Act the One
A hamster, a lab rat, and a guinea pig talk about the sorry state of human affairs. They are fed up with what they all agree is an intolerable situation but can't seem to find a solution to the situation.
Huxley the Hamster: Y'know, these kids kept me in this really teeny little cage with nothing in it but some type of spinning contraption. If I didn't make it spin, they seemed to forget I was in the cage, and then I didn't get anything to eat.
Lilly the Lab Rat: Well, at least they basically left you alone, then, didn't they? Lab assistants were always poking me with ballpoint pens and attaching things to my whiskers during off-hours between these creepy experiments they conducted. It was like these jerks didn't have anything better to do with their free time.
Gilbert the Guinea Pig: Hey, so, you got to participate in some cool research projects, huh, Lilly? I always wanted to, but I guess I was just a guinea pig in name only. At my laboratory, the scientists were always bringing in these humans and calling them guinea pigs, me thinking, hey, wait a minute, I'm the guinea pig here, what's going on? Humans can never get anything straight, can they?
Lilly: That's for sure.
Gilbert: Yeah, like how they are with that stuff they call politics. Look where democracy has taken that big place, the one everyone calls America. It seems as if it just gives people the so-called right to become overweight couch potatoes who are too lazy to get up off the sofa and actually ever go vote in the elections.
Huxley: And all their teenagers ever want to do is become hip-hop DJs, y'know. Although I have to admit that when the kids who put me in that cage played their music loudly enough, at least it helped me to concentrate while jogging around and around in circles. Otherwise, I was bored to death always running like that.
Lilly: Something I could never understand was all the brouhaha over racial differences. I mean we are each a different species and we get along together just fine, but humans, they are all one species and can still get all worked up over people being black or yellow or white or brown.
Huxley: They just don't see that it's cultural confusion that causes all the fear, suspicion, hate, and mistrust. But these humans, they don't think too deeply, do they? It's just lazy thinking, in my opinion, staying at the surface level, saying color makes people different when actually it's just differences in daily routines.
Gilbert: They all bleed the same color when you bite them, don't they?
Lilly: I guess so, but actually, I never really bit one. Wanted to, though.
Huxley: Me, too. Running all the time like an idiot, that was terrible. Like torture, y'know. Boy, did I ever want to bite someone.
Act the Two
Gilbert: Me, three. But, you're right about that bleeding bit. Shirley the Squirrel told me that a human would bleed red every time she bit one. Shirley says she used to bite them all the time when she had rabies.
Lilly: Percy the Porcupine told me the same thing, that humans bled red whenever they got stuck by his quills. Serves them right for keeping him in that zoo. Of course, I would've preferred being stuck in a zoo to a research laboratory.
Gilbert: Shirley had rabies? Whoah, what a way to go! No wonder she seems so, well, crazy. She sure likes to climb up and down trees, doesn't she?
Huxley: Hey, and do you know what humans did to her neck of the woods? Chopped it all down, all of it. A beautiful, pristine forest turned into a suburban shopping mall, can you imagine that? They probably turned the timber into toothpicks or something. It's criminal!
Lilly: Humans're always doing things like that. They call it "Controlling Nature". Yeah, right.
Gilbert: As if Nature could ever be "controlled." What a joke!
Huxley: You got that right. And what good does it do them? Degradation of the environment, air and water pollution, nuclear and chemical waste, all types of horrifying diseases, loss of oxygen-producing terrain, the list goes on and on. Ridiculous!
Gilbert: And then they pray for help and salvation, as if that's going to help, turning to religion. All those different religions preaching the same ideas of love and humanity, but then true believers just hate and kill one another. I just don't get it.
Lilly: Well, Gil, humans would say that's because you're just an animal.
Hux, Gil & Lil: Hahahaha, hardy-har-har, hohohohoho, that is just too funny!!
Huxley: Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm glad I'm dead.
Gilbert: Me, too, Hux. We're better off in Rodent Heaven than in that madcow-infested place, I think.
Lilly: Absolutely. All the cheese I can eat, madcow-free, it's totally awesome.
About the Author
Douglas Ellsworth is an expat Oregonian resident of Taiwan. His daytime gig is as a translation editor and overall language consultant for a central government bureau handling international trade and economics issues. An expression of his online interests are to be found at http://www.chaoschasm.ws.
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