Mother Nature (Part 1)
He waited in line. It was a long line that stretched behind him far into the distance and eventually out of sight around a white corner. But, finally, he was at the front and standing before the familiar door. The light above it was red, but next time it turned green, it would be his turn. He felt both excited and anxious. He hadn’t realised he was so close because he’d spent the last six months standing behind the hulk of a gorilla. A gorilla which, his nose suggested, had died from a stomach complaint.
He wondered what she would offer him. Of course, he wasn’t guaranteed to be offered anything – it depended what sort of mood she was in. The lady a little in front of him last time had simply been allocated ‘Mayfly’ with a shrug. She’d been back in line long before he reached the front of the queue. He knew that because he’d accidentally trodden on her in the toilets.
The light turned green, and the door slid noiselessly to the side, revealing a cavernous white space behind. Feeling increasingly self-conscious, he walked across the room to the desk at the far end. It was Deirdre on reception. He wasn’t entirely sure what she was, or had been, under her colossal uniform – presumably some long extinct monstrosity – but he was sure that she liked him. He was less sure whether the attraction was infatuation, or hunger.
She looked up from her keyboard and gave him a toothy, reptilian smile.
“Hello Bernard.” She flicked through the mound of papers beside her. “What was it this time?”
“Guillotine”, he said.
She stopped rummaging and turned back to him. “A guillotine? In 2020? Are you pulling my… what are these?”
He shrugged. “No idea, and yes. I’m afraid I didn’t see it coming.”
“Not many do”, she mumbled humourlessly.
Seemingly giving up her hunt for the right paperwork, she punched a few details into the keyboard before her. A machine to her left chugged to life, winced and churned out an identity card, which she attached to a green cord before passing it to him. “Please make sure you keep this on at all times”, she said for was it the thousandth time? He wondered vaguely what happened to all the disused identity cards and ribbons that were worn so briefly.
He didn’t have time to ask. Deirdre was already flicking a switch next to a microphone, which she spoke into with an unusual combination of precise professionalism and lip licking. “I’ve got Bernard one eight nine five zero nine five zero for you Ms Nature.”
There was an uncomfortable pause before a tired voice echoed back through the speaker. “Send him in.”
Deirdre looked at him with eyes that revealed nothing. “You can go through now”, she said. And then added, “Good luck.”
She pressed a black button. Immediately, the outline of a door revealed itself in the seemingly blank white wall to the right. He approached it feeling increasingly nauseous; she’d never wished him luck before.
He walked across the hall, trying to appear nonchalant and stepped through the new door, to find himself in another luminously white room. Someone really liked white at the moment. Which, he reflected, was a surprising change from green.
“Stop gawking Bernard. I don’t have all day.”
She was sitting behind a huge desk, white again, in a, was that a leather chair? Well, he was pretty sure the cow hadn’t seen that coming.
She didn’t look happy. Not happy at all. “Sit down!” she instructed abruptly.
He sat, as she rummaged through a large pile of files, pushing her glasses angrily up her middle nose as she did. One day, he reflected, he’d mention contact lenses. But, he decided, as she growled and pulled out his red file, not today.
She opened the file and glanced through it before fixing him in her stare, leaving the file open. Several of her breasts rested on the desk before her, dragging her shoulders forward so that she seemed even more intimidating.
He smiled nervously.
“I’m not smiling Bernard.”
“Sorry Mother...”
“Ms! How many times?! Would a mother feed her children to one another? Would a mother introduce diseases with no cure, just to test her children’s resilience? Or set her forests on fire? I am not a mother, Bernard. I long ago gave up trying to be a mother. I’m not maternal. I don’t nurture. To be honest…”, she lowered her voice to an intimidating whisper, “I don’t really care what happens out there.” She waved in a way that suggested out there was somewhere to her left, and then raised her voice again to emphasise her next words. “As long as it works!”
“But why Ms, Ms?”
“Why?” She clearly thought his question impertinent. “Because Bernard, we all seem to require labels and it is the least labelling label I could think of, and until I have a better one, it will have to do. Do you have a better suggestion? Empress perhaps, or Queen? Dr? Madam? I considered all of them, but they felt either wrong, or far too right. Anyway, I’ve grown accustomed to Ms. I like it. It implies someone who can be whatever she wants to be; a strong independent woman.”
“Like Beyoncé?”
Ms Nature looked disappointed. “I was thinking more like Boadicea, but...” Spontaneously, she turned to the mike on her desk and pressed a button beside it. “Deirdre, who do you think of when I say strong independent woman?”
There was a moment’s pause, before the answer crackled back. “Tootsie?”
“Oh, for goodness sake!” Ms Nature released the button abruptly and returned her attention to Bernard. “The point is, I will not be defined by anyone else’s label. I will be whoever and whatever I choose to be. Now, shall we move on!”
Her look suggested it would be extremely wise to.
“Yes Ms.”
“I simply try to maintain order Bernard. I plant seeds. I assign roles. Until you, and your sort, go and mess things up.”
He wasn’t sure if ‘your sort’ referred to humans, which was his current form, or ‘Bernards’, both of which he reflected, were in fact her lot. Just as the snakes, Wilfreds, frogs, Jaynes, and gorillas with stomach disorders were her lot. But, it almost certainly wasn’t the day now to point any of this out either. And, in any case, perhaps ‘your sort’ referred to something entirely different. He didn’t want to ask.
“Sorry”, he mumbled.
“Sometimes people, let’s call them people – people like you”, she jabbed a finger in his direction, “completely balls up the roles I’ve given them. Do you know who else I’ve seen this morning?”
This really was not going well. He tried to stay calm. “A gorilla?”
“Not him. The one before.”
“I couldn’t see past the gorilla… but”
“A Panda, Bernard”, she interrupted impatiently. “One of the last surviving Pandas.” She corrected herself. “One of the last no longer surviving Pandas. Moaning at me about their fate. Do you know the trouble with Pandas, Bernard? Do you?”
“Um...”
“They’re ridiculous Bernard. That’s their trouble – ridiculous. Which has nothing to do with me.” She emphasised the word nothing with another jab of a finger. “I give them a carnivore’s stomach and they decide to be vegetarian, except, of course, when it comes to eating their own children. Not that they have many of them since they don’t even like sex! I mean, who doesn’t like sex? I like sex! Do you like sex Bernard?
He prayed this conversation wasn’t going in an entirely unexpected direction. “Um, yes, I guess so…”
“It’s not easy Bernard. Not easy at all.”
“Really? I’ve always found …
“Free will messes everything up.”
“Oh… yes, I can see...”
“And then Bernard, there are special idiots like you, who turn up at my desk with inconvenient regularity.”
He wanted to point out that it wasn’t just inconvenient to her, that he’d been planning to get married next month, but chose not to. And at least the conversation was moving away from sex.
“Do you know how many souls there are in the world Bernard.”
“Um…lots?” he hazarded.
“Neither do I”, she admitted lifting three of her hands and waving them expansively. “But yes, Bernard, there are lots.”
She seemed to lose her trail of thought and gazed at him mutely for a while, before sighing and pointing at her face. “Do you see these bags under my eyes?”
It was hard not to. Or, indeed, the bags under the bags. Or the bags under the bags under the bags.
“No, not really.”
“Hmm…well, they’re there. Believe me they’re there Bernard. And people like you, making irregular, unexpected appearances do not help, when I’ve already got a backlog that stretches from here to….” She looked momentarily confused. “Somewhere else.”
She turned back to his file. “I had such hopes for you. You had…have”, she corrected herself, “a great brain. You might have solved the climate crisis, which would certainly have reduced my workload. I might even have got a five-minute break to do my hair. But no….” She looked back at his notes and back at him. “How did you die this time, Bernard?”
“Guillotine”, he mumbled.
“You cut your finger off in the stationery cupboard, fainted and bled to death.”
“Yes.”
She turned a page backwards. “And last time, you were what?”
He couldn’t remember. “A rabbit?” he said, reading upside down the word she was pointing to.”
“Yes, a rabbit. And what colour rabbit Bernard?”
“I don’t know.” He pointed to his head apologetically.
“Yes, well, let me remind you Bernard. You were a white rabbit.”
“Was I? That sounds nice.”
“Lovely Bernard. You lived with a little girl who adored you. You lived in a big hutch with a run. You were much luckier than most rabbits.”
“That does sound nice.” It did. At this moment, it seemed blissfully uncomplicated. He could enjoy a life like that.
“You ran away Bernard.”
“Oh.”
“And where do you imagine, a white rabbit, would run?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think Bernard. A nice bright white rabbit? You couldn’t really hide in the park, could you? You’d stand out like a talcum powder in a coal mine. Where could you possibly hide?
“Snow?”
“There’s rarely any snow in Biggleswade, especially in July.”
He looked at her. Why was it always Biggleswade?
“Did you say something Bernard?”
“No Ms.” Had she read his mind? He shrugged despondently. “I don’t know where I hid.”
“Apparently, Bernard, your little white rabbit self, chose to hide on one of the white lines on a zebra crossing.”
“Oh.”
“In rush hour.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, indeed Bernard. Oh, indeed.”
She flicked back through the file. “Oh look, not the first time. A Zebra.” She glanced at him over her glasses. “I didn’t even know they had Zebra Crossings in Africa.”
He shrugged despondently. He didn’t know either. Bernard had never been to Africa.
“Of course, I shouldn’t be telling you all this Bernard, but I don’t suppose it matters.” She flicked back again. “I’m only doing this to explain why I’m so… exasperated.” This time she used all four hands to emphasise just how exasperating he was.
She flicked through more pages. It was quite a thick file. “Your previous attempts at human haven’t been universally successful….” She traced her fingers down a list: “There seems to have been some confusion here between Trappist and trapeze.” She looked at him again over her glasses to murmur, “they’re quite different”, before focusing again on the file. “Oh look, you discovered electricity…moments before you discovered electrocution. And, this one’s good, an amateur astronaut …with the rocket pointy end down. Oh, and look, a School Crossing Officer in Biggleswade who came to work in black – and white. And fell asleep on the job.”
She sighed heavily. “How consistently”, she appeared to hunt for the right word in the file, “unfortunate.” Her gaze fell on him once more.
He looked down at his lap. “Sorry Mother.”
“How many times Bernard? It’s Ms!
“Sorry, Ms.”
“What am I going to do with you Bernard?”
He hesitated, unsure if the question was rhetorical.
“Really, what do you want me to do with you?”
“Well”, he hesitated, not sure if he was being lured into a trap. “I really appreciated being given human…”
She raised her eyebrows higher. “Really Bernard? You like being human? All that stress and destruction? Most people come back begging for a simpler life.”
“Well, it has it’s upsides…”
She raised several eyebrows in question.
“I really like chocolate. And”, seeing her look of distaste, he scrambled for something better than chocolate, “Star Wars.”
“Star Wars? You want me to give you another shot at human just so you can watch old movies?” She gave him a withering look.
“No”, he looked at his lap for the right words “…it’s an example.” He looked up to see that he hadn’t found the right words and looked back at his lap again. “Admittedly, humans are difficult.”
“Difficult, Bernard? They’re single-handedly destroying my life’s work! They are so full of their own self-importance and…” She hunted for the right word, “Malice”.
“Yes, but…” She was right; they could be much more than ‘difficult’. They had a superiority complex that had long ago passed beyond ‘out of control’, they hated each other with abandon and brought destruction wherever they went. And the resultant anxiety and self-loathing could be difficult to live with. But…
“But they are also capable of moments of absolute brilliance”, he said out loud. “Of creativity that is unsurpassed.”
“Unsurpassed?”
“Obviously, I’m…, I’m not including you.”
“I hope not Bernard, but I fear that human arrogance knows no bounds.” She consulted her file again. “You’ve been human rather a lot and have yet to make a success of it.” She paused. “Which isn’t altogether a bad thing. Far too many of them make too much of a success of it… All that destruction. All that breeding! Does it never stop?”
Bernard’s mind wandered back to the wedding he’d missed. He’d been rather looking forward to having a go at all that breeding. He decided not to mention it.
Mother Nature was staring at him, appraisingly. After what seemed a very long period, she sighed. “Very well, let’s see what we’ve got.”
She pressed the button on her microphone. “Deirdre, can you pop in with a current list of Human vacancies. No, not that one.”
She let go of the button, looked at him, looked away, looked at her desk and began shuffling papers.
Minutes passed and it became clear that the silence was going to drag on longer than was even uncomfortable. He decided derision was better than silence. He cleared his throat. “I was wondering...?”
“Yes Bernard?” she said, seeming intrigued by his interruption.
He swallowed. “Why Biggleswade?”
“Sorry?”
“That’s ok.”
He realised, slowly, it hadn’t been an apology. “I am from Biggleswade. You mentioned that the rabbit lived in Biggleswade, and the crossing officer. I was wondering, why Biggleswade? Three times?”
“Oh, many more times than that Bernard”, she said, putting the pile of papers she’d been sorting to one side and tracing a finger down a list in his file again.
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Logistics. Much simpler to send you back to the same area.” She gave him a look that suggested she was revealing some deep secret. “Cuts down enormously on the paperwork.” She promptly returned to hers.
A few moments passed before she looked up again and gave him a questioning glance, “What’s wrong with Biggleswade anyway?”
“Well, nothing, really.” He hesitated. “It’s a perfectly nice place. But nobody famous ever comes from Biggleswade.” He knew, he’d checked on Wikipedia. The most famous person born in Biggleswade appeared to have been a Methodist minister who’d promptly left for Australia.
“You know Bernard...” She lowered her glasses to once more look over them at him, “in my experience, you can’t keep the human spirit down, wherever you put it. I know – I’ve tried. I don’t think the problem is Biggleswade.”
“No Ms.” He looked nervously at his shoes.
“I suspect that is the problem, Bernard.”
He looked more closely at his shoes. What was wrong with them? He thought they were perfectly nice.
“They’re on the wrong feet Bernard.”
The door slid open, and Deirdre appeared. At least he assumed it was Deirdre. Whoever it was that emerged from the outer office was staggering under a stack of files that completely obscured her.
“This way Deirdre”, said Ms Nature, as the unfortunate assistant collided with the far wall.
Bernard wondered whether he should offer to help, despite his new awareness of the hazard presented by his footwear error. He hesitated and then rose too late. The poor assistant tripped on his chair leg, spilling files across the floor. As he leapt to his feet, he caught the hem of her uniform under his right foot. He watched as, in slow motion, she fell flat on her face and followed the files in a graceless slide across the hard, smooth, and (obviously) white, floor. “I’m so sorry”, he said rushing to her side, where his futile attempts to lift her only served to emphasise his hopelessness. “Can I help?”
“It appears not.” Mother Nature was beside them, looking unimpressed, a collection of files and loose papers in her hand. “Deirdre, do get up.”
The reptile, for Deirdre was surely that, scrambled clumsily to all fours and then hoisted herself upright, squishing a hefty tail back under her uniform. He wasn’t sure what an embarrassed reptile looked like, but he imagined they probably looked a lot like Deirdre looked now. He helped her collect the strewn files.
When the files were safely gathered and stacked precariously on another corner of the desk, Mother Nature dismissed her assistant with a nod and the reptilian hulk exited the way she’d come. Bernard wondered dismally if Deirdre’s days on reception might now be numbered.
Mother Nature picked the first file from the top of the pile and glanced at it. “I told her not to bring this one”, she murmured. She paused. “You don’t want to be leader of the free world, do you? She used two fingers to emphasise ‘leader’ and another two to emphasise ‘free’, which made the whole thing confusing.
She didn’t wait for an answer. Shaking her head, she threw the file to the floor and turned her attention to the others. She pulled one from the pile, flicked open the cover and glanced through it. “No.” She threw it down to join the first.
The process continued. “No, No, No……” A hesitation, more flicking. “NO!”
The pile on the floor beside her grew larger and larger and the pile on the desk smaller. Eventually, nothing remained of the original pile on the desk. She sighed. “I’m just not sure you’re suited, Bernard…” she waived her hand expansively at the floor, “to any of these.”
“There must be something!”, he pleaded. “Anything.”
“The thing is with humans”, she looked almost apologetic, “clumsy incompetence can have such dire consequences.” She paused. “Perhaps we should consider something safer this time. Just till you get the hang of things.”
“Safer?”
“Safer. “But”, she seemed suddenly sympathetic and keen to make him feel better, “No less important Bernard... In the scheme of things!”
He looked at her enquiringly, as she pulled open a drawer and extracted a very slim green folder. She looked at him, “You’ve never been an amoeba, have you Bernard.”
He blanched. “No.”
“Wonderful creatures. Easy uncomplicated lives. And you’ll love this bit, they still have free movement. They have pseudopods too. Don’t those sound fun?”
“What are they?”
“Ooh, they’re terribly useful Bernard.” She traced a finger over the single sheet of paper in the file. “You can use them to change shape apparently.” Her eyes seemed to fall on Bernard’s mid-section. “Wouldn’t you like to be able to change shape Bernard? I know I would.”
“Um, it’s not an ambition I experienced as Bernard.”
“Well then!” She gave him a triumphant look. “A new life; new ambitions!” She pulled a form from another drawer and began filling it in.
“But…”
It was too late; the rubber stamped fell with a deadly, violent smack.
She seemed suddenly gregarious. “Well, Bernard. It’s been lovely. I’m afraid I must be getting on now though so, off you go! Enjoy it and I look forward to hearing all about it when you get back.”
He looked at her. His heart felt like a lead brick in his chest.
“It’s that way.” She waved towards the far wall and the gleaming light marked ‘Exit’ as if he’d never been there before. “Have a wonderful life!”
He dragged Bernard’s body to its feet and towards the door, mentally wishing every wonderful component of his being a fond farewell as it moved him towards the door and oblivion. The last words he heard as he passed through were, “Send the next one in.”
He couldn’t remember what happened beyond the door, because the first room beyond is the memory loss room. Things happen there that no-one can recall. Bernard passed vaguely out of the memory loss room and into the corridor beyond, at this point both Bernard past and the Bernard yet to be. He still looked like Bernard. Indeed, he was still wearing Bernard’s shoes. On the wrong feet. Which might be why he tripped on the escalator. He fell badly, careering off the side, crashing through a closed door and down a chute that was not intended for him. Indeed, not intended for anyone in the foreseeable future…
***
The 15:34 out of Kings Cross was running on time and that should have been the most noteworthy thing about it. But at 16:05, in Carriage E, a nun suddenly winced and clasped her stomach. Ouch! That sandwich had a kick. And whatever had been in it had really bloated her. She should have known better than to choose Thai Chilli with her constitution.
The gentleman across the table looked up. “Are you ok?” he asked.
She winced but forced a gentle, placid smile to her face. “I think so. Just something I’ve eaten.” She let out a little involuntary gasp.
He reached across and patted her hand sympathetically and then started, as she too felt something go. “Um, I think you might have just had an accident. On my shoes.”
She looked down at the puddle forming below her seat, and gasped. “What is happening to me?!
The lady across the aisle laughed. “I think, you naughty nun, you’re having a baby.”
“A baby?!” The nun grasped the hand of the man opposite in terror. “I can’t be!” She seemed to be pleading with him. “It’s impossible! It’s the sandwich! I’ve never even seen a man’s…” Unable to bring the word to her lips, she nodded in the direction of his trousers.
The man reddened and patted her hand. “There, there. Just the sandwich.”
“It’s not the bloody sandwich,” said the lady across the aisle.
The service trolley appeared. “Can I offer you a coffee, tea, cake…”
“No!” The nun gasped and then screamed as the lady across the aisle grew more impatient.
“Oh, for goodness sake!” She pointed at the nun. “I think this lady is having a baby. Can you find out if there’s a doctor on the train?”
“Uh, sure.” After a moment’s hesitation, in which he seemed finally to grasp the seriousness of the situation, the attendant splashed his trolley through the pool, and whisked it up the corridor at full speed. Minutes passed, interspersed by gasping breaths and the sound of a nun banging her fists on the table.
Eventually, an announcement came over the tannoy. “Could anyone with medical experience please make their way to Car E, where we have an unplanned childbirth emergency.”
It was both a blessing and a curse that the train carried so many who’d just left the Gynaecology and Midwifery Convention in London. Eventually space was found for the nun to lie on the floor in the centre of the compartment whilst a dozen doctors attended her dilated vagina, all of them carefully ignoring the gentleman mopping his suede shoes with a napkin.
“Ok love”, said a handsome doctor who was now squatted at the nun’s head holding her hand. “It won’t be long. What’s your name?”
“Mary”, gasped the nun. A spasm of pain wracked her body as it contracted violently. She screamed again, no longer concerned by the idea of blasphemy. “Mary…Oh Mary Mother of God!”
“It’s going to be OK Mary”, said the kindly doctor as she clawed at his hand desperately.
“It’s ok for you to say that…”
“What did she say her name was?” whispered the lady across the aisle to the gentleman next to her.
Her companion’s response was interrupted by the nun’s high-pitched scream: “Mary, Mother of God!
Another contraction wracked her body. “Mary, Mother of Fucking God!”
It was at that moment that he who had been Bernard appeared back in the world and a train carrying the new messiah came to an unplanned stop in Biggleswade.