The lab director had called asking to see her, but Daphne had decided not to go. But now, as she recovers her bike and mounts it, she sees it’s just the time the appointment was scheduled, and thinks maybe she’ll show up after all. Now that she’s got her bike back she’d like to; in fact she feels she must. Who knows what bunkum the dapper dickhead will have to offer, what outrageous crap he’ll come up with to launder his Catholic conscience, but if he wants to see her, she’s not backing out. That way she can say goodbye with dignity to the place that meant so much to her for a large part of her life.
But when she arrives at the Institute she feels a great pincer grab her by the throat. Nostalgia for the test tubes, the smell of ammonia and sulfuric acid, the howl of the centrifuge and the burble of the coffee machine in the hallway. Even for that lamebrain with the purple acne. No need for regrets though, her future now promises pesticide-free carrots and beans—much healthier, she thinks. She turns around to go: no, she’s not strong enough to face this trial. Then she thinks (well, she hears a voice telling her) that she must be strong. She swings around again and begins to climb the stairs.
The director invites her to sit in his perfectly intact office, rubbing his hands together as if warm water were running over them. He’s like a man who’s just emerging from a long hot shower, even more pleased with himself than usual. Here comes a hurricane of total bullshit, she thinks: and yes, he immediately begins emitting the usual snippets of phrases that run together senselessly like a mad dictionary. In the end he manages to complete a few of his sentences, telling her that the regional government has come up with some unexpected funding, and that in an enormous stroke of good luck, their lab was chosen. And there’s nobody who could take charge of this project better than she. She looks at him, as always thinking she doesn’t get it. This time she does get it, though; she just can’t bring herself to believe it. Believe it, a sumptuous, deeply trustworthy baritone repeats in her ear. This is step one, quite soon they’ll give you a permanent contract. The lab director speaks up again. This a temporary solution, of course. Afterward we’ll hire you full-time with tenure, he says, waving his mole’s hand around by his ear. She hates to cry in front of the big dickhead, but she starts to cry. Now he too is moved, his eyes fill for an instant. He seems to have forgotten that he was the one who cheated her out of a job.
Now you might think it was I who took care of this matter, too, but no, I didn’t lift a finger. The dying bishop did it. Somehow he figured out why she was there, and summoning his strength for the last time, he put through a call to a certain senator, who then called the director of the Institute (a man appointed by the senator’s own political party), and by 9 p.m. that evening, all was settled. The powerful senator and fierce opponent of gay marriage sent word to the pedophile bishop that the beanpole would be given a permanent job in a few months, because one had opened up. The bishop could no longer speak, he already had more than a foot in the tomb, but he shook his head ever so slightly. Then he shook it again to request extreme unction.
Unfortunately something very sad has happened, the director tells her as he walks her to the stairs, beating both arms in the air as if chasing away Mendelian fruit flies. The candidate to whom we offered the job was knocked down by a truck at a zebra crossing, he goes on, marshaling the usual stumps of phrases, limbs lopped off by an overzealous gardener. The doctors couldn’t say whether she would come out of the coma (yes, she will) and whether, if she did, there would be any brain injury (impossible to rule out some aftereffects), in any case she wouldn’t be returning to the job. Dreadful bad luck, the truck was actually going extremely slowly, he says, getting slightly teary again thinking how easily it could have happened to him, who’s always so distracted. God disposes, in his infinite wisdom, he sighs. I can only confirm that.
Ms. Einstein is sorry that the stupid showgirl’s in a coma, but she’s practically flying as she leaves the Institute. The force of gravity has diminished and her lungs seem full of nitrous oxide, that funny gas that pulls her lips to the sides of her mouth, making her smile. The threadbare estate which houses the institute looks beautiful today, and the blackbirds are winking at her. She’ll return to work tomorrow, she thinks. Then she reconsiders. Next Monday morning will do fine. Now that she knows she’ll have some kind of salary, even if modest, she can look for a studio apartment (she’ll find one, trust me). She certainly means to live with Aphra (man of my life, she thinks), but right now she’d prefer to have a base in the city so that she doesn’t have to commute to and from work every day, among other things. She mounts her bike and as she rides home she’s floating on air, an archangel on the ceiling of some damn church.
EXTINCTION
Up until now, my infinite goodness has prevailed. But the time has come to extinguish them, men. Humans. As I did with dinosaurs, with mammoths, each time sweeping a goodly number of creatures off the planet. And I have no regrets. After a while you can get fed up with a species, like everything else. You want to see new faces, you need fresh air. Not to mention the fact that (wo)men are wiping out a stratospheric number of plants and animals at an ever-crazier rate. Extinguishing them will be a genuine ecological good deed. If you think about it, they are merely a single species among ten million in the animal kingdom (I disregard their unreliable estimates). The difference between 9,999,999 and 10 million changes little, I think you’ll agree. Very soon now, perhaps even as I write the final syllable of this fatal diary, I’ll pull the switch, and they’ll get what they deserve.
Yes, it will be some time before all the traces of their misdeeds disappear, but it’s important to begin. The rivers will begin to run where they desire to run, properly flooding the plains. Highways and cities will disappear under a tangle of vegetation. First moss and lichens will spread, then grasses, then mighty oaks. Trees will no longer fear being lopped off at the base, or even pruned; they’ll tower undisturbed again. In short, I trust in the vegetable world to repair things. At the most I might spread a little fertilizer—organic, of course; we’ve had enough chemistry. The skyscrapers will begin to lean like the Leaning Tower of Pisa (Pizza?), then they’ll all topple over like bowling pins. Farewell paved parking lots, high-tension lines, shopping centers, airports: the forests will rule everywhere. Above all, no more churches, those dangerous dens of hypocrisy. I can’t wait to be free of them again.
How peaceful it will be without (wo)men; I can already taste the deep serenity. No more airplanes deafening the atmosphere—and covering the sky with those unsightly trails—no more smelly industries and exhaust pipes, no more carloads of carbon dioxide. Fish will be free to tear around the sea without fear of ending up in a can, or as fish meal in a pigpen. Birds will fly where they wish, cows will stop producing that poor-quality milk and slowly relearn how to be less tame. Dogs will shed that intolerable servile air, cats will scratch and hiss again. Free competition among the species will be re-established, minus those tricks and cheap shots human beings have always imposed to their own advantage.