. I mean, talk about an awkward moment.”
    “Anything happen?”
    “Nah, this great big ape of a security guard, and I do mean ape, saw what was happening and calmed everyone down.”
    Amos was right, and it did take some work, but eventually the animals figured it out, which was nice. The sounds emanating from the woods at night had become increasingly macabre. This added to the burden for humans, as animals had to get their food from somewhere, and everyone was getting tired of eating chicken. People needed to grow more food, both for themselves and the animals. More had to come from the oceans and be transported overland. The drain on Earth’s transport systems, seas and plant life was immense at first. Better methods of growing things, an increase in deep sea fish farms, and taking better care of the Earth’s large bodies of water helped to alleviate that problem.
    Another good sign was seeing more co-species gatherings in my neighborhood. Of course the animals were always the last to leave a party. They never had any pressing engagements. The government had to open a lot of alcohol clinics, and abuse education centers for our furry brothers, until they got “all four legs under them.”
    Humans gradually came to accept critters in all the social aspects of our lives. Some were smart, some weren’t. Oddly enough, apes and chimpanzees were the dullest animals. They could talk, but they weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed. It became common practice to hire apes and chimps as carnival barkers and security personnel.
    Amos wasn’t enjoying his new found abilities. He just wanted to forget about everything, and regain his earlier feelings of contentment. Unfortunately he couldn’t because he and all the other talking animals had acquired those two most wondrous of human traits; curiosity and anxiety.
    “I gotta get a hobby.” He told me one day.
    “I could get you another Frisbee?”
    “The hell with that, I only used to chase that thing around to make you happy. You think it just disappeared?”
    “I thought you liked it?”
    “Oh yeah, you try it. Chase the spinning disk, and bring it back, over, and over again.”
    “Too bad, I used to like doing that. Ok, what can I do to help?”
    “I don’t know, but I’ve got to take my mind off things.”
    “What things. All you do is sleep, eat and go on your nightly neighborhood watering jaunts.”
    “Hey! Until they design a toilet that I can use, be happy I don’t pee on your tile floor.”
    “Well, you aren’t exactly a model of activity Amos. You don’t do a damn thing”
    “Of course I don’t do anything, I got paws! I can’t even open my own food!”
    The problem was animals had too much time on their paws. They needed jobs. The answer was prosthetics. With the right artificial limb, an animal could perform any task. The production of animal prosthetics became one of the largest industries in history.  Amos was fitted with a small hand so he could use a pencil and a can opener but other than that he just didn’t care.
    Some people and animals saw the writing on the wall, bought stock in the prosthetic industry, and became wealthier than God. People and animals were hired as consultants for companies vying to be the next cutting edge ‘Paw Fitter.”Government subsidies made taking care of non-human needs a big money enterprise. Fake mouse meat ranked as high in consumption as veggie burgers. Animal chefs even had their own shows. This wasn’t a good thing because critters were easily distracted by the boob tube. Amos was watching a lot of T.V. Not just cooking shows either. There were the dog detective shows, Kitties Gone Wild, and the animal history channel. Amos gained twenty pounds.
    “You’re fat.” I told him one day.
    “So?” he answered irritably, “You don’t look like you’ve been missing many meals, and you smell funny.”
    “I’m serious. You need to lose weight.’
    “I am not chasing your damn Frisbee, if you miss it that much you can pay the dog down the street to do it.”
    “Amos, if you don’t slim down you’ll have a heart attack.”
    “What can I do?”
    “I’ll buy you a treadmill.”
    “Now see? That’s a great idea. I never would have thought of that.”
    “It’s pretty obvious.”
    “To you maybe, but I don’t think like that. No animals do. We don’t do anything we don’t have to do. The idea of creating work for ourselves, that’s a foreign concept.”
    “Well sharing a table with a flatulent bull is a foreign concept, so guess what? You get to learn some new concepts.”
    Amos was right. Animals weren’t just new to talking. Long term thinking was a completely different experience to them. Our furry friends were eager to learn as much from people as they could. After awhile animals began taking the initiative, but some creatures didn’t jump on the band wagon. They wanted to be as carefree as possible, and tried “going back to the lap,” as the saying went. Those poor creatures usually ended up in a home or slurping tomato beer at the local Hoof and Paw bar and grill.
    Then the first wave of animal writers appeared on the scene. I came home one day and Amos was engrossed in a novel.
    “When did you learn to read?” I asked him.
    “I don’t know, I just can.” He said.
    “Animals don’t know how much they have it made, just knowing stuff.”
    “We only grasp what you grasp, so stop slacking.”
    “What the heck are you reading?”
    “It’s the latest novel by Spot.”
    “Who the hell is Spot?”
    “He’s a Cry-thor.”
    “A what?”
    “A Cry-thor, a Critter Author.”
    “Get outta here.”
    “I’m serious. This books wingin’ off the shelves.”
  “What’s it about?’
    “It’s called ‘What the Hell?’ It’s about a group of animals and their first experience with Mercury in Retrograde. It’s the funniest damn book I’ve ever read.”
    “As far as I can tell, it’s the only book you’ve ever read.”
    “I gotta start somewhere. I figured I might as well begin with something from one of my fellow new-speakers.”
    “Of course! The hell with Shakespeare, and the classics.”
    Amos rolled his eyes. “Actually his name is Brown Robert, he’s a bobcat from the southwestern United States. Spot is his nom de plume. I think it’s just his way of poking fun at the unimaginative naming practices of humans during pre-animal emancipation times.”
    “Oh Jesus freakin’ Christ.”
    “Hey, lighten up, this is a best seller.”
    “I can’t wait for his next one, ‘Fluffy and Fido, Forbidden Love.’’”
    “Mark my words; you’ll be buying one of this guys book’s someday. He’s going to be in town next week for a book pawing, ya wanna go with me?”
    That was all I could take, I headed out the door to O’Malley’s Pub, which was doing a screaming business these days.
    Amos was right about Spot making it big, but he was just the first. Soon animals were writing works in all genres, except Science Fiction. Sci-Fi remained a human specialty. People attributed this to the human need to escape the very weird by reading about the merely somewhat weird.
    Animals started integrating into other realms of entertainment as well. The Emmy’s, The Oscars, and MTV took on a surreal appearance. The Music Awards had a Best Bleat category and Rex the Dingo Dog had a number one hit with “Barking at the Neighbor’s Cat,” a sad song about two star crossed lovers.
    Amos became a successful cartoonist. He’d started drawing caricatures of other animals shortly after being fitted with his first paw-pen. Everyone in the neighborhood asked for a drawing, and then he started penciling political figures and adding commentary. The next thing I knew, instead of me taking care of Amos, he was taking care of me. When he turned twenty and didn’t show any signs of slowing down I realized something was up. Not long after I started thinking about it, news organizations throughout the world started commenting on how animals everywhere were having longer lives. Scientists didn’t know why, but our furry brethren seemed to be living two and a half to three times as long as they had before they’d acquired sentience. The day the report came out Amos was more than a little irritated.
    “That’s just great!” He said.
    “What the heck are you so pissed about?”
    “It’s bad enough I have to worry about paying rent, buying food or world affairs, now you people can’t even let death sneak up on me.”
    “Hey, you can’t blame humanity for dying; it comes with the territory.”
    “Sure it does, but animals had no idea when we’d take the big plunge. You guys weren’t happy with us getting to glide blithely through our days not knowing or worrying about when we might be checking out. You couldn’t stand it could you?”
    “It’s not like you know the exact day you’re going to that great kennel in the sky.”
    “Somehow the ambiguousness was comforting.”
    “Sorry amigo, welcome to consciousness.”
    Amos got over his chagrin. Things were calming down worldwide. Everyone and everything seemed to be getting along. The world was still too strange for some people, and there was a mass movement to colonize Mars and make it habitable. The space program got a lot of the money that was floating around. Twenty-five years after the first documented case of an animal speaking, the same year I officially retired, people were growing food on Mars. Twenty years after that, the Mars Olympus Mons’ lost to the New York Yankees in the inaugural interplanetary World Series.
    Amos made it to his forties. The day he passed on was a sad one for me. The service was filled with dignitaries and celebrities. Amos had been famous after all. After Amos died I thought about emigrating to Mars. Ironically, once humanity had learned to create an atmosphere, life there was less odd than life on Earth. Mars was a clean, calm place filled primarily with people because most animals were reluctant to leave Earth. Except for vacationers human beings had the place to themselves. Eventually the tourist trade between Earth and Mars rivaled even that of the travel between Jersey and Miami.
    Earth and Mars were prospering and Terran-kind was poised to advance further into space. It was a solar system full of possibilities, and it seemed as if nothing could go wrong.
    Until the Vegetable People of Antares arrived to free their brethren.
                                      The End

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