[The Zookeeper, The Bartender and The Seafarer is a monologue which is partially audible - different parts are audible at different times of the month, and the transcripts reflect the audio that you can hear at that time]. probably the the old seers and elephant. None of them had an spent too long hadn’t lived their lives. travel expensive. It’s a gift. To travel. They didn’t want to go to a zoo. felt zoos were strange way to experience a animal, even if the wild had no other place to live, even if the animal were well cared for. They didn’t object to zoos, but they suspected that some people - maybe lots of people - went for the wrong reasons - to feel their supremacy over the natural world. But they were old friends, these wise people. They’d served others. Being wise, full time, until retirement. Now they were old. eventually they I know selfish. But is And just want to hang with an elephant before The an who loved teaching people part whole. seers’ and asked the hang big be not so people be get startled the sense It might the Which is not to say thought elephant would get by their joy. He thought it was misguided to attribute complex human emotions to quite sophisticated animals - but it seemed to him that elephants animals that cared for others. But they might not know what to do with three pensioners dancing around like maybugs, and accidents can happen. No, said the zookeeper, you can’t hang out with an elephant. But... you can come and stand by the fence. Listen and smell and even touch the elephant. could probably convince one to quite close if we promised treats. It so happens that these wise people had very senses that they’d time and which hadn’t with their wise call them Romola. had an incredible was sensitive. had keenly approached closely heart. elephant is a It’s a the sticks together. forwards and squeezed through a small gap - small hands. They felt the crenellations the elephants skin, concluded that elephant was in essence brain. Why else would those huge crenellations exist, if not to pack in more brain This was a reach, I’ll admit. JD was perhaps the most eccentric of the three. A huge floating brain? Great work, JD. It’s not like you’ve never read about an elephant, JD. A brain? Fairuza stood back a little, and sniffed the air and smelt the musk of the elephant. It smelled like courage. If you don’t what smells like, sense probably not as good as Fairuza’s. Don’t feel bad of smell was a mix of youthful ability and careful practice. Sniffing first grand scent - hair, - then in on scents - hair, The sense of Fairuza what you “abstract JD, zookeeper disabuse these was romantic at Bartender It’s sad, I think, to reduce a person to single attribute - their sense of smell, of touch, or It’s very capitalistic, I think. Ask not what your society will do for you, but instead what use you are to your society. Are you a hammer or a nail? A brain or a heart or a sense of courage in a difficult time? Is this what they were doing to the elephant all those years ago, it was born in part out of a sense of desperation at ever experiencing the totality of an elephant, and - let’s be honest - overexcitement. When you’ve been starved of stimulation for so long, seeing an really really exciting. the point of story, as traditionally told, simple. People what’s put in of them. If they you sweeping manure, probably they they’re seeing chaos the of attention sitting seashore slowly someone entirety. And then been given understand is woken up from can recount of the they’re woken up rapidly, report fragmented images and snapshots. I think here are two ways to interpret this. One, that waking them up quickly shattered the integrity of their dream, and meant they only bring fragments with into world. Another is that there are only scattered images in the dreamworld, and it’s the half-awake mind, in the act of surfacing, that links together each of those images into something consistent. What if that zookeeper, cruel and curious, beat a kettle drum next to the ear of Romola, handed JD a brain to handle, and wafted musk under the nose of Fairuza? Ok, that brain one seems more but JD seems like a sort, they might fall for But what if there are no What just a rope, rock, a snake? --- The Seafarer The roll can move per - per Once per where - the The is the steering of Maybe just called Wheel? People think be brave, captain-ing a ship. Hanging on though I’m person on Was it frightening? They ask. Were you frightened? The truth is it seemed inevitable. I’m not exactly happy about it, but brave? No, the truth is I’m a coward. I’m not even a sailor. They just made me go out on this voyage. No idea why. I think because I was there. I’ve accumulated all sort of things - barrels of stuff that seems oily maybe? Something underneath a tarpaulin that has rusty vibes. Maybe some animals? I can see swimming around more or less happily but that might be an otter. I don’t remember picking an otter. It might just be a visitor. not sure part of the narrative. As waves roll parts deck - occasionally I prow, the ship. figurehead. I’ve long somehow forgotten what I’m at back facing walk by over revealed certain cannon, there are out. You conclude that ship a but decided to into Ok, why keep the retrospectively some kind machismo midlife crisis cosmetic addition? Another time of day the position of the slow-moving waves would reveal empty cages that sit right near the front, and, closer to me at the back of ship, those messy tangles of nets. So you’d say, Oh, this person has always been interested in animals. First they transported charismatic megafauna, maybe for the circus. Those nets are probably for fishing. Different kind of animal, for sure. But definitely an animal person. What would you think if you could see all those different views the boat together, in its totality? The figurehead, the the books, the cannon, the crates, the the what like a submersible, the set of flags different circumstances and eras, the… I otter? makes get glimpses between the yourself --- Neutrinowatch is generated daily, so this text will change every day. This version was generated on Saturday, 20 April 2024, at 00:04 UTC/GMT