The Impossible Resurrection of Grief by Octavia Cade

Author:Octavia Cade [Cade, Octavia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Climate Change, New Zealand, australia, Tasmania, Thylacines
ISBN: 9781777091767
Publisher: Stelliform Press
Published: 2021-05-02T22:00:00+00:00

Fortunately for me, George’s invitation came with a plus-one. I would have crashed the party regardless. Recent events had hardened me to social niceties. My impending divorce, the Sea Witch’s brutal death … these were bad enough without the echoes of those padded footfalls in the hallway of my memory, or the constant checking of my fingers for tooth marks that were always faint and had long since faded. I’d woken the night before the exhibit opening with bite marks from my own teeth in those same fingers, the taste of blood in my mouth. Etiquette was nothing in comparison.

“What is it these things do, anyway?” I hissed at George, as we politely circled the floor of Otago Museum in Dunedin, where the birds were to be presented. “Do they just, you know, hop about and stuff?” I pictured the animatronics displays in shop windows at Christmastime, the dead movements of mechanism, stiff and juddery. Something to be kept behind glass, a display piece of failed conservation not much different to the other exhibits around us, where the extinct birds of New Zealand were posed into rigidity. Dead eyes stared out of their glass display cases as if those cases were coffins.

George held a program in his hand and had clearly studied it. “These are the friendly ones. From what I understand Darren’s done two sorts.” He caught my querying look. “The wrens that have been programmed with realistic behavior, the ones that mimic actual rock wrens, they’re the ones that’ll be let loose in the mountains. These are museum pieces. They’re more curious. More friendly. Designed for human interaction, and part of the exhibit is monitoring the exchange between birds and visitors to see if opinions of the wren change after interaction.”

“Is that the — what was it — the ‘socio-cultural ecological underpinnings’? Why doesn’t he just say he’s Disneyfied the thing to make it more attractive to humans?”

“He’s got a grant to justify,” said George. That was something I could understand. Artists, like scientists, always had to beg for money.

“It seems a bit late for all that, is what I’m saying.” The mountains were empty of anything but rats, so getting people to love the little rock wren enough to mourn it seemed like an invitation to Grief if ever there was one. “Don’t go getting attached,” I said, and elbowed him gently in the side as the speeches were read, and the little robots released. My warning fell on deaf ears, because although George didn’t react as loudly as the children in attendance, I’d seen fascination on his face before, the quick warming rise of wonder, and I knew what infatuation looked like on him. I’d seen it often enough in the early years of our relationship: the same tender cast to his glance, the devoted interest that took in all details. I’d been devoted too. There wasn’t the smallest subtlety in that expression that I had ever missed, and nothing about it that I would fail to miss in future.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.