Fiction by Jeanne Wilkinson
—
“I’ve got one word for you, man: WTF!
Okay, maybe that’s three. Or three in one.
Ha. I like it.
But seriously people: WTF is going on here?
I’ve been getting reports, and I’m more than a little disgusted.
Disturbed. Disappointed. Depressed. Down.
I trusted that you’d use your heads for some of this.
What have you got those big brains for?
So you can run to me every freakin’ five seconds with every flippin’ little thing?
I’ve got lots going on, you dig?
It’s an expanding universe, after all.
And while I may be omniscient, that doesn’t mean I pay attention.
Or care. Well, okay, maybe I do care.
Maybe I care a little too much.
And the thing that bugs me most? The thing that really gets my goat?
You using my name all the time for the most flaky shit.
You’re like, God said do this and God said do that.
Really?
Really?
You’re sitting on top of a world with giant tubeworms and naked mole rats and warthogs and peacock mating rituals and you think I care about gay marriage and a few raunchy cartoons?
Get what I’m saying here?
I’m saying most of the time I could give a flying you-know-what about what you dudes do and don’t do.
I’m saying leave me the hell out of it.
Jesus, Mary and Mohammad!
I’ve got one word for you: praying mantis.
Okay, okay, that’s two words. So sue me.
Another thing that sticks in my craw? (Not that I’ve got one, but you get my drift.) Your freakin’ hubris! Like it’s all about you. Like whatever you decide you need, you take, like a bunch of big babies. Like, oh, I want a kazillion acres to grow my carbo-crops so we can suckle and grow huge off the fat of the land and screw the buffalo and the rest of those varmints, they’re in our way, baby.
Do you know how much I loved those bad boys and girls with their wild eyes and crazy curly hair and I’d look down and there’d be a cloud of moving black on the vastness of the prairie and I’d be like, it’s good, man, it’s good. And those dudes in the feathers, too, I dug how they saw me in the rocks and the mountains and trees, and lordy, lordy, could they dance? Jesus, they could dance. Sigh. And don’t even talk to me about the whales and tigers and frogs and polar bears and birds and bees…
I mean, I love you, man, but I love all the rest of ‘em, too.
So wake up and smell the nectar, people! I don’t take kindly to your blundering bludgeoning of all the amazing work that’s been done down here for so long and you don’t even know the half of it let me amend you don’t even know the ninety nine point nine percent of it and it’s all in the going going gone because you think you’re so freaking smart with your supposed dominion over all my creatures that’s nothing but domination and destruction.
Remember this: you don’t own shit, baby.
It’s all being lent to you, courtesy of guess who? Or would that be “whom”…
Anyway, I don’t like to see it messed with this way. I give you power, and you give me gas guzzlers and seed patents and dogs. Wow.
You’re a giant wrecking ball on the face of the earth, baby.
In other words, your behavior isn’t conducive to continued residency on this planet, and Mr. Landlord is sorry to say you’re on the verge of being evicted, kicked out, vamoosed, sent packing, heave-hoed, ejected, shown the door. You may recall how Adam and Eve had somewhere to go when they were sent scurrying out of the garden? Well, the landlord is sorry to say that he currently has no other properties available for occupation by the ousted. Snakes and serpents are welcome to stay, however.
Understood?
I’ve got one word for you:
Cause and effect.
Okay, okay, maybe that’s three.
I’ll see you in court.”
—-
Jeanne Wilkinson’s work has been broadcast on the NPR show “Living on Earth” and was included in the top ten of Phillip Lopate’s NPR contest (on the Leonard Lopate Show) about the subject of “breaking up,” whereupon Jeanne described breaking up with her herd of cows.
