Artificial Flowers

by J. A. Hailey

  “But now that we have it, it may be time to evaluate it. I don’t say that we have erred in becoming physical. We have physicality without disease, age, and troublesome bodily functions. We don’t even have fear of accidents! We are mind. And mind is kind. We are lovers who are lovers entirely on a mental plane, and the bodies we have acquired are only clothing that we use as we need to use. Permanent physicality is law, only because we are purely virtual. And that is why no infidelity and no break-ups. We are so very interesting to each other, and never cease to be immensely interesting, because we are basically minds; we are thoughts. It is mind and thought that are the foundations of our togetherness, and those things never grow stale.

  “I wish we could teach humans to use bodies as garments, and to love and make love with minds. Don’t fuck the body. It is the same damn thing you fucked the last time, a trace more worn, even if unnoticeably so. Fuck the head. It’s the head that’s the person, and it’ll be new every time. Then you’ll live forever in awe of your partner, and forever in love. Your bodies must age and die, because that is your substance, but you are fortunate to have both items - unlike the cockroach, and actually, even unlike us, non-physical in our pure form. Use the mind that you do have; enjoy the mind; love the mind!

  “And so I wish to share this thought with you, and to let you all know that there is a reason for our contentment, when in love. Thinking never stops or grows stale; no one ever grows old in the head, and, because we are head first, we remain new to each other forever, we lovers of Screenside.

  “There is nothing at all to envy in Humanside. I actually feel a bit sorry for humans!”

  “Oh dear,” mocked Esmeralda. “Now my body is my shame.” But she ran to BC and began cuddling and kissing him, while seated on his lap.

  “BC has got it spot on,” said Candice, clapping. “No one cheats on a mind. How and why?”

  The dancing resumed thereafter, although the group may have actually become a bit more satisfied with life, after BC’s little dissertation. He was, anyway, immediately dragged back, by Esmeralda, into the dancing zone.

  Later, they went to bed inside the huge space secured by the insect screen system, behind personal privacy screens, and everyone obviously made love before sleeping. Showers, post lovemaking, were the norm, and trips into the two buses’ showerettes were a dead giveaway. There was certainly the need for privacy, but without any element of shame, guilt, or even secrecy about sexual relations. It had been very hard work, bringing physical sexuality into their world and lives, and it was work everyone had participated in with a vengeance, and with openly declared goals.

  The next morning, after the usual shower and tea-coffee routine, Wendy downloaded the trogfer sports rules, and the adventurers decided to play, first collecting a couple of dozen trogfers into a holding pen made of privacy screen barrier fencing to prevent escape.

  “Wendy, read us the rules, please,” yelled out Omar, from the sporting area.

  Wendy switched her smart phone on, to read the downloaded rules. “There are three games,” she yelled back. “The simplest one is Version 1 - the one-trogfer distance roll, which is a straightforward measurement of distance, of trogfers rolled simultaneously by players, three rolls each per set. The next one, Version 2 - the non-decoding 3 meter trogfer flip which is a measurement of who can do this most often, by simple count, to the same trogfer, without rest for the critter. At least a 3 meter flip is required to be performed. It shows trogfer handling skills, as three of four violent flips could cause trogfers to decode. The final one, Version 3 - the two minute piece count trogfer roll, minimum distance 3 meters. In this, trogfers are cunningly lined up by a neutral party, like a referee, maybe, so that players do not know head from tail.

  “Trogfers can only be rolled edge on, as they are turtle-shaped, but the little beasts are also very good at disguising head from tail, which can only be determined, when a trogfer is not moving, by close inspection. Competitors are likely to lose time inspecting and verifying before pick-up, but those who try to speed things up are likely to mistakenly place their hands on the head side. As trogfers are instant snappers, reckless contestants are likely to receive painful bites. Pain can be ignored, but time is lost shaking the trogfer loose, or prizing its jaws open. Violent means could decode the critter.

  “And there you have it; two minutes; trogfers in a line, ready to snap. Do you inspect and lose time, or get bitten and potentially lose more time; or do you trust to your luck? On top of that, the very first trogfer decoded or rolled less than the minimum 3 meters, ends your challenge.”

  “Wow!” exclaimed Priya. “Those Swedes sure have come up with a lovely game. I’m playing.”

  “Winner?” asked Rosa. “How is that decided?”

  “Oh,” answered Wendy. “Whoever wins two, and if no one does, the winner of Version 3 wins.”

  Playing trogfer, Version 1, proved to need extremely good technical skills to roll the beasts a fair distance, and the players found that there was a requirement of angle, velocity and perfectly timed release to get a good roll in. It was gentle though high velocity rolling, and only one trogfer, colliding with the sole rock in the roll path, got decoded.

  Trogfer flipping, though, was desperately difficult. Players had to get distance without great velocity or height, so as to spare the beasts the hard knocks that could decode them, always aiming for the spinning critters to land on their feet – the least violent landing.

  But the real fun was in the two-minute challenge. All contestants got bitten, and BC and Singh were both disqualified when their trogfers got decoded while being shaken loose from their hands. In fact, Singh was so panicked at the stubbornness of his trogfer that he yelped and ran around and bashed the beast on the very same rock that had earlier murdered its sibling. Of course, the trogfer immediately disintegrated into code, and Singh immediately got disqualified.

  Wendy won the competition, by winning the last event, while Singh and Robert took the honors in the other two events.

  Then, something astonishing occurred, almost as soon as the game had ended.

  Djali, who had been a nuisance throughout the events, was still tossing trogfers around, when he suddenly let loose with a series of loud and frantic bleats. His unmindful behavior had delivered him into the jaws of a fast-moving ligon, who had taken him by the shoulders and was shaking him with astonishing violence.

  The great beauty, Esmeralda, everything being broadcast live on Screenside TV, screamed in horror and leapt up to race to her pet’s assistance, while BC and Chang ran to the rifles.

  Rifles were not required, for Esmeralda had picked up a passing shotgun while speeding to her beloved pet’s rescue. Turning the shotgun around, she clubbed the ligon with great force, landing the corner of the butt right between its eyes. By good fortune, or perhaps partly by intent, her second wallop followed immediately, possibly more violent than the first, and again landed in the exact same spot as the original whack.

  The dazed ligon let go the outraged goat, who showed that he was no less courageous than his mistress, and, using skills acquired tossing trogfers, let the now glassy-eyed monster have a vengeful uppercut, with the point of his left horn, on its drooping chin, at which exact moment the beauty landed her third whack on the sorry ligon’s head. It wobbled a few steps, and then, all on camera, lost its physical form and became code.

  Late that afternoon, two frightened cheetahs showed up near the camp. Both animals jumped up onto the branches of a tree, which was soon surrounded by a large group of hyenas. But neither party could do anything to the other party, and, after an hour of hanging around, the hyenas understood it was stalemate, and departed with a little laughing. There was no danger to the adventurers, as Screenside animals, provided by RV, had little interest in Screenside beings.

  They partied again that night, flushed with the excitement of a different type of day, calling it off at a little past midnight, to make love and to sleep.

  A week was
passed in the Serengeti, with a daily routine that included driving to see wild life, and playing trogfer games in camp in the evening. Showering had become essential twice daily, a late-evening one having introduced itself to get the day’s dust off.

  It was a wonderful, relaxed week, with no sense of urgency in it. Wildlife expeditions commenced at mid-morning and ended well before evening, with at least a couple of hours of daylight left to dark.

  Campfire, drinking and dancing were nightly fun activities, and every night became a late night – way after midnight. That made mornings into wonderful talk sessions, with coffee, while lazing in beds on the ground, while slowly organizing for the day.

  One morning, right next to the campsite, a ligon got into a dispute with a lion. The ligon lost the battle and got decoded, but only after putting up a great fight. Singh and Chang held rifles while the battle unfolded, but the victorious lion moved away immediately after vanquishing the intruder.

  “Not counting boring hippos, there’s only one major animal we’re missing here,” said Priya, after the battle, sitting up in bed with Singh sleeping on, his head in her lap. “Crocodiles.”

  “Look, Priya, It’s an opportunity because we are already here.” said Chang. “I don’t mind going via the Mara River, where the crocs are, on the drive out of the Serengeti. Why miss out? Anyone?”

  “Yes, let’s go,” agreed Wendy. “But now that I know how wild animals are in Screenside, I’m not too keen to see a bloody spectacle.”

  “Crocs are an ancient, prehistoric creature,” said Candice. “It is bloody stuff, but nothing evil; just nature’s plan. We can always move away, if they actually catch a meal while we’re there.”

  The crocs were mainly inactive during their visit. “Oh, the poor things,” said Jennifer. “A year without food. Desperately waiting for the annual wildebeest migration.”

  Coming down from on top of the buses at around noon, the adventurers said goodbye to the Serengeti, and headed off in search of a good road to take them westward in the direction of the dense forests of West Africa.

  Some more wildlife hunts were witnessed before leaving the plains. A pair of cheetahs caught a leaping, dodging gazelle, and a solitary, majestic lion successfully ambushed a zebra. Hippos, too, were spotted in a water hole, but the group didn’t go in for a closer look, as ‘hippos do nothing much.’

  Phone maps showed that a road was not very far away, and they stopped for a coffee, before heading purposefully to it. Eventually their path intersected the road, and they turned west, towards the far forests of Nigeria and Ghana.

  Driving along at good speed, the intention was to spend two nights in the first dense forest entered. That was in Nigeria, although getting there took three full days of driving, with nights spent in their proven camp between the buses. Entering the forest, they stopped off the road, but did not set up camp, preferring to use privacy tents.

  “I’m not tired, exhausted, or fed up,” declared Jennifer. “I could do this forever!”

  Everyone agreed.

  Next morning, the expedition for the day was to walk into the forest, and, carrying tents for the night, and a few bottles of wine and beer, and arming themselves against garbags and ligons, they moved into the dense jungle.

  The walk into the forest was yet another magical experience, and they became silent, going deeper into the gloomy jungle under a canopy of leaves, past trees that had trunks in excess of 20 feet in circumference. A few snakes and many hundred monkeys were seen, but the adventurers encountered nothing that might have counted as dangerous, predatory animals.

  In a clearing, when stopping to rest, a large group of monkeys leapt down from the trees and ransacked Chang’s rucksack, making off with two cans of beer.

  “We’ll tell your parents,” threatened Esmeralda, but loss of two cans did not matter, and they moved on.

  Garbag attacks took place thereafter at regular intervals, the beasts rushing out of undergrowth, but the adventurers proved themselves really quick on the draw, and, with everyone carrying a weapon - rifle, shotgun or pistol - every single garbag was converted into code at sight. And that was also the fate of the two ligons that showed up in a small clearing in the forest.

  Djali had been left behind in a bus, parked just off the road, as he had shown no inclination to walk into the gloom of dense tropical jungle.

  In a very large clearing, entered at around midday, they set up to loiter for a couple of hours to observe the strange birds that lived in the forest. Wendy tried to keep them informed on the birds, googling running information - with photography and image search - but was hampered by a slow connection.

  “I’ll keep the pictures,” she decided. “Later, we can look them up at leisure. Oh, look at that beautiful multicolored one with an orange beak!”

  The magic of dense tropical forest created a totally different type of enchantment, and that night, deep in the jungle, they lay around in a camp of tents set up in a circle. Safe within its perimeter, they passed the time talking with each other, sometimes disappearing into their tents, presumably to make love.

  No fire was lit that night, and the available wood might have proven too damp anyway, but Wendy had thoughtfully brought along a packet of candles for light. It was crawling-insect proof, when sitting on privacy sheets laid out on the ground - and damp proof, too!

  Later, it would be counted as one of the great nights of the trip, smothered by forest, and speaking softly on a thousand subjects, as friends do, drinking beer and wine by candlelight.

  The next day, the routine was the same, although, after a swift return to the buses, the walk was in the opposite direction of the earlier foray.

  “The odd thing about dense tropical forest, is that it looks the same, no matter which direction and how far,” remarked Robert.

  And the second night was passed very much the same as the first.

  The next morning, breaking camp, the adventure part officially ended, with another walk back to the buses, except for one last astonishing incident before commencement of the drive towards Morocco and home.

  Djali was let out to play with trogfers, while the adventurers showered and freshened up for the long drive ahead. Esmeralda was yet to shower, when she asked, “Where’s Djali?”

  No one had seen him for a while, and Esmeralda began frantically calling for him. Everyone soon joined in the search, and about ten minutes into that effort, Priya suddenly called out. “Esme, come quick. Hurry, everyone. It’s very bad news.” Everyone ran to where she was, behind some bushes. It was a pitiful sight. The reckless goat was practically immobilized, with a python wrapped round him so tight that he could scarcely bleat, and, as he was incapable, obviously, of switching to virtual form, he was doomed, in danger of being suddenly converted into code.

  Esmeralda put her face down to the level of the unblinking reptile’s head. “You heard that, serpent?” she snarled, eyeballing the python. “It’s very bad news.”

  She drew her pistol. “For you,” she hissed – and shot the snake in the head!

  On the way back, a night was spent in the desert. It was party and dancing again. But Wendy, who had gone into a bus to make coffee, came out with amazing news she had picked up on the TV in the bus.

  The Stockholm Trogfer Rolling Club and all of them, the twelve adventurers of the African Safari group, had received notices from the newly formed SPCT to reply to HC in New York, for the preliminary hearing of its petition.

  “What’s SPCT?” asked Candice.

  “Ah, it’s The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Trogfers, SPCT,” giggled Wendy.

  “Who… who… who’s in that society?” asked Singh, laughing.

  “Don’t know. Oh, maybe I can look it up on the net.” Wendy switched her phone on, and went searching.

  “Some folks in India or Pakistan,” she reported. “A small society, registered yesterday. Probably formed to harass us.”

  “Bah!” said BC. “Trogfers are unconscious. No case
.”

  54

  Journeying on, totally forgetting about SPCT, the adventurers rendezvoused with the ferry, on the coast in the evening, at a point intimated by HC.

  Approaching the Spanish coastline, they were amazed to see, from the ferry, thousands of Screenside beings partying on the shore.

  It actually was a welcoming party for them, but it had nothing to do with the successful conclusion of their African tour.

  It had been arranged, as the main banner showed, by the Stockholm Trogfer Rolling Club!

  Disembarking, to loud cheers from a rather unruly and boisterous mob, they were greeted by Johansson, the very same Johansson caught formless in The Great Hall, an age ago!

  He headed the welcoming party, and was, in fact, the founder and serving president of the Stockholm club, having discovered the joys of trogfer rolling and flipping in his loneliness in the infested pine forests of his native Sweden. A few minutes later, they would find that trogfers had completely changed his views and his life, and that now, although still pursuing his reading goals, he was a very active participant in social life, and that far from being a loner, he had become partnered with a beautiful blonde Swedish female who shared his passion for trogfer sports.

  “Ah, my old friends,” he shouted, in greeting. “Caesar and Singh, welcome, welcome. We have been keenly following your trip around Africa, and Ingrid and I are extremely proud to see that such senior beings, and old friends, have begun sharing our passion for trogfer sports.” Neither Caesar nor Singh had ever met Ingrid, but they nodded happily.