British India
Born to a beast with skin of granite and another with four legs and a surly disposition, she has never seen civilization. The idea of “humanity” is as foreign to her as the thing she found once on the jungle floor, long and rusted. When she’d picked it up and played with it, it produced a sound like a summer storm, and a piece of a tree across the ditch blew apart in a fine spray. She dropped the stick and loped away from it, heavy brown forepaws brushing the ground.
There’s nothing else like her in the world as she knows it. She’s seen herself reflected in streams, and thinks she’s all alone. The big, round black eyes, long wet nose and brown fuzz make her different from the only other creatures close to her intelligence here. They walk on their knuckles, play and fight and sometimes go to war, but she can outsmart them all.
Her parents were lost long ago, killed by thunder. She ran and hid, and when she came back to look for them, they were gone.
Now she hears the thunder again. It must be sticks, like the one she found. She knows what they are, what they can do, so she takes off at a run,
Now there are sounds way behind her. Voices of creatures she hasn’t yet heard, crashing through the brush after her. Curious, she turns around to see them...small and pink, with two legs, and wrapped in...in...what?
“Got it!” cries Birkin.
His partner claps him on the back. “Well done! I say, the Royal Society shan’t have the foggiest notion what to make of this specimen, will they?”
“I should say not. Did you see it? Running almost like a monkey, but then it bounded like a jungle cat! I wonder what species it is? Ah, well. Confound it! Let’s bag it and have some lunch, and a quick nip from the bottle, eh?”
Born to a beast with skin of granite and another with four legs and a surly disposition, she has never seen civilization. The idea of “humanity” is as foreign to her as the thing she found once on the jungle floor, long and rusted. When she’d picked it up and played with it, it produced a sound like a summer storm, and a piece of a tree across the ditch blew apart in a fine spray. She dropped the stick and loped away from it, heavy brown forepaws brushing the ground.
There’s nothing else like her in the world as she knows it. She’s seen herself reflected in streams, and thinks she’s all alone. The big, round black eyes, long wet nose and brown fuzz make her different from the only other creatures close to her intelligence here. They walk on their knuckles, play and fight and sometimes go to war, but she can outsmart them all.
Her parents were lost long ago, killed by thunder. She ran and hid, and when she came back to look for them, they were gone.
Now she hears the thunder again. It must be sticks, like the one she found. She knows what they are, what they can do, so she takes off at a run,
Now there are sounds way behind her. Voices of creatures she hasn’t yet heard, crashing through the brush after her. Curious, she turns around to see them...small and pink, with two legs, and wrapped in...in...what?
“Got it!” cries Birkin.
His partner claps him on the back. “Well done! I say, the Royal Society shan’t have the foggiest notion what to make of this specimen, will they?”
“I should say not. Did you see it? Running almost like a monkey, but then it bounded like a jungle cat! I wonder what species it is? Ah, well. Confound it! Let’s bag it and have some lunch, and a quick nip from the bottle, eh?”
