text: The Reincarnation of an Endangered Species A series of strident ‘Shut-Ups’ echoed through the valley, and the gaggle of conversation amidst the attending delegates slumped into a murmuring buzz, before petering out into silence. It was the final day and the final hour before the summer break in the Parliament of Fouls . Yes, it was time for the Queen’s centennial Speech of the Year 1621. This was a special occasion that commemorated the anniversary of the first ‘landing’ of the indigenous Mauritian Pigeon Foul; an event that has been celebrated every century over the past twenty-six million years. From her cosy nest on a high ledge, Ms. Lutwidge, the reigning Queen, cleared her throat of the remnants of a frog and addressed her avian congregation. They numbered a mere two hundred or so, scattered on the sides of a narrow Mauritian valley that sloped gently down to the tempestuous waves of the Indian ocean. The Queen was an imposing figure, who for the past sixty years had waddled and flapped and pecked her way, back and forth, across her domain of Mauritius. ‘Waddled’ because she looked and walked like a duck; ‘pecked’ because she had the scratch-and-feed similarities of a chicken; and ‘flapped’ because, try as she could, her short wings failed to support a lift-off. She was also an unbridled windbag who loved the sound of her own voice, a rare hybrid of a cluck and a quack. These avian characteristics blended into the formation of a royal personage which, through a quirk of natural history and gross over-feeding, ballooned out into a three-foot-tall waddlingpeckerflapper. While Ms. Lutwidge was not exactly ‘dumb’, she was plain dopey; having inherited that trait from her ancestors who welcomed hungry Dutch and Portuguese sailors with, tragically, short-lived enthusiasm. It was but natural for these European colonizers to name the clumsy, gullible bird ‘Duedo’, abbreviated to ‘Dodo’--an emphatic synonym for ‘stupid’. It is a word that has outlived the original dodo creature, having gained traction five hundred years later to describe individuals in political leadership with a penchant for double-speak. Ms. Lutwidge was the queen of her diminishing flock not only by her overbearing size but also by virtue of being clairvoyant. She had a knack for looking over her shoulder and catching glimpses of the future with prophetic accuracy. “I have had a premonition” she announced to her murmuring audience, “and it’s not good news. This is the Last Speech of the 17th century, for we are faced with extinction. For the past one hundred years, we have been ravaged by guttural pirates and colonizers roasting us with ‘yo-ho-hoes and bottles of rum’. We have suffered the cyclones, the deforestation of our paradise; and the dogs, pigs, and rats that accompanied these invaders have devastated our nesting grounds. Yes, my people, our noble and rare species will end this year in 1661, the year that will forever be chronicled as the Year of the Pfftt.” A slightly hysterical murmuring swept the crowd, with eyes glazed in fear and necks bobbing up and down like periscopes. “However, I sense a change, a change full of promise,” said the Queen reassuringly. “That, like the phoenix we shall rise again transformed. But the seeds of a new generation must be sown now. With the pinnacle of glory in 2021. However, I can’t tell what genetic traits and DNA will characterize the new generation; only the séance will reveal all.” The squawking amongst the fouls rippled through the valley, gathering momentum; enlivened with an air of expectancy of a bright future. “Let the séance begin,” trilled the Queen, standing tall on her tippy toes. The squawking hysteria rose to a crescendo and split the heavens, unleashing billowing clouds of red haze, streaked with lightning bolts, as the earth fissured and split with thunderous booms. The bottom fell out of the valley as the fouls scattered and waddled up to higher ground. Fire and brimstone erupted like geysers from the giant crevice in the valley floor. And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, the hiss and gurgle of steam poured forth as if the Earth in thick fast pants was wheezing. And disgorged a mighty cauldron with a thunderous burp. “The Vision is invoked... the Vision of Kubla,” shrieked the Queen. And the chant of ‘ Kubla! Kubla! resonated and bounced back and forth across the valley. Shafts of fire blazed forth and burst into stars of scorching sulfur that blanketed the surrounding terrain beyond the Valley. So fearful were these omens of dread that the sailors, rats, dogs, and pigs stampeded towards the anchored ships for safety. In the gripping silence that followed, the chant of Kubla! Kubla! was amplified into an ancestral voice prophesying destruction... and rebirth. Like a phoenix from the ashes, the mighty cauldron rose above the flaming crater in the alley. Fear pulsated through the legions of the fouls, as the cauldron bubbled and spewed out great tendrils of writhing, scaly skin, gleaming like scummy wet leather. Exultation turned to despair. The fouls gabbled in fearful realization. “The cauldron is the Sign. Our goose is well and truly cooked.” “No!” snapped the Queen with a thunderous squawk. “This is the day of rebirth. We shall evolve and be born again with good Karma. And we shall rule the world in countries across the continents and hemispheres. That is the oracle that I have seen and heard. Prepare for the séance!” As the crowd lapsed into a hopeful silence, the Queen spread her tiny wings, and intoned, “Abracadabra! Answer our prayers, O enchanters of the Underworld.” With a loud bang that stunned the audience of fouls, the bubbling cauldron lifted into the air and froze, in suspended vibrancy. Three gigantic puffs of cloudy mist ballooned from the cauldron and dissipated, revealing three cackling Gorgons from Scotland. In unison, they shrieked and warbled in rhyming verse. Fair is foul, and foul is fair. Who doth call us from our Scottish lair? Is that you, playful Willy? Bard Boy! Or is that Macbeth, a ghostly killjoy? By the pricking of my thumbs Who doth this way squawks and comes? You’re not Willy, who might you be? Ohho! a waddling dodo, fiddle-de-dee! “It is I, Queen Lutwidge of the dodo clan,” said the fluffed-up windbag. “And we are on the edge of extinction unless you can save us, sothatfuturegenerationsofourspecieswillnotvaporize.” Following which Her Royal Highness visibly relaxed and popped a prolonged methanic toot. “Ayy, she let wan go!” cackled the hags. “So prophetic!” Awright! Choose the magic word and repeat it thrice. For with that magic word, we will add the spice. Hocus-Pocus! Jabberwocky! Gobbledygook! Pick the word to let you off the hook. “I’ll go with ‘Jabberwocky’, it sounds so wacky. So human,” said the Queen. She turned her beak to look over her shoulder, into the future. “Ahh! I see a whiffling and burbling human shape from the year 1871. And it is created by a dodo. A Lutwidge Dodgson. I feel we are related.” Your wish is granted, in a trice Ms. Wacky Coming up! One king-size Jabberwocky. Grab the tentacles, sisters, and pull its thatch. Arrh! The jaws that bite, the claws that scratch. He is worse than the frumious Bandersnatch. And they hefted the Jabberwocky out of the cauldron and gift-wrapped it for the Queen. And all the dodos cheered as the Queen snuggled up to her newfound love and they went galumphing off. Extract from an op-ed in The Scotsman , dated November 4 th ,2021: COP Summit adds to global warming. Scientists and climate change proponents have warned that the greatest danger to planet Earth is stifling hot air, and governments are adding to it at the Conference of Parties (COP) at Glasgow. There are 20,000 attendees including leaders from over two hundred countries, at the world’s biggest gob fest. That is a colossal tonnage of hot blasts for a full fortnight adding to global warming. Activists have described the event as the DoDo-Nothing Jabber-Jabber (DDNJJ) jamboree. To get to the source of DDNJJ, ancestry genealogists and anthropologists have teamed up and conducted extensive research on the origin of this human trait that afflicts global leaders and have come to an intriguing conclusion. The report suggests that DDNJJ can be traced to a mysterious occurrence on the island of Mauritius in 1621. The report details eyewitness accounts of the unusual union of a mythical jabbering creature with an oversized quacking chicken. These creatures were thought to be extinct, or at worse, hallucinations of sozzled brains. However, the signs are unmistakable. Scientists now accept the theory that over the past four hundred years, the union might have spawned generations of creatures that have morphed into look-alike specimens of homo sapiens. A humanized trait of these evolved creatures is the propensity to persistently jabber in falsehoods--a predicted phenomenon of COP21 in Glasgow. In a quacking outburst, Queen Lutwidge VIII, flamboyant in her feathers, accompanied by her royal consort Jeremy Jab-Jab Wocky (unvaccinated), told The Scotsman columnist. “We’ve seen it in the past COPs, and it will happen again here in Glasgow. These conferences have a single agenda: Jabber-jabber, pledge, forget; eat, drink and be merry. Wealthy nations make no profits in tackling climate change. As always, we must protect what we’re doing wrong.”