CAT | Writing
Professor Tingletanglebum was in his laboratory working on a new elixir that would allow all his laboratory animals the gift of speech. He wanted to know if they understood what consciousness was and if they knew humans were not evil. His star pupils were Therese the tiger, Tony the taipan and Genevieve the rare Mongolese Mongoose.
Professor Tingletanglebum gave Therese the first dose of his magic elixir and the first thing she said was “who are you? Are you an evil man keeping me locked up in this cage? I should be lying around a cool pond in the forest looking after my cubs” Professor Tingletanglebum replied “No, I’m not an evil man, I study science”. “What is Science?” asked Therese, befuddled and bemused. Professor Tingletanglebum replied “to find out how all of the different things in life fit together.” He was most impressed with Therese because even though she was a tiger, he thought she possessed the type of consciousness he suspected existed in tigers and other felines.
Next it was Tony the Taipan’s turn, he slithered and writhed his way towards the magic elixir and had a small sip. All of a sudden he stood up and yelled at Professor Tingletanglebum “You evil man, I’m supposed to be out in the desert hiding in the day and hunting by night, but you have kept me here locked up in this cage and you told Therese you study science but what is science if it makes all us animals miserable?”. Professor Tingletanglebum was starting to get upset because he knew he wasn’t evil and had always had the right intention of finding out how animals thought so he could help them. He replied to Tony the Taipan “I’m very sorry and now that I know you possess consciousness it must have been terrible locked up in that cage and I promise never to lock you up again. But first we need to give all the animals the elixir so they can talk and understand that we humans are not evil, just misguided”.
Finally they went to Genevieve’s cage and poured her a large glass of elixir which she drank with glee as she had heard all the others talking and wanted to be part of the new consciousness available to all the animals and humans. She finished drinking and said to Professor Tingletanglebum “I know you’re not an evil man. I know you know the answer to the question what is science. I have watched you all these years from my cage and knew you just wanted to be near all of us instead of the upset humans out there in the world. I’ve seen you drinking the magic elixir at night, so even though you think we can talk we can’t, it’s just that you can understand how we feel and you can hear us, so go out and give the magic elixir to everyone that walks past, then they will also be like you, not evil but possessing full consciousness”.
Let me sound like an adult, and by adult I mean those people who you thought were boring and silly with their sentimentality when you were young. I love to hear a “thank you.” As I see more sunrises and sunsets, I want to hear more examples of people being good to one another. In line with this is the thank you card. It’s something that even as I get older I’m not inclined to write, but I think that more people should write them. I love it when my mother sits down after Christmas and writes out thank you card’s to all the people that sent her gifts. It’s definitely an anachronism but it shouldn’t be. Heck, with the instant communication that we have today we should be seeing more acts of empathy not less. And I’m not blaming technology on our lack of humanity but it seems to make us more selfish.
