The Chickens of Atlantis and Other Foul and Filthy Fiends (27 page)

‘Once upon a time,’ said Jack, ‘there lived a whale called Skia. She swam about in the ocean deep with her mummy and her daddy and her big and handsome brother named Jack.’

Darwin sighed softly, but young Jack continued undaunted.

‘It was a time so very long ago, a time when Man was different from how he is today. Man then, they say, was smaller and hairy and very much like a monkey. The race of Man lived then upon a large and beautiful island, which as time has passed and memory faded has gone by many names. Eden, some say it was called.’

Darwin pricked up his ears to this. ‘Who told you that?’ he asked.

‘My daddy,’ said Jack. ‘For he was a whaler and knew many tales about whales.’

‘Go on.’

‘The hairy men lived happily in Eden. They swung about in the trees, dined upon bananas and used what words they had to engage in lengthy philosophical discussions about the nature of being.’

‘You are making this up,’ said Darwin.

‘I couldn't make
that
up,’ said Jack. ‘So, the hairy monkey-men were happy enough. They had all that they wanted and needed. They did not require fire and had no wish to invent the wheel. Not that they lacked the intellectual prowess to do so, rather they adhered to an altruistic empiricism, that knowledge derives from experience and to experience the infinite one must eschew worldly goods.’

Darwin stared slack-jawed at Jack. ‘Your daddy told you
that
?’

‘Do you want to hear the story or not?’

‘I do,’ said Darwin. ‘I do.’

‘Thus,’ continued Jack, ‘these monkey-men, these proto-humans, if you will, were of an order close to God, for their thoughts were pure and they caused no harm to the world in which they lived.’

Darwin nodded. ‘I am glad for that.’

‘But,’ said Jack, ‘though this tribe lived in peace and flourished, also did it grow in numbers, mightily. For monkeys are prolific and prodigious in their mating habits and after a span of many centuries, the Garden of Eden was overrun with monkeys. But they were goodly God-fearing monkeys and they all got by somehow. God looked down upon his favoured people, but God being God, he chose to not get involved. It was then that the chickens—’

‘
The chickens?
’ said Darwin. ‘What is all this about chickens?’

‘Many believe,’ said Jack, ‘that chickens were the first folk on Earth and that Man evolved from the chicken.’

‘Stuff and nonsense,’ said Darwin. ‘Man evolved from the noble ape and the noble ape from me.’

‘The noble ape from—What did you say?’

‘Nothing,’ said Darwin. ‘Please carry on with the story.’

‘The chickens lived on another island, and theirs was called Atlantis.’

Darwin sighed and said, ‘I don't care for chickens.’

‘The chickens were not like the monkeys,’ Jack said. ‘The chickens were driven by more material and less spiritual things and invented the wheel. And they invented binoculars and cricket, which originally was called chicket, and they built pyramids and were indeed a most industrious race.’

‘But ungodly,’ said Darwin. ‘Ungodly.’

‘Very ungodly,’ said Jack. ‘And very bothersome, too. They built great sailing ships and circumnavigated the globe. Chickens turn up everywhere in history, which is probably why ultimately they came to be such a popular dish.’

‘That does not follow at all,’ said Darwin. ‘Please get on with the story.’

‘Oh, look,’ said Jack, and he pointed. ‘That there is a sky kraken.’

Darwin looked on as the impressive creature, part-octopus, part-bat or bird, it appeared, moved by with languid swimming motions of its lengthy tentacles.

‘Do carry on with the story,’ said Darwin.

Jack carried on with the story.

‘The chickens of Mammon made war on the monkeys of God. And the leader of the monkeys, Hanuman as that silly kiwi mentioned, led a brave fight against those filthy fowl. But the chickens were big and the monkeys were small and the chickens had developed many forms of martial technology – prang cannons and poison muskets, ultrasonic catapults and laser-guided missiles. They even had their own website.’

‘I am going to get more rum,’ said Darwin. ‘You can finish the story without me.’

‘No, all right,’ said Jack. ‘I made up the last bit. But they did have weapons and armour and suchlike and they were more than a match for the monkeys. And they drove those monkeys off their paradise island.’

‘Where does the sky whale come into this tale?’ asked Darwin.

‘It comes in now,’ said Jack. ‘Skia was bobbing about in the sea off the island and she saw the whole thing, and when
the chickens drove the monkeys into the sea, she rescued them. All the monkeys climbed onto her back and they all lived happily ever after.’

‘I think you must have left a bit out,’ said Darwin, ‘such as how this whale came up into the sky.’

‘Oh,’ said Jack. ‘Well, all right. This was the time when the Earth was young and still becoming itself. The chickens could have been the creatures to rule the world, but it was not to be. There are certain things which are known as Eternal Verities, you know.’

‘Like how a swan can break a man's arm,’ said Darwin.

‘Exactly. And how Martians cannot survive here due to Earthly bacteria.’

‘And how time-travel plot holes are best stepped neatly across,’ said Darwin.

Young Jack shrugged. ‘Something like that, I suppose. Well, one thing
everyone
knows, and I do mean
everyone
, is that Atlantis was an island that lay before the great flood in an area we now call the Atlantic Ocean.
^*
And Atlantis sank.
Everyone
knows that. So the evil chickens didn't stay long on the monkey's island, because it was all covered in monkey poo and not really a nice place to live any more. So they returned to Atlantis and the whole horrid lot of them went down into the sea when that continent sank.’

‘Bravo,’ said Darwin. ‘And good riddance to those chickens.’

‘Bravo indeed,’ said Jack. ‘If a bit of a shame about those monkeys.’

‘But
my
monkeys –
those
monkeys, I mean – escaped on the back of Skia.’

‘Yes, but as I told you, according to the story all this
happened when the world was very very young and in all kinds of turmoil, and a big storm lashed and Skia got lost with all those monkeys clinging to her back.’

‘I do not think I am going to like the next part of the story.’

‘It does have a happy ending,’ said Jack. ‘Well, sort of.’

Darwin had tired of saying, ‘Go on,’ so instead he said, ‘Please continue.’

‘The monkeys clung on to Skia's back and Skia swam on and on, but she never ever reached land again and eventually she and all the monkeys died.’

‘That is
not
a happy ending,’ said Darwin. ‘In fact, that is no ending at all, because Skia supposedly is a sky whale who still swims about up here.’

‘Of course she is,’ said Jack. ‘She's up here, and all those monkeys, too.’

‘Well, they can't be up here if they're dead,’ said Darwin.

‘Well, I can't imagine how they'd get here otherwise.’

‘And now you are not making any sense at all,’ said Darwin. ‘What are you saying? That the only way you can get up here is by dying? Like going to Heaven? That
this
is Heaven – is that what you are saying?’

‘That is
exactly
what I'm saying,’ said Jack. ‘Now don't pretend you don't know.’

‘Don't know?’ said Darwin, now becoming most confused indeed.

‘Don't know you're dead,’ said Jack to Darwin. ‘How else did you think we got here?’

‘What?’ went Darwin. ‘What?’

‘Well, you didn't think this was real life, did you?’ asked Jack, and he laughed. ‘Islands in the sky made out of clouds? This is the small boy's Heaven, Darwin. Where small dead
boys have adventures. Where poor dead boys become princes and meet pirates and go on magical quests. I jumped off the spire of the church,’ said Jack. ‘You saw my ghost in a cloudy boat, jumped into it and you fell, too. I'm sorry.’

*
God bless Donovan, say I. (R. R.)

32

‘
o no no!’ cried Darwin, all in a lather.

‘What is all this no-ing?’ asked the captain, clumping by.

‘Jack just told me an awful tale. He says that we are dead.’

‘Dead's not so bad,’ said the captain. ‘Once you get over the shock. I was an engineer, me. Worked on the Great Exhibition. Some swab dropped a hammer on me head. I had always dreamed of being a pirate, when I was a boy.’

‘No,’ said Darwin. ‘This is all absurd.’

‘Not as such,’ said the literarily inclined pirate, happening by. ‘In many ways it exhibits a divine elegance. The ghosts of men inhabit a realm above the Earth, to which those who walk upon terra firma will never rise when living.’

‘Oh yes they will and quite soon,’ said Darwin. ‘Oh, I don't feel very well.’

‘Just getting your dead-legs,’ said the captain. ‘As in sea-legs, you see.’

‘I
do
see,’ said Darwin. ‘And it was not even funny.’

‘I'm a prince,’ said Jack, ‘so I am happy enough.’

This gave Darwin pause for thought. ‘Just hold on here,’
he said. ‘I recall well enough that conversation with the kiwi bird. It identified me as the Ape of Thoth, Lord of the Past and the Future.’

‘And your point is?’ asked the captain.

‘I cannot be dead if I am a God,’ said Darwin.

‘I might take issue with you there,’ said the pirate with literary learnings. ‘As this Heavenly realm encompasses the dreams and fantasies of the souls that inhabit it, an inflated image of one's own importance might surely result in a projected manifestation where delusion of Godhood takes on a reality of its own. In fact—’

But this pirate said no more than, ‘Ooooow!’ for Darwin bit him.

‘I am
not
dead,’ declared the ape. ‘And
I
never said I was a God.’

‘You did say,’ said Jack, ‘that Man descended from the noble ape and the noble ape from you.’

‘I
might
have,’ said Darwin. ‘But—’

‘It really doesn't matter,’ said the captain. ‘Soon we will all be nothing but whispers in space.’

‘And what does
that
mean?’ asked Darwin.

‘Look around you,’ said the captain. ‘Look around the sky.’

Darwin did and Darwin shook his head.

‘You see islands, you see fish, you see birds and kraken, too, but you will notice that you don't see many men.’

‘I see
you
,’ said Darwin.

‘And my crew of pirates.
Eight
in number – a rather small tally of pirates, don't you agree?’

‘Where is
this
leading?’ Darwin asked.

‘I believe,’ said the captain, ‘and others before me have believed – others who are not here now – that this wonderful cloudy realm in the sky is but the portal to Heaven. You
might consider it Limbo, or indeed God's waiting room, for surely if it were inhabited by the souls of the dead it would be a very very crowded place. Seeing as how millions and millions of people have died before this time.’

‘Hm!’ went Darwin, making a face. ‘That could well be an argument that this is
not
some realm of the dead. In fact,’ and here his little face lit up, ‘I might just be dreaming all this.’ And Darwin started pinching himself. Because it is one of those Eternal Verities that if you are having a bad dream, you can pinch yourself and it will wake you up.

Not that Darwin could ever recall anyone vouching for the authenticity of this particular Eternal Verity.

‘I tried
that
,’ said Captain Black Jack. ‘Gave myself terrible bruises. Banged my head on the mast, I did. Nearly put me eye out.’

Darwin made fists, flung them into the air and took to stalking up and down the deck.

He took to reciting a mantra that went: ‘I am
not
dead. I am
not
dead. I am
not
dead,’ and so on.

‘You don't seem to mind at all, do you, boy?’ the captain asked young Jack.

‘I told the ape,’ said Jack, ‘when I jumped from the spire, that I had nothing to lose. I was a child labourer, pushed up chimneys, treated like the dirt that covered me. There was no life in that for me. I am happy here.’

‘You were not so happy when you had that magic egg poked down your throat,’ said Darwin. ‘Not very Heavenly,
that
, to my thinking.’

‘It's not all wings and harps,’ said Black Jack MacJackblack. ‘There would be no adventure if it was. We have battles and we have quests. Why, even now we are bound for a treasure castle. Aaah-harr-harr-harr.’

‘Bravo,’ said the literary pirate. ‘A nice return to character.
Let us have no more of this theosophical disputation. Let us just be sky pirates bold and sail the aerial oceans.’

‘Well said,’ said the captain. ‘Break out the grog and we'll all get legless together.’

There had been a certain shift about in the sulking.

Young Jack had brightened up no end. Considering that he
was
a prince now, and he
was
having an adventure with pirates, and that
was
pretty much all he had ever wanted to be and to do when alive.

Darwin, however . . .