Party Animals Dig Dominoes
As the appointed host of the party, bloated-faced Napolean surveys his guests. They are either bitchy or bored to tears. Nobody sits still in this living room lined with red banners and corny Chinese couplets.
Leaping from his favorite armchair, bad-breath Boxer grunts. "Quiet. Quiet. How about a game of dominoes?"
"What," Napolean says, "who wants to play dominoes? We prefer mahjong."
Boxer just doesn't get it. Today is Chinese New Year's eve. The idea of Mahjong is so they could place little oinks, excuse me, bets and win real money. Domino means falling down. On an auspicious occasion, it is a curse to fall. Typical of Boxer. In previous years, he had showered them with impractical ideas, like competing for the biggest balloon—a player, instead of blowing, would be allowed only to fart into it. Now, befuddled Boxer is shooting his mouth off, again. This fool should have kept his opinion to himself.
Neighing, Boxer says, "Bring out the bag of dominoes. I’m sure there are some tiles left."
Napolean squeals. "No. Let us have mahjong on the auto-shuffle table. Not just any old mahjong, but the Singapore Airlines edition." He has never actually seen a set before, but he assumes they come printed with flowery kebaya the flight attendants wear.
How cool.
"What?" Boxer says. "Nap, you have an urge to shuffle something? Pour out the dominoes from the bag on the mahjong table—"
"I feel like I want to shuffle your brain."
Okay. Don't be too harsh on Boxer, who had insisted the Lord of the Flies was about a group of animals stranded in the zoo.
"The clacking of Mahjong is too noisy," Boxer says. "As it is, our room sounds chaotic enough."
Napolean turns his head to scan the room. He doesn't know whether to laugh or to cry at Boxer's remark. Benjamin is slurping his Donkey's Kick drink loudly, Clover chomps on a slice of Domino's pizza, and Snowball yields the most thunderous hiccup. Perhaps this crowd isn't geared for any betting game, be that mahjong or Dominatrix.
Boxer flaps his hooves-like arms, an expression of extreme concern in his eyes. "We can't have the neighbours think...think that animals have escaped from the zoo."
When Boxer is excited like this, Napolean and he guessed everyone else, could detect the stink of his sweat.
Napolean laughs. "Duh. What the hell are you talking about? Haven't the animals already escaped?"
#
Not cute.
Circles of ashes mark where the animals have stood. The room is dim without party lights. Dominoes are scattered over the charred ground.
You keep still.
Humans in skin-tight silvery suits wade among the ruins. The air smells of urine, dung and gunpowder. Some of you have escaped, others are presumably vaporised.
What have they unleashed? Dark matter mixed with horse serum? A neutron bomb?
How typical of humans to over-react—because the neighbor's party got too noisy—they sent in the SWAT to exterminate you.
Taking a sniff, you smell burnt pork lard or bacon. Too insensitive to drool.
The traditional Chinese New Year dinner to celebrate longevity (for humans): Chinese mud carp, steamed white chicken with ginger sauce, and oven-roasted honey-glazed Char Siew pork...
You close your eyes. The long snout of your mouth curls.
Act dead. Or they could capture you and take you back to the zoo or the abattoir.
#
Earlier, in the extraordinary town hall meeting.
As one of the hens, I didn't have a name. We ruled over the other animals like the pigs, horses and dogs.
"Let's break out and party," I said.
"How?" Napolean asked.
"The zookeeper—he has balls larger than anyone of us," Boxer said. "How're we going to flee?"
How innocent. The world doesn't work that way anymore. Nobody cares about the size of balls or appendages. They value only the weight of flesh in kilograms.
"All rise," I said. "The secret is red color."
Napolean huffed. "Red turns me on the wrong way. I see communism—"
My loud clucking stopped any further protest. Then I squawked. "Red is the color of the Chinese new year."
Napolean trembled, his mouth quivering. "You're going to make the zookeeper see red?"
Stupid pig. When is he going to evolve? At this rate, his descendants will be followers forever, never leaders. "No, I'll sneak behind him and apply a red blindfold when he serves our meal. Then we'll make our move."
“Absurd. Who came up with this scheme?” Napoleon asked.
“Benjamin suggested it to me,” I said.
Napoleon heaved himself up. “So Benjamin thought of this?”
“Actually, Clover told Benjamin.”
“It's Clover’s idea?”
“No. Snowball told Clover.”
“Hmm…who told Snowball?”
“Alright,” Snowball muttered, pointing a finger at me. “She's the bright one.”
It was my idea—to make this seem like a group proposal.
"That sounds like a chicken plan. How do we get out of these enclosures?" Boxer asked.
While laying my eggs, I had thought of everything, including contingency plans C and D. "I have dominoes made of wood. The woodpeckers will shape them into keys."
"Why would the birds do that for us?"
How dare Boxer question me? "Because the hens rule. I give the orders. Remember?"
"Nooo," Boxer said. "The woodpecker won't listen to you because you're also a bird, and yet cannot fly."
I drew in a sharp breath, showing Boxer as stern a gaze as I could manage. "You will convince them."
"Let me try," Boxer said. "I exchange stories for favors—"
Napolean jumped and faced Boxer, and the ground shook when he landed. "I know, tell those birds the story of the deflated red lantern doing sit-ups..."
Boxer gleamed, high-fiving Napolean. "Yeah, the tale of ED."
Boxer and his acronyms. I tilted my head. "Emergency Department?"
"E...Erectile Dysfunction," Boxer uttered.
Napolean farted. His mouth widened to a grin.
I visualised an image of birds flapping their wings at a juicy yarn. "That'll do it."
*** the end ***
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