Read Online Moby Jack & Other Tall Tales by Garry Kilworth - Free Book Online

Man. It was my belief she’d found a codfish that talked.
    ‘No, don’t do that,’ I said. ‘I’m only ringing to say I’m fine with everything. I’ve...’ but she had switched off. When I tried again the voice said, ‘This number is unobtainable at present, please try again later.’
    ‘Bollocks!’ I shouted, taking it out on the synthesiser. ‘Bloody bollocking bollocks.’
    ‘ Testicles,’ said my computer smugly, programmed to answer definite questions or give the definitions of repeated words. ‘Nonsense, a muddle, a mess. In American slang, to make a botch of.’
    Later I went to bed to dream of judgement days, but was kept awake by snuffling noises and the sound of straw being shuffled from one end of the cage to the other. The next morning Sheba’s cage smelled a little high, so I changed the bedding. I lured her into a small compartment at one end of the cage with some raw liver, then changed the drawer containing her bed and faeces. It was all quite simple. I’d never had a pet before, but these bonsai animals were like having gerbils. There was little do except enjoy the ownership of a live creature.
    Bonsai actually means ‘bowl cultivation’ in Japanese and of course originally referred to dwarf trees, but you know how words alter their meanings over time, especially when they come from another language. ( Sophisticated originally meant ‘artificial’ but soon came to mean having the worldly wisdom characteristic of a fashionable life.) When the genetic labs starting producing tiny wild creatures for the commercial market they had to think of a marketable name. ‘Shrunken beasts’ didn’t have the right ring to it, so they settled on ‘bonsai pets’.
    Naturally, the bonsai tiger only distracted me for a few days, then I descended into misery once again. I felt absolutely fucked up. And, of course, when you’re fucked up, there’s the extremely likely possibility of getting fucked up further, because you are so wrapped up in your own private hell you forget to do things that should definitely be remembered.
    I forgot to feed Sheba.
    Arriving back at the apartment after stalking Krystina and her Cro-Magnon (he wasn’t that Modern after all and had threatened to smash my face in if I didn’t stop following them) I found the cage on the floor. It had burst open. Three shelves had come down with it and there were computer manuals all over the floor plus a vase and my two soapstone carvings. My guess was that the tiger had become so hungry she had thrown herself at the bars of her cage in a frenzy and had brought the shelves down. The heavy manuals had crashed down on the cage and broken it open, allowing Sheba to escape.
    ‘Shit!’ I said. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’
    ‘Faeces, excrement; the act of defecating; a contemptuous term for a person... ’
    ‘Shut up, you stupid machine!’
    ‘ ... rubbish , nonsense; marijuana or heroin.’
    There was a pause before the computer spoke again, with censure in its drone.
    ‘ I hope you realise hard drugs are illegal and soft drugs do your brains in.’
    Bloody programmers. They ought to be made illegal.
    The first thing I did was to glance around the room, to see if she was anywhere to be seen. She wasn’t. Assessing the situation I came to the conclusion that the apartment was escape proof. There was no chimney, no open windows, and there weren’t any chutes. There was no way she could get out.
    I went into the kitchen and found the rubbish bin knocked over and its contents spilled all over the kitchen floor. Any edible scraps which had been in that bin had been devoured. At least she had probably assuaged her hunger. That was good, wasn’t it? But where the hell was she?
    ‘Sheba, Sheba, Sheba,’ I called in a ‘kitty-kitty’ voice.
    ‘A biblical land corresponding to Sabaea in present-day Yemen, South West Arabia; an unbeaten racehorse during the first four years of this century; a Las Vegas drag queen whose lewd act included a live