Clips:
The Predator's World is Silent
Outside is mob rule and mayhem. I wake each morning to a public demonstration of collective power as birds hurry around like mad things, busy with their dark logistics. There are bees, bloated and drunken, the horse stares at me, and a violent budding now afflicts every bush and branch. It rained last night, so a carpet of menacing purple flowers has emerged from the grass. I don't know when it will end, but the flowers are already multicolored and expanding and they make me miss Laila.
I put out food for the hedgehog – a peace offering if you will – but the thing rushes past as if motorised and the cat thieves the rest. I recently saw a 'Hedgehog House' for sale on e-Bay that claimed to be 'Cat-Proof' and suitable for the 'Forward-Thinking Hog.' I may look into this.
Each day I confront an intimidating gang of Jackdaws – they always have a sentinel perched on the phone lines to cry out and warn the others when you approach – and a variety of rotund Robins so tough the wind rolls them over and they just get up again. Ferns are unfolding, so they catch the wind and nod, and as the sunlight strikes the waiting trees, they boast their billowing plumage, reaching up and above me. Two Blackbirds fight over something disgusting, and there are foxes also; at least one (sleek) rat – a scout perhaps – and busloads of idiot bugs that bang against the light like addicts. I cannot sleep. Politics rages all around me.
When it's just too much and beyond human tolerance, I come blundering out in my dressing gown to let them have it – the whole disorderly rabble. I tell the ducks to stop messing about; I lecture the horse over the hedgerow and I shout at the lambs to calm down as they bound around the field without reason (if you watch closely, it's their LEGS that do the bounding, with the lambs knowing little about it). My words, of course, have no effect on this plebian assembly. Laila would have laughed.
As for the birds, I tell you, they do not listen and do whatever they please. Am convinced that some fly around for the sheer fun of it. Crows mob buzzards, Wagtails flirt and there is a strange crowd of fluttering brown miniatures that travel together, never stop chattering and eventually panic one other into moving on.
The only thing that shuts everyone up is the arrival of the Sparrow Hawk – when, quite suddenly, no one has anything to say. He preens himself (his is a silent world) and looks around with disdain. Then he lazily flaps away with all the confidence of the tyrant. But right away, the rabble reconvenes, talking about it, carrying on and filling the air with sound and movement. Am telling you, this lot may look good, but they're opportunistic and only befriend you when it suits them.
In the evening, the Magpie with the one white knee and outrageous political views visits me, and I am often required to confront her with the facts. The 'Forward-Thinking Hogs' arrive at ten and the second shift at two. Around four, the neighbours-from-hell are at it again, shouting at each other from the treetops. Once awakened, I walk. I must. Down the straight lane of blossom that Laila loved so much, to the horizon, then a small bridge where water rushes over tumbling green. It looks pretty now, innocent and unmarked by history.
Now the leaves are fingered shadows and beyond, the hills appear. I circle back through the sloping field as best I can, with its brown cow inhabitants. Usually they ignore me as I mumble under my breath, yet sometimes they follow insistently, passively pressing – like people filming an accident on their phones. I admonish them and wave my finger while they chew and take a step forward, watching me. Once home, it's the usual round of conflict resolution, international negotiation, boundary setting and outrage management.
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Turnip Hierarchy
A group of people - this is a true story about materialism - found an island where they learned to grow turnips. It went well until they lost their crop to thieves who came in the night - both animal and human. Ok, so we need a night shift.
Many years later (or soon enough), a young boy lay on the floor of a dark and dirty room, trying to sleep, his mind racing. He was hungry, but he drew his blanket warm around him and used the time to wish he was somewhere else, maybe even someone else, like a Day-Shifter. You could tell them right away because they looked like Gods and they had more turnips.
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Indivisible Worth
While Captain Evans was dying in his hospital bed he was much comforted by a teenager who visited him daily. They did not speak, but simply moved up alongside him, sitting there unafraid and glowing like an example. Only some could see this, just as only some can perceive the beauty in everyday heroes, in a short and pain-filled life or in not being especially gifted. Certainly, everything can be quantified, anything can be fragmented and assessed on its tradeable value and numbers can stand in for reality. But few hear the hiss of meaning as it drains away, so when the Captain finally died, they fired the teenager.
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The Wildebeest Defence
Wildebeest avoid becoming lunch by overwhelming their predators with numbers. Their teeming activity, dust, sounds and flashing hooves, jam the Lion’s cognition who blink and squint in vain. If you paint a blue circle on the side of a Wildebeest, it is quickly singled out, hunted down and eaten. The blue circle enables the lions to simplify, to pick out just that one wildebeest, after which the animal stands little chance. Presumably, the yellow star, the coloured triangles and orange jump suit, a wheelchair, white cane, dirty clothes, long beard, black skin, breasts, scarred wrists – any difference imaginable – can serve to focus the cognition of predators. We rely on the Wildebeest Defence more than we should.
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