Recently, I, your intrepid eye-witness, having inspected my fridge and larder, and ascertaining beyond all doubt that both resembled Mother Hubbard’s cupboard in every detail, ventured forth to my local Slashdown Supermarket with a view to rectifying this deplorable state of affairs.
This was not accomplished as quickly as I would have liked, due to my encountering a number of womxn, all of whom seemed to be named Karen, and one of whom tried to force me to wear a mask. As she harangued me, her mask slipped down, and I was able to inform her that her face was the best argument for mask-wearing that I had ever seen.
As I exited the building, I almost collided with one of my professorial friends, about whom I have written in the past. He is the brilliant but rather absent-minded and surprisingly impractical prof who had performed experiments with Labour cabinet ministers’ DNA, and who had been unable to control his impulse to see what happened when he bred a parrot derived from the DNA of Justinda Ardeau. This he had instantly regretted, and his relief was immense when I informed him that Fidel (as Justinda had named the bolshie bird) was now numbered among those life-forms which had fallen foul of Auntie Hellish Quark, and no longer inhabited this mortal coil.
“Oh, what a relief,” he exclaimed. “I’ve been worrying about the consequences if that squamous squawker should have got loose amongst the general population.”
“Worse than the Xiflu?” I enquired teasingly, for I knew what his response would be.
He shuddered violently. “Far worse,” he cried, “give me a thousand variants of the Xiflu ahead of that creature. But the original owner of that DNA is by far the greatest pestilence that we have to worry about, and, although the awful avian is no longer polluting the planet, the fact that the owner of the DNA still trots among us is a constant source of apprehension to me. Oh, thou joggerheaded clay-brained mouldwarp!” he apostrophised the absent Justinda. “Quoting Shakespeare of course,” he added by way of mitigation of his vehemently expressed opinion. As we had to conduct this conversation from a distance of two metres, a number of passing eyebrows were raised at this description, and an elderly lady, also named Karen I should imagine, muttered, “Such language,” as she passed by, her beady eyes glittering malevolently from above her compliant mask.
“I recently had some interesting DNA passed on to me,” the prof mentioned when the coast was clear. “I have actually started doing a little experimentation with it.” Seeing a steely look appear in my eyes, he hastened to add, “but not harmful like the politicians’ DNA, I’m quite sure. No, no, that is not possible at all.”
“I should hope not,” I said firmly. “And is the DNA from a group of golden-headed child choristers, perhaps? Or a choir of mute monks? Perhaps a bevy of Miss Universe contestants,” I added hopefully.
“Certainly not the latter,” replied the prof. “A paddock full of donkeys braying a desire for world peace and kindness towards everyone would not be much better than a cage full of David Porker derived weasels. No, this was just some DNA from a few totally neutral and unbiased journalists.”
I reeled mentally and my knees buckled as the import of those words hit me, and I stood gasping like a stranded goldfish. “Neutral and unbiased journalists,” I finally managed to utter, after several unsuccessful attempts. “So, not from New Zealand, then?”
“Oh no, definitely not New Zealand,” said the professor. “A place I’d never heard of actually. They’re from a place called…” he strained to remember, “OurTearRoar, or something like that.”
I should point out that the prof is a rather unworldly and absent-minded chap, and as he is always engaged in experiments and other aspects of his work, he has very little idea of what goes on in the real world. His recollection of journalists was very likely derived from his youth and memories of Philip Sherry, Bill Toft and their ilk, when news was read in a neutral but cultured tone of voice; if opinion was expressed it was clearly labelled as such, and opposing viewpoints were encouraged, and actually reported, and editors allowed no grammatical or spelling errors to make it to print.
As gently as I could, I explained the current situation to him: the fact that most junior journalists are not only pretty much illiterate, but also in total ignorance of anything that had happened before the year 2000, and the overwhelming majority of the more seasoned among the socialist sect (one can no longer truthfully call it a profession) had sold their miserable souls to the devilish politicians, whom he despised as a result of seeing their DNA in action.
The professor paled as I imparted this information, and his eyebrows disappeared over the top of his egg-shaped head.
“Well, bless my soul and dash my buttons,” he muttered, obviously in some distress. “whoever would have imagined that things could so quickly have got to this point? Why, last time I read a newspaper back in nineteen seventy something, the journalists could string a fairly coherent sentence together. Oh curse my wretched curiosity!”
“Do you have the names of any of these DNA donors?” I asked anxiously, hoping against hope that they would prove to be the least virulent of the species.
The prof pondered deeply. “Yes, the names were attached to the specimens,” he said. “One was Covid something… Covid O’Lyin’ perhaps…”
I reeled mentally and physically once more. “Oh no! The worst of the worst,” I croaked hoarsely.
“Also I think one was Apnea Askance. Yes, yes, and Slack Lame, Shady Glower, and one or two others whose names escape me.”
“We’re doomed, we’re doomed!” I cried in Fraser-like fashion, having seen these virulent diseases in action, and knowing that there is no depth to which this contemptible coterie wouldn’t sink.
As the implications of the prof’s blunder in experimenting with the DNA of some of the worst and wokest of New Zealand’s motley collection of communicable diseases (sometimes laughingly called journalists) sank into his egg-shaped brain, his face became absolutely ashen.
“This could turn out badly,” he declared, in what was probably the greatest understatement since the lookout on the Titanic announced that there was an insignificant icecube floating off the starboard bow. “But why don’t you come with me to my home laboratory, and give me your opinion. On reflection these specimens have some unusual characteristics.”
I made a great leap forward into my car, and followed as the prof drove on his erratic way back to his home and the attached laboratory. As I followed him through the streets of Ta-Maccas-Make-a-Row, negotiating the potholes and slaloming through the roadcone barriers that festoon the roads in that formerly liveable city, I apprehensively wondered what we would find in his laboratory: much as Frankenstein must have wondered what his newly manufactured monster’s personality would be like.
It was only a ten minute drive and soon I was breathing down the prof’s neck as he inserted his key into the lock, and we entered his laboratory.
“It sounds fairly quiet,” said the prof and led me towards a cordoned-off section of his laboratory and a large caged area wherein his experimental genetic creations were housed.
“Phew!” I said as we approached, my nostrils absorbing something that was definitely not a marketable fragrance. “What’s that pong? Something’s a bit wiffy.”
“Oh that’ll be the Covid O’Lyin’ experiment,” said the prof. “I created a specimen from the Mephitidae family, Mephitis mephitis, from her DNA.”
“It looks like a skunk,” I observed, standing well clear.
“It is indeed,” replied the prof. “A striped skunk, a very common species. I thought it appropriate. But unfortunately it has a nasty disposition and the sight of white males seems to aggravate it excessively. Look, it’s seen you.”
This did indeed seem to be the case, as the creature turned around and lifted its tail in a menacing manner, aimed in my general direction.
“Blistering barnacles! No sudden movements!” exclaimed the professor, “or it will spray something that smells terrible, even by skunk standards. A standard skunk smells like Chanel Number 9 by comparison. The other animals won’t have anything to do with it. I was planning to remove its anal glands, but I can’t get near it. I’ve tried blowdarting it with tranquilisers FDA style, but the needle just bends. It’s got a very thick hide. The only way to calm it is to display a picture of Justinda Ardeau. I have one here for emergency use.”
He grabbed a picture of the hoofed hag from a nearby table and held it in front of him. The skunk turned around and prostrated itself before the picture and soon was fast asleep.
“That usually works,” said the professor. “It’ll sleep for a few hours now, until feeding time. For your entertainment, I was tempted to show it the picture of Flusher Collins that I have here, but I don’t have time to do the deep clean that would be required if it saw that.”
“What’s that small creature over there?” I asked. “It looks to be chihuahua size but it seems equine.”
“Yes, that’s a strange one,” said the prof. “It’s from Shady Glower’s DNA. It’s actually a very small donkey. It’s afraid of anything white. I gave it parsnips once as I had run out of carrots, and it panicked and brayed in terror for about a week. It lives mainly on brown onions, which is why I keep it over there at the back. It serves no useful purpose.”
At that moment a large nondescript cat that had been sleeping nearby awoke and stretched itself. Sighting us both, it hissed viciously and displayed its claws, while arching its back with fur standing up like porcupine quills.
“That’s Apnea Askance’s contribution,” said the prof uneasily. “Another vicious one. It’s always trying to listen to my phone conversations. And for pity’s sake, never, and I repeat never, wear a bow tie in its presence. It goes absolutely crazy if it sees one. Totally irrational, I can’t understand that.”
“Yes, it’s certainly a nasty-looking critter,” I said. “So far I haven’t seen anything that looks like it might be of benefit to the human race.”
“Nor will you,” responded the professor. “I’ve come to realise that this DNA is just as worthless as the politicians’ DNA. I’ll be much more careful of the provenance of any genetic material I experiment with in future.”
“What’s that thing over there?” I exclaimed, just as we were about to head towards the exit of the laboratory. “That little baby guinea pig thing.”
“Oh that,” said the professor dismissively, “that’s not a baby guinea pig. It’s a little something I ran up from Slack Lame’s DNA. It’s actually an adult guinea pig, but it looks like a baby, and always will. It squeaks away all the time, trying to be noticed but everybody ignores it. It has the same relevance as Shady Glower, namely none at all.”
We exited the laboratory, and the professor invited me in for a coffee.
“It was obviously a huge mistake to accept that ‘journalistic’ DNA for my experiments,” said the prof as we munched our way through muffins and drank our coffee. “I’ll check with you in future if I receive the offer of samples and make sure that I’m not in danger of imposing even worse horrors on the world. I wouldn’t want to inflict another Hitler or Stalin on innocent people.”
“To that end, I think it would be as well to put that lot out in your laboratory to sleep permanently,” I said firmly. “We don’t want any escapes from there.”
“It shall be done and that right early,” declared the professor, sounding somewhat Biblical.
With that assurance ringing in my ears, I headed home to restock my shelves and freezer.
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