Royal seal, from  Exhibit “Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia, 3500 – 2000 B.C.” Morgan Library, New York

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The following is an excerpt from NARCIS, my unpublished novel dealing with a post-apocalyptic world around 2060.

“Art found a way to grow this stuff in bacteria,” John says to Laughing Bear.   “What you’re smoking is blue savannah grass spiced with bacteria that are spiced with the real stuff.  Grass‑grass, kind of.  Or grass‑bacteria‑grass.  Much like in‑laws, once removed.  Or added, depending on your POV.  You know, genetic engineering.  Smallpox shots and insulin are made that way.  Art sure is smart – rhymes! — but I never thought he’d have the brains for an engineer.”

“He’s got it made, though!” Bill says.

“Yeah, you better believe it.  He’s got whole gallon flasks bubbling full of ‘em in his neck of the woods,” Laughing Bear says.  “For us it means no more waiting for those fucking plants to grow.  How I hated the chores: watering, fluorescent lights, hiding them from the cops, spraying them to keep the bugs away.  Walking on egg-shells, really, every fucking day.  How I hated the way the fingers of the leaves sagged when I forgot to water them a single day!”

“Accusingly, right?” John asks.  His chest aches.  One of those spiky plants is sitting right inside it, tickling his bronchia and alveoli and their cool protective slime.  His chest is filled with a new sort of ice.  His lungs are a spacious cathedral filled with fine fluffy ice. He listens to a fine whizzing sound that must come from the choir in the main wing: this worm-riddled five hundred-year old carved wood is developing serious cracks!  He expects the organ to go off any moment now.  Instead there is Laughing Bear’s booming voice:

“Huh?  What’d you say?”

“Accusingly.  They look at you like that, like they’re saying: Jesus Christ, get your act together!  Like, we’re lost, man, and you’ve got a re‑spon-si‑bi‑li‑tee!  That’s what they were trying to say.  At least to me.  I’ve seen them look at me like that.”

“Yeah, I suppose that’s right,” Laughing Bear says, leaning over to grab the joint back from John who was gesticulating with it, wasting precious fume.  The joint is bigger than a hammer.  Now John and his two friends all speak at once:

“A single day with no water.  Making such a fuss!”

“At nothing, really.”

“Pathetic.  Looking at them you’d think they are dying.”

“But they never are.  We always knew they are not.”

“They were the ones who made you think they are dying.”

“It’s over now, though.  No more fussing over those plants.”

“I’m glad it’s over because of Art and his bacteria.  Dammit!”

“Now they would do it for a drop of water a month.”

“Do what?”

“Grow.”

“Oh, yes, grow!  Sure bet they would, now that Art has made them redundant!  This miserable plant!  I bet they’d do it for nothing now.”  It is Bill who is speaking now.

John giggles, blurts out the smoke he’d just inhaled: “Fat chance!  No more plants.”

“Fat plants!  No more chance!” Bill sings, basso continuo.

“Not in my household.  No, Sir.  I’d rather let Art earn some dough,” John sings, in a higher octave.

“Yeah,” adds Laughing Bear in his ever-prosaic voice.  “Otherwise he might think he’s dropped out of school for nothing.”

A few seconds of brooding ensues.  John breaks the silence:

“What d’you think about this guy came in a few weeks ago?”

“Many guys came in a few weeks ago.”

“ I mean the one – goddamn it, you know who I mean!  He just like out of nowhere . . .  He walks in like ‑‑ out of nowhere, just to do some snooping around.”

“I know those smart asshole pee‑age‑dee’s from the grand fucking Castle.”

“Chips.  I’d like to have some chips for my camera,” Laughing Bear says, in a mocking voice, spreading his hands out, with the pinkies raised, and wiggling his shoulders and his hips.  He gets up and walks a few steps, imitating the luckless customer.

“They act like they own the whole fucking Valley.”

“But in reality, every man‑made structure around here, as far as you can see, is the fruit of our labor.”  Laughing Bear puckers his lips in an exaggerated way as he says “fruit”.  He turns up his hands, showing off his non‑existent calluses.

“I’m telling you, a lot of people pose as scientists but they’re really not.  I bet this smart-ass guy, the way he walked, he could’ve been a cable puller, from what I know.”

“Yeah, pulling our legs, this ass‑hole pee‑age‑dee!”

“God I’m hungry!” John says.  “I could use a BLT.  I’d eat it alive.”

“I could eat ten, dead or alive.  Makes no difference to me,” Bill echoes, yawning loudly in a pitch so low it made the entire cave resonate.

“Either.  ‘Makes no difference to me either’ is what you mean.  That I’d eat it alive was the whole point,” John replies.

“Stop arguing, guys,” Laughing Bear says.  “Just listen to yourself, goddamn it!  Let’s get some real food instead.”

And they crawl, one by one, out of the motherly Cave, toward the pickup truck that is a mere silhouette against the night sky but it is still the best home they know — except for the Cave — on this increasingly uninhabitable planet.

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