Of course, such triumphs are few and far between. More often than not, I have to content myself with emptying the pockets of some concussed drunken student, robbing a purse in the underground, taking home some useless item stolen from an unlocked vehicle or even, in the worst possible scenario, mugging a tramp. The final prize may be disappointing, but it is essential to keep one's reflexes attuned. If no wildebeest becomes available, the lion will often catch a mouse, just for the sake of a few calories and a little consolation.
I lost contact with my father before reaching adolescence. This is as should be. Young males abandon the pride before reaching sexual maturity. In this particular case, it was he who left the family unit in order to embark on some twisted unnatural affair. Same difference, in reality. As for my mother, I haven't seen her in years, but she pesters me with monthly telephone conversations. Last time, she rang three times in a row, asking for a favour. Apparently, I have a cousin, whom I have never met, named Rebecca. Now, this girl is starting a job in London and needs a place to stay until she finds accommodation. I refused but my mother insisted, hence the repeated ringing. In the end, she bribed me with two hundred pounds a month, for the duration. I managed to haggle the bitch up to three hundred.
Lost for words, for the whole day. I had arranged to pick up my cousin from Waterloo station. She had to be helped onto the platform by a member of staff. My mother has betrayed me! I called her as soon as we got home. Allegedly, she had already told me that Rebecca was wheelchair bound. According to her feeble excuses, I never listen to what she says. I gave her a piece of my mind. Its four hundred or I'll throw the damned idiot down the stairs!
My cousin seems to manage fairly well... She goes to great lengths to avoid asking for assistance. I don't know how she manages in the bathroom, but I haven't noticed anything untoward yet, like urine on the floor. Still, early days, I fear.
Wildlife documentaries are so much more than television entertainment. By showing how nature operates, they deal with essential truths. Children should be forced to watch them on a regular basis, perhaps then, the foibles of humanity would be straightened out. Why? Because there's a tendency to confuse culture with bare reality. As if the whole spectrum of our artifice, our customs and traditions, were inherent to the species. We are naked beneath our clothes. Politics is an amalgam of contrived genital sniffs. Morality is tooth and claw defiled.
Rebecca watched last night's program with me. She kept quiet throughout and only made some humorous comments during the commercial breaks. When it finished, I complained about how in this documentary, as in so many others, nature is humanised by an irritating narrator and atrocious editing. We want to see how things are, without censure or concessions for the viewer's over-sensitive palate. If there's infanticide in the warren, for example, I want to watch it happen. It may be gruesome and upsetting, but truth is not served by pusillanimity. Rebecca didn't comment on my thesis. I guess she was shocked at what I said. No wonder, in her condition...
First day at work for Becky. She was nervous as hell. She hardly touched her breakfast and had to be coaxed into drinking a cup of coffee. When she was about to depart, on the spur of the moment, I decided to give her a lift. After all, her office is practically on the way to the factory. She was silent throughout the ride, wringing her hands frantically, barely nodding her head in answer to my remarks. I complimented her on the perfume she was wearing and she smiled sweetly. With some skill, I managed to park just in front of the reception. I offered to wheel her into the building. She thanked me profusely, but refused my help. I waited for a minute, as she negotiated the ramp and rang the bell. The receptionist buzzed her in, she turned round, waved at me and entered her allocated beehive-dash-treadmill.
Autumn is cold this year. Night falls early. This should be perfect for me; nevertheless, it is difficult to find anything worth stalking when the conditions are so poor. The prey instinctively withdraw into their overheated burrows as soon as they're able to. The main hunting season will soon be over. This is why so many predators hibernate during the winter months. Hot blood is a priceless commodity when the temperature drops.
The working week has passed with monotonous effortlessness. My cousin seems to be fitting in surprisingly well in her duties. Nonetheless, I was forced to tell her off last night for arriving late. Her new colleagues socialize every Thursday evening, which means, in effect, getting pissed and eating curry. Well, she arrived late and slightly inebriated. This I cannot condone. Her new friends should be ashamed of themselves. Everyone bends over backwards to pretend that she's normal. Hypocrisy is one of the worst sins, in my book.
Becky asked me what my weekend hobbies were. Obviously, I couldn't tell her the truth. It was hard for me not to boast about my triumphs. She probably thinks I'm merely a boring old sod, with no friends or social life to speak of. In the end, I had a brainstorm and suggested a trip to the Zoo. Her face — she has comely features, shame about the exaggerated makeup she wears — lit up with enthusiasm.
As I wheeled her around, she asked me scores of questions regarding the caged beasts. She was thoroughly impressed with my knowledge. You should leave the factory and become a naturalist, she affirmed. (Not such a bad idea, if not for the fact that I already practice a higher form of naturalism). We disagreed, however, on our choice of the most impressive species on show. She favoured zebras and giraffes. I insisted on the predators. Most puzzling were the apes. There was a gorilla sitting in a corner of a glass enclosure. When we approached, it threw a large piece of dung at us, dirtying the screen. Becky and I exchanged worried glances and then pointed at each other, laughing...
Marcelo Worsley studied Philosophy in Middlesex University (London, England) where he also completed a Master's Degree, writing his dissertation on TW Adorno's ambivalent relationship to the question of nihilism. Afterwards, he moved to Madrid (Spain) and enrolled in the PhD courses of the Complutense University and became interested in narrative theories of personal identity. He has published academic articles but nowadays he devotes most of his time to literature. The author has recently had two short stories (in Spanish) accepted for publication in Axxon and Artifex.