Who Made Me This Way?

The offices of Cambrian Explosion Incorporated were modern, spacious and feng shui compliant. There was a relaxed atmosphere about the place, but this didn’t mean it wasn’t busy.  Because day by day within C.E. Incorporated’s environs, multiple and myriad designs were being drawn up and poured over and tested under a countless variety of conditions.  Concurrent meetings upon meetings followed up by further meetings were held concerning projections – always projections, being proposed, considered and refined - and holographic simulations of the Earth and sometimes the solar system that it was a part of were displayed in glorious micro and macro representations.  In these meetings strategies and estimates were debated, with attendant discussions upon climate, physiology, meteorology, geology and astronomy.

            And then there were the animals.

            Animals comprised the staff of C.E. Inc., and the flora and fauna of Earth were the subject of the company’s business.  So it was that on any given day you could find Elephants discussing the appearance of fish; insects drawing up diagrams of farm animals; frogs concerning themselves with appearance of an aardvark’s snout, or the scent of a rose, and further, even more incongruous combinations.

            The reason they did all this was because of the business of the corporation they worked for – and that business was evolution. 

For a time immemorial, Cambrian Explosion Inc. had worked unseen upon the Earth. It had worked to guide the physical and mental development of terrestrial organisms in a vast and hazardous universe.  And it had been working, in fact, since the Cambrian Explosion - and that was roughly five hundred and fifty million years ago.  Under the auspices of this venerable corporation, across thousands of generations, sheep had become whales, dinosaurs had become birds and apes had become human beings.  “Our selections are all natural and designed intelligently”: that was their motto.

But not all of the subjects of C.E. Inc.’s evolutionary tinkering were happy with the bodies they were allocated.  And on that morning a small creature was waiting impatiently in a reception that was bedecked with pastel coloured comfy seats and tasteful, uniquely decorated plantation.  A coffee cup was steaming in front of it, untouched.

At length a gazelle ambled into the waiting room and looked over at the diminutive visitor.  “Mr Trump will see you now,” the gazelle informed the visitor.

“Mr Trump?” replied the visitor in a startled voice. “Not Donald Trump?”

The gazelle chuckled.  “No, it’s not that Mr Trump,” it reassured the little reptile.  “Everyone makes that mistake - this Mr Trump is in fact an octopig.”

“An octo what?!” exclaimed the little creature in confusion.

The gazelle laughed again, “You’ll see what I mean,” it assured visitor.  “And how about you Mr Ross?” it went on cheerfully, “You’re a tile turtle!”

Mr Ross gave a heartfelt sigh.  “Yes, I am a tile turtle,” he agreed, “for my sins.”

The gazelle considered the tile turtle’s response briefly.  “You don’t like being a tile turtle,” it concluded.

The tile turtle jerked its head back to where a piece of elaborately designed ceramic with sharp edges was sat upon its back.  “Would you like to be a tile turtle if you had to put up with that all of your life?” it asked the gazelle sullenly.

The gazelle inclined its head to one side as it took in the tile turtle’s tile.  “I quite like it actually…” said the nimble footed herbivore, “Interesting pattern.  Kind of psychedelic…”

The turtle snorted loudly.

“Anyway, please come this way,” the gazelle said briskly.  “Mr Trump is waiting…”

Mr Trump’s office was large and immaculately furnished with white cushions, and softly lit by tastefully arranged rectangular glass fittings that lined the white walls.  At the head of the room was a large, wide mahogany desk that was covered with executive paraphernalia, such as a slick computer with a transparent glass keyboard, a silver effect classic design office telephone, a gigantic flatscreen multi-purpose liquid crystal display and one of those executive toys with the little balls that knock into each other.  

Above the desk there squatted huge creature with a black, bulbous, rounded body and eight long, hairy legs segmented at the middle.  Around the beast were the fruits of its labour – sheets of webbing that covered the ceiling and hung down like a curtain from it, adding an additional decoration and almost partitioning the office.

            “This is Mr Trump, head of the department for arachnids and small reptiles,” announced the gazelle in a cordial tone - it turned towards the turtle - “Mr Trump, this is Mr Ross; he’s a tile turtle.”

            “Hello!” said the room’s occupant jovially.  “How are you today?”

            Mr Ross gazed at Mr Trump with his mouth open.  “You’re a giant spider?” he speculated uncertainly.

            “Octopig,” Trump corrected him quickly and firmly, “I’m an octopig.  Like a spider but not the same.  Think of alligators and crocodiles.”

            “Oh, right,” said Mr Ross, his reptilian features forming the approximation of a frown. 

            The gazelle receptionist wished them both a good morning and left the room.

            “So, Mr Ross,” said Mr Trump brightly.  “I hear you want to complain about something?”

            Ross got straight to the point.  “I have a bathroom tile on my back,” he said.

            “Indeed you have!” proclaimed Mr Trump in agreement, “Ah, evolution, are you not wonderful?” he went on in an indulgent tone, “Here we have a product of the symbiotic relationship between two species, as across thousands of years, the tile turtle adapted to life in a human bathroom...”

            But the unusually decorated turtle had no time for such musings.  "Oh cut the David Attenborough crap will you?” he said with contempt.  “Look, I don't want to have a bathroom tile on my back okay? I want to have a normal looking turtle shell, like a normal turtle.”

            “But you,” replied the octopig, unperturbed, “are not what you would call ‘a normal turtle’.  You want a ‘shell’ you say?  Well, I'd like to have wings like a bird! But we can't have everything can we?  You have to deal with cards you're given, as the saying goes.”

            “But I'm dealing with the cards you gave me!” protested the turtle.

            “Now you're just nit picking-”

"No I'm not, it's your stupid corporation that doomed me to carry a wall decoration around on my back and I'm not having it!  I mean who made me this way?  Who's responsible?”

Trump sighed, but his tone remained only mildly exasperated.  “That's not the kind of information I can just provide to you,” he told his visitor.  “I mean, do you know how big this corporation is?  It is large beyond comprehension, that’s how big it is. And do you know how many species on earth are changing and mutating all the time?” his voice rose slightly as he answered his own question – “All of them are!  That's how many species! 

“And now you want to come in here, and change the design that was made for you across countless millennia of natural selection?  Well, I'm sorry it's not going to happen and you cannot make that choice, any more than I or any other living creature can.  You can't just go back and unmake yourself.  That's not the way things work.”

But Ross was not to be deterred.  “I want to speak to someone in charge!” he demanded.

“You are speaking to someone in charge,” answered Trump, “I’m in charge of the department of -”

“Not of the head of spiders or whatever this particular department is called,” snarled the turtle, “I mean I want to speak to the top dog - the guy who leads the whole company!”

Trump fell silent.  Ross bristled and continued to regard the department head with a truculent expression.

When the octopig resumed the exchange, his voice was heavy with irony.  “So, you want to take your complaint to the head of operations for the evolution of Life on Earth, do you?” he asked the turtle, his tone funereal.  “You wish to reprimand the being who has supervised this entire corporation for hundreds of millions of years. You want to give our boss a piece of your mind.”

Ross swallowed before replying.  “Yes…” he began hesitantly, and lowered his head.  But then after a moment’s consideration he looked up again at the octopig, and his voice gained more boldness.

“Yes,” he decided, “yes I do.  Well why shouldn’t I?  The design I’ve been given is as important as any other plant or animal isn’t it?  I mean, I might only be a tile turtle, but I'm all I've got!  Why shouldn't I be able to complain to anyone I want to?” 

“Well, if you insist,” Said Trump, his voice now resigned.

By now Ross’s voice had gained a shrill edge as he became more convinced of his own rightness.  “It is my life, you know,” he declared.  “You shouldn’t forget tha – what did you say?”

“I said alright,” Trump replied irritably. 

“Alright what?”

“Alright, you can speak to the boss.”

Ross swallowed again.  Then he temporarily found himself impersonating a fish and his mouth opened and closed several times, though no words were forthcoming.  Eventually he managed to say “Seriously?!” in a choked voice.

“Yes, seriously,” said Trump, in a tone of gentle self condemnation.  “I suppose you do have a point.  After all, if we can’t respond to the worries of one of our customers, then what can we do…?”  One of the octopig’s legs pressed an intercom button.  “Ms Tessmarker?” he asked.

Ross recognised the reply as coming from the gazelle that had shown him in earlier.  “What can I do you for?” she asked cheerfully.

“Can you ask Mr God to come in, please?” requested the octopig.

Ross broke into a coughing fit at this, and he almost flipped backwards onto the tile that thrust upwards from his back.  Two of Trump’s eyes glanced up in concern to witness his visitor’s episode.  “Mr Ross, are you alright?” enquired the giant arachnid.

“Mr… God…” was all Ross managed to croak in reply.

“Aah, the name, I see what you’re saying now”, said Trump with an amused shake of his bulbous cranium.  “No, no - it’s not that God, it’s another one!” the arachnid chuckled.  “We do have some fun with names in this company you know.  For instance my name’s Trump, but obviously I’m not the famous entrepreneur and magnate.  And then there’s Mr God.  Crazy stuff! 

“‘You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps’ - that’s our motto!”  Trump declared, and laughed.  “Oh, we are silly sausages round here,” he mused when he recovered his breath, “We need to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves!”

There was a knock at the door.

“Ah, that will be God!” announced Trump in a satisfied manner.  “Mister God that is!” he corrected himself.  He made a sound similar to a human clearing his throat and addressed the closed door.

“Please, come in…”

The door opened, Mr. God made his entrance.

He was a duck billed platypus.

Ross’s resolve crumbled into abject misery.

“Are you alright, Mr Ross?” enquired Mr God by way of an introduction.  “If I didn’t know better I would have said you were disappointed.  Can I ask your first name by the way?”

            “Leonard,” replied a sullen turtle as he regarded the duck billed platypus unhappily.  “And yes, I am.”

            “Well, if you’re disappointed about what I think you’re disappointed about, you shouldn’t be, Leonard, if I can call you that,” Mr God stated confidently, “Because I think you’re incredible; incredible - and indeed indelible.  Just think of your place in the scheme of things.  Even in the rich tapestry that is natural history that place is unique: a species that has developed a symbiotic interface with the decorative artificial construct of another species.”

            “I didn’t understand a word of that,” sighed Ross.

            “Your tiles are cool, that’s what I was saying,” explained Mr God.

            “Right,” the crestfallen turtle acknowledged. Leonard bowed his head, not in the least bit comforted by Mr God’s speech.  All anger his anger was spent, all his hope evaporated.  “Well, it hardly matters anyway,” he muttered, “I mean, look at you…”

“Look at me?”

A taken aback Mr God looked himself up and down, his beak swinging backwards to look over his shoulder down to his tail. 

“What’s wrong with me?”

“Well,” said Ross, seemingly more dejected by the minute, “you’re a duck billed platypus aren’t you?  I would have thought that if any other species would be complaining to evolution it would be you.  But here you are, running the place!”

“What?!” exclaimed Mr God, and he burst out laughing. This served to make Ross’s grimace etch itself more firmly into his reptilian features.  He had come here to complain, not to provide the entertainment.  Eventually Mr God was ready to reply. 

“But I have no reason to complain, just the opposite, I thank my lucky stars!” He boomed.

“You do?”  stammered Lenny, taken aback.

“Sure I do!” replied the duck billed platypus.  “I mean, look at me – I have the beak of a duck, the tail of a beaver, the fur of a bear and webbed feet like the Man from Atlantis!  Why would I complain about that?  I’m awesome!”

            Mr God lifted one of his aforementioned webbed feet and patted Trump on the head with it.  “Lenny Lenny Lenny…” he intoned, “You’ve got this all wrong you know.”

“I have?” whimpered Lenny, feeling more confused by the minute.

“Oh yes, without a doubt.  Glass half empty syndrome, that’s your problem.  I mean, you’re feeling so miserable about the body you were born with, when instead you should be celebrating your uniqueness!”

“I should?”

“Of course you should!”  Declaimed Mr God, “Lenny, your species is a trailblazer!  Possibly even the basis of a new genus, like the primates or the cetaceans!   You, my little friend, with your shiny ceramic plate, are pushing back the frontiers of life as we know it!”

“I am?”

“You are.  And Lenny, why do you think you look ridiculous anyway?  And what are you comparing yourself to?  Put it this way, have you even seen a star faced mole?  They have chins with tentacles on them, Lenny, and their tiny little faces are barely a tenth of a size a size of their spade like hands.  But do you hear them complaining?  No you don’t.

“And what about dung beetles Lenny?  Surely if anyone should be at the front of the complaint queue it should be them!  Yet they’re as happy as pigs in… well, you know the end of that saying.”

“Not octopigs though,” pointed out Mr Trump, “we don’t go in for that sort of thing.”

The head of evolution ignored Trump’s comment.  “Do you see what I’m trying to say?” he asked Ross.

The turtle considered Mr God’s question; his scaly lips were pursed and his eyes downcast.  As Ross considered the counter argument that had been put to him, Trump idly played with his executive toy, and the ticking of the clash of silver balls could be heard.

The turtle inclined his head towards God.  “Supposing you’ve got a point,” he admitted eventually, “And supposing I take all these positives you mention as true...”

“Well I think you should, Lenny,” the duck billed platypus advised him.

It’s just…”

“Just what?”

Ross glanced back at the ornament that rode upon his back.  “It’s just why did I have to be the turtle with the stupid psychedelic pattern on his tile?” he lamented bitterly, “It’s like some horrible mishmash of gaudy colours and it hurts your eyes to look at.”

Mr God gasped at this.  “Stupid, Lenny?  Stupid?” he said in an almost accusatory tone.  “I’ve got to say I’m somewhat disappointed at your attitude.  You’re a turtle with a range of embossed blue mountains with groovy curly patterns bordered by bendy dancing fur trees beneath a rising sun that sends beams shooting out through pink fluffy clouds and blends into a kaleidoscopic 3D affect star field with planets and stuff on his back and you think that’s stupid?  What are you, crazy or something?”

“Oh, stupid am I?  Crazy am I?” Ross shot back, “Well that’s easy for you to say, you’re not the one who has to carry this thing around all of your life.”

“Lenny,” Said Mr God, his voice now soothing.  He again raised his paw and rested it on the Ross’s head, even as the small reptile glowered at him.  God fixed the turtle with a meaningful gaze and said “you haven’t mixed with many lady tile turtles have you?”

Ross hadn’t expected a question like this.  “Well, no, but…” he began and stopped. 

His expression betrayed the thoughts that occurred to him as he struggled to grasp the implications of Mr God’s question.  “You mean…” his voice tailed off again.  He glanced back at his iridescent bathroom decoration with a confused expression.  “They’d go for that?” he spluttered.

Mr God nodded.  “Lenny.  Dude.  I assure you, with those tiles, you’re a babe tile turtle magnet!

“You need to get out there son,” he told the incredulous turtle.  “You’ll be fighting them off!” 

“B-but I only know my bathroom,” Lenny stammered, his voice full of panic and excitement, “the bathroom where I grew up with my brothers and sisters; it’s all I’ve ever known.”

“No problem,” Mr God answered him casually, “just go to the bathroom department of your local D.I.Y. superstore.  You’ll find plenty of tile turtles to hang out with there.  B&Q would be ideal.”

“You can do it if you B&Q it,” Mr Trump added helpfully.

Lenny blinked a few times and glanced back down to the floor, still struggling with the sudden shift in perspective that had been presented to him with such certainty by the head of evolution.  “Well.  You’ve given me something to think about,” he conceded.

“Don’t think too long, Lenny,” said Mr God with a twinkle in his eye.  “Time and tide wait for no man!”

“No indeed,” Lenny agreed solemnly, “He gave a little bow to the duck billed platypus and to the octopig in turn and then made for the door. 

At the exit Mr Ross paused and looked back.  “Thanks for everything,” he said.  With that he left.

“Another satisfied customer,” commented Mr Trump.

“There’s one born every minute,” said Mr God with a nod.

On his way out of Cambrian Explosion Inc, Ross passed through the reception area where he had waited to be seen earlier.  He saw a monkey with a long face that regarded him solemnly.  “Are you waiting to go in?” asked Lenny.

            “Yes,” replied the monkey.

            “Here to complain?”

            “Sure am.”

            “So what’s your beef?” the turtle enquired.

            In response the monkey turned round and showed Ross its nether regions, exposing a swollen rear end that glared angrily at the small reptile.  “Have you ever seen an arse this big?” it asked.  “It’s bloody ridiculous.”

            Ross nodded.  “That is a huge backside,” he agreed, “well, good luck with that.”

            “Thanks,” said the monkey.

And with that the tile turtle made his way, his mind now filled with thoughts of romance.