Things My Children Will Never Experience Growing Up

Belvedere Jehosophat - Sunday, 18 July 2010 - 12:15:56 - print it raw

Skipping lightly over the waters of Lake Bogoria in Kenya an Olive Baboon crashes into a flock of Lesser Flamingo. A veneer of pink is now stained with fast moving brown. Punctuation: slavering jaws. The stained-red dog-like muzzle of the baboon is withdrawn from the wound. It doesn’t take years to break this code. Eves speaking on Fermat’s Last Theorem, “[it] has the peculiar distinction of being the mathematical problem for which the greatest number of incorrect proofs have been published.” This, however, is wholly an economic decision; flesh versus fruit → primate versus bird. This dynamic can be pie-charted and graphed.

Further West of Lake Bogoria our hero Olive dies. The cause is unknown but we can’t discount treachery from a non-too-long life expectancy. Canis mesomelas, the Red Jackal, comes loping along. This is another of dog-like muzzle, but of a wholly different lineage. And like it’s ancestor precursor – the ur-dog – it, too, scavenges. There is no pretty pink veneer here, just brown on brown muckraking.

Fast forward

Further West, in the Cherangani Hills, Canis mesomelas → Canis osseous. This is another easy equation; again, no cash prize is offered or sought. Red’s journey isn’t quite complete, however: ossifrage, bone-breaker Lammergeier avenges Pink. They share heritage {kingdom: Animalia; phylum: Chordata; class: Aves} and they knew the name of those that had to hang. Red is the vessel for Olive, the body of Christ. For three days the Lammergeier flies and drops bones, and after three days it drinks the marrow, setting the past to rights.

dog eat dog