We Are Animals

by Tim Ewins

  It wasn’t until after a spot of yoga, when he was ordering his usual fruit salad in the nearby health restaurant that someone mentioned an earthquake to him. He hadn’t registered the missing beach huts or the hum of discussion between those who had woken up. ‘What else hadn’t he registered?’ he wondered, rubbing his forehead.

  Then he looked right again and then he looked left again.

  Manjan continued the rest of his day as he always did. He chatted with the melon-selling lady for a while, before going to the same health restaurant for lunch (this time ordering a masala dosa). Then he scanned the beach for Ladyjan.

  In the evening, after scanning the beach for Jan, Manjan sat in the same bar that he had sat in the night before with a glass of red wine. He half-expected Shakey to come and sit next to him, but he didn’t. Instead, Manjan sat alone with his thoughts and memories until sundown, when he had a quick look around in case Ladyjan had turned up before he made his way to bed.

  * * *

  Shakey did not step outside that morning. He spent his morning binge-watching a TV programme that he had downloaded before his flight to India. He didn’t understand how his not-unpacked but open backpack had moved from one side of the room to the other, but he had probably done it when he’d come in the night before. Probably.

  By the time the fourth episode was playing, Shakey realised that he hadn’t been paying attention to his laptop and he started the series again. He paid even less attention the second time and he didn’t even look at the screen the third.

  Shakey never saw the morning beach clean-up operation, in which both tourists and locals worked together to move the broken huts, even though it was just outside his door, but travelling can be like that sometimes. He did spend some time lying on his bed watching a fly move from the bedside table to the window ledge and then back again repeatedly. It was one of those large black flies that make a lot of noise when they fly and it was that noise that sent Shakey to sleep.

  For lunch, Shakey ate a packet of crisps and three chocolate bars from his backpack. He felt terrible and couldn’t face the outside world, so he didn’t see the fishermen bring in their catch (hundreds of freshly caught fish, a few crabs and a starfish) and he didn’t see the group of sunbathers walk over to watch and congratulate them. He did see the fly land on his head, though, and that made him hit himself, which in turn reminded him of how much his head still hurt from the combination of vodka and Red Bull buckets and wine. That afternoon Shakey had another nap.

  He woke up again at 5 pm, but he didn’t leave his room until six. Instead, he put on the first episode of the series he hadn’t really been watching again, and didn’t really watch it again. As his laptop played, Shakey watched the fly attempt to find a way out of the now stuffy and smelly room.

  Had Shakey left his room at 5pm, he’d have seen the girl from the fishing trip order a small plastic bucket of vodka and Red Bull at the bar next to his room. She sat down for about thirty minutes, but after fending off some unwanted attention from two male vests who had arrived at the beach that day, she left. When Shakey left his room, she had gone.

  After sweating his way through a chicken vindaloo by himself, Shakey went back to his room. He opened the door and pulled his laptop onto his knees, searched through his emails and found one with the subject: ‘Your trip’. What was it that the old man had said yesterday? Something about seeing the world properly?

  The fly sat on the windowsill, unaware that Shakey had left the door open. Then it moved to the bedside table.

  As Shakey hovered his arrow over a button that read ‘change your flights’ and held his breath, the fly found its way to the doorframe. Shakey clicked, exhaled and then stared at the screen for several minutes.

  He didn’t notice the fly move back to the bedside table and he didn’t notice the fly go past the doorframe, leave Shakey’s stuffy and smelly room and enter the vastness of the entire world.

  41

  A family member

  Cambodia and Thailand. 2016-2017.

  When Norman first visited Kampot in Cambodia, he had expected to visit the secret lake (which was conveniently highlighted on a map in the High-Tide Travel Guide) and then leave the next day. But, when he arrived, a coconut fell from a tree next to Norman’s head. He picked it up and took it to the hostel bar.

  ‘This could’ve killed me,’ he said, but in a much calmer way than you probably read it. The man behind the bar smiled and then laughed.

  ‘But it didn’t,’ he said. ‘Here.’ He took the coconut from Norman, plunged a hole in it with a corkscrew and then turned towards the back wall of the bar. When he passed the coconut back to Norman it had a straw sticking out of the top.

  That night was hazy. From what he remembered, Norman made good friends with the barman and they might have created new lyrics to some old ’80s hits together. Unsurprisingly, Norman did not make it to the secret lake that day. He’d go tomorrow.

  The next day, Norman asked the barman how to find the secret lake (it was signposted) and the barman went into some depth, before he noticed a girl standing behind Norman.

  ‘Can I help?’ the barman smiled, looking around Norman’s head.

  ‘A room for the night?’ the girl asked as she dumped her backpack on the ground. ‘I want to see the secret lake.’

  ‘I’m off to the secret lake too,’ Norman said, by way of an offer.

  The girl sat with Norman and listened to the barman explain in detail how to get to the secret lake (it was down the road, on the left). Then she ordered a vodka and Red Bull and Norman ordered a rum.

  That night was also hazy. Norman thinks that he, the barman and the girl had played crazy golf very badly and lost all five of the hostel’s golf balls. Neither Norman nor the girl made it to the secret lake the next day. They’d go tomorrow.

  The next evening, having slept through sunrise and sunset (which is of course, the best time to see the secret lake), Norman, the girl and the barman discussed the possibility of Norman working as a barman at the hostel. Norman was more than a little keen.

  ‘I reckon I could do it,’ he said, determined, even though neither the barman nor the girl had any doubt that he could – after all, the job seemed mainly to involve drinking with the guests. The hostel gate creaked, and Norman jumped behind the bar. ‘Trial run,’ he explained.

  A ginger boy in a luminous vest came in. His mouth was slightly open and his head was bobbing in time to the bar’s music.

  ‘Shakey?’ Norman asked.

  ‘Mad Norman!’ Shakey replied, with his mouth slightly more open than before. And then he saw the girl next to Mad Norman and slyly flexed his bicep.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, but he fumbled the ‘h’ sound a bit, so everyone thought he was just clearing his throat. Smiling, the girl waited for Shakey to say something, but he didn’t.

  He’s so mysterious, she thought.

  * * *

  Shakey knew that Mad Norman was in Kampot, due to Mad Norman’s extensive online bragging, but he hadn’t gone looking for him. Since deciding that maybe he hadn’t found himself in the sand in Goa, Shakey was now trying to learn more about who he was. So far, he’d learnt that he was incredibly nervous every time he saw one particular girl and he’d also learnt that he was a little scared of elephants. Both were disappointing things to learn.

  ‘You were amazing on that fishing boat,’ the girl said. Shakey looked pensive, which was very attractive, but was actually a result of tensing his bicep for too long. He laughed unnaturally.

  ‘Have you seen the secret lake?’ he blurted.

  ‘Not yet,’ the girl responded, with an implication in her tone. There was a long pause in which, feeling uncomfortable, Norman offered them both a drink.

  ‘Shall we go today?’ Shakey asked with a slight croak in his voice, and the girl nodded with a large smile spreading from her lips to her cheeks and the
n to her eyes.

  ‘I’m Moira,’ the girl said with her hand firmly extended.

  ‘Moira,’ Shakey repeated.

  ‘Wow, what a coincidence,’ Moira said, ‘we have the same name!’

  ‘Sorry, no, I’m Shakey,’ Shakey said, and then he held Moira’s hand and shook it lightly, like a parent might do to a baby.

  ‘Oh,’ Moira said, ‘I get it!’

  Shakey and Moira both stayed in Kampot longer than they expected to. They talked, they listened, they drank and at one point they kissed. Moira was from a town called Fishton, which Shakey was sure he’d heard of before, but he couldn’t work out why. When they did eventually make it to the secret lake, it turned out to be a very busy secret, so the next day they explored further and found a cave together (which was so secret that it didn’t even have a name) and then spent a whole day in it.

  Shakey and Moira travelled across Cambodia together and then into Thailand, by which point they had become more than friends.

  When they got to Bangkok, Moira told Shakey that she had to fly back to Goa to meet her parents before she could carry on with the rest of her trip. Did Shakey want to join her?

  ‘I’m trying to learn more about myself,’ Shakey told Moira in a worldly way that Moira admired, ‘and what I learnt in Goa was that I needed to leave Goa.’

  The night of her flight, Shakey and Moira watched the sunset over Wat Arun from the river. When it was dark Moira called a taxi, kissed Shakey softly and then set off to the airport.

  The sunset really can be spectacular.

  * * *

  Mad Norman stayed in Kampot and worked as a barman, with the barman, for the next three years. It turned out the barman was his second cousin and through each other they learnt more about their respective extended families, and in turn, about themselves, than either had ever imagined possible.

  During the second year in Kampot, Norman and the barman compiled a family tree together and spoke to their respective extended families on the phone.

  ‘Wait,’ said Norman, holding his hand flat on the page where the barman had just entered a name, ‘how do you know my great grandfather was called that?’

  ‘Your dad told me,’ the barman replied, picking up a coconut from the ground and reaching for his corkscrew.

  ‘Mr N Hemming,’ Norman said to himself. ‘Aka Mad Norman.’

  42

  A rat

  Australia and Fiji. 2017-2018

  Shakey may have felt as if he’d had an ‘awakening’ when he changed his flights after his night with Manjan, but a vest does not simply just stop being a vest. On the Great Ocean Road, Shakey ‘found himself’ in some sand again and, in Sydney, he thought he’d had a genuine ‘home visit’ with someone local. This was only true if, after you say ‘local’, you also say ‘to London, England’.

  He’d been travelling for two years now and it had been over a year ago that he and Moira had shared their last sunset. He had considered going home three times since they’d parted, but he hadn’t. Something wasn’t complete.

  It was in one of Sydney’s many vest-frequented clubs, while accidentally taking part in a mating ritual, that Shakey realised once and for all that it was over. He had to go home. He was talking to a girl in a luminous green vest which advertised a local beer, and she was pretty, but Shakey wasn’t flexing his bicep. What was the point?

  ‘Do you want a drink?’ Shakey shouted, interrupting the girl mid-sentence. She laughed and then she nodded. Glumly, Shakey pushed his way through the crowd. He would buy the girl a drink, but then he would go back to his hostel room and book flights back to England.

  ‘What did you say?’ shouted the barman over the music, even though Shakey hadn’t said anything yet.

  ‘A bucket,’ Shakey replied quietly.

  ‘What?’ the barman shouted again. Shakey didn’t reply. The door behind the barman opened and a wave of steam from the overworked dishwasher poured out. Shakey watched as a hand waved its way through the steam, held on to the bar and then…

  ‘Moira?’ Shakey shouted above the music.

  ‘What?’ shouted the barman.

  * * *

  They sat in the club car park with two cars, a large blue and black bin and a rat.

  ‘My parents cut me off,’ Moira said. ‘After I met them in Goa they told me that they’d pay for my flights, but I have to pay for the rest. After Australia, it’s Fiji and then home for me.’ Shakey said he was sorry and Moira laughed at him. ‘They paid for my flights,’ she said. ‘That’s still pretty good.’

  The rat shuffled about in some newspaper deciding what to eat next. He’d just finished a pizza crust and wanted something to follow it up with, maybe a cinnamon swirl. The rat visited the same blue and black bin at the same time every night – around the time that the kitchen threw out the waste.

  ‘I’m going home,’ Shakey said eventually, although he was less convinced that he was now. ‘I’m done travelling I think. I miss my parents.’

  ‘You said,’ Moira paused, remembering something Shakey had told her a year ago, ‘you said that your parents are your best friends. That’s sweet.’

  It was 3 am and the other barman had left. The night was warm, the moon was full and neither Shakey nor Moira were looking at each other.

  ‘Full moon,’ Shakey said uselessly, and then silence.

  Moira shuffled her trainers in the gravel and the rat looked up. He’d heard a noise and that normally meant trouble. Rats are clever animals; they learn from past mistakes. Moira turned quickly towards Shakey as the rat scurried away to hide.

  ‘Come to Perth,’ she said, ‘that’s where I’m going next. Come to Perth and don’t go home, not yet.’

  Fiji

  Shakey’s plane landed in Fiji after eight insanely happy weeks in Perth. Once again, Shakey had changed his flights, this time so that he could join Moira in Fiji. He hadn’t been able to book the same flight as Moira, though, so he decided not to tell her that he was coming. It would be a romantic surprise.

  On his first day in Fiji, Shakey visited Sri Siva Subramaniya Temple.

  He looked to his right.

  He looked to his left.

  Then he looked to his right again.

  Then he looked to his left again. Moira wasn’t there.

  On his second day in Fiji, Shakey visited Denarau Island. Again, Shakey looked to his right, and then again, he looked to his left. The island was beautiful; dark green tropical plants, long stretches of white beaches and crystal-clear sea. Only one thing was missing. Moira.

  Moira had visited Denarau Island yesterday, but today she was visiting a local eco park.

  On his third day in Fiji, Shakey visited a local eco park. He looked to his right. Moira was not there. He looked to his left. Moira was not there either. Not today. He looked in front of him and he looked behind him. He looked around every tree and across every bridge, but Moira was not there. Moira was visiting the Sri Siva Subramaniya Temple that day, but Shakey had already looked there…

  On his fourth day in Fiji, Shakey didn’t leave his hostel room at all. He thought about Manjan, the lonely moustache he’d met in Goa. He knew that Manjan would still be sitting on Palolem beach by himself. Ladyjan wouldn’t be there. Of course Ladyjan wouldn’t be there.

  But that was Manjan. Shakey pulled his laptop out from his backpack, sat on the edge of his bed, and paid for one last flight.

  43

  A fish

  Fishton. 2019.

  Professional fishermen never look at their fish. Not properly. They might pick out some seaweed or categorise the catch for selling, but a cod is a cod and a plaice is a plaice.

  In Fishton, when the fishermen come in, tourists gather to watch. They look at the haul and they discuss the boats, but, like the fishermen, very few tourists will think beyond the weight of a halibut to cons
ider how the halibut’s day has been.

  Shakey watched a large net being lifted off the boat and onto Fishton’s cold, hard paving slabs. His mouth was slightly open and, although he didn’t realise it, his head was bobbing slightly to the sound of a seagull’s rhythmic call.

  ‘Caaa.’

  He marvelled at the sheer amount of fish – so many more fish were caught in Fishton than in Palolem.

  Shakey didn’t notice the small, ageing grey haddock that had flopped down on top of seven other younger fish. This was fair, though, as the haddock had spent its eight-year life not noticing anyone. It had never been caught before and even now, surrounded by humans, it chose not to notice them. In fact, the haddock had only ever had one relationship at all and that wasn’t by choice.

  When it was five years old (which is not young for a haddock), the haddock had swum under a rock, turned around and looked out from under the rock before swimming away again. It did this most days, but on this particular day, it had noticed another haddock copying it. It wasn’t mating season and the haddock didn’t have any interest in forming any other kind of relationship (few haddocks do), but no matter where the haddock went that day, the other haddock followed.

  And the next day.

  After a few days of being followed, the haddock had stopped even noticing the other haddock. It wasn’t so much that one was following the other, but instead, they simply swam together. As far as both haddocks were concerned, that’s how it had always been.

  Shakey watched the mass of grounded fish all hitting into each other with expressionless faces. He watched, but didn’t see, the small ageing grey haddock move through the mass of fish to the other side of the net and, because of their expressionless faces, Shakey did not notice the two haddocks find each other. Neither Shakey, nor the fishermen and certainly none of the other tourists cared that the two haddocks had managed to flap about next to each other for the last few minutes of their conjoined lives on the pavement.