New Animal by Ella Baxter (speed reading book .TXT) 📕

the steering wheel. ‘You’re welcome,’ she sings to a passing cyclist travelling too slowly along the shoulder of the highway. ‘Slow down, please, Mr Toyota hatchback,’ she trills as a red car overtakes us. She flicks through the radio stations until classical music tinkles out from each dusty speaker. Lulled by the lilting piano, my focus shifts to a dead fly the colour of blue metal, upside down on the dashboard. It is iridescent in the afternoon light. As Judy alternates between the accelerator and the brake, I find myself wondering whether the fly knew its beautiful lapis lazuli mother. Does anyone ever truly know their mother? Did I?

‘Do you think she was happy?’

‘No thinking woman is,’ Judy says, while slowing the car down and then indicating. ‘Let me tell you, pet, life is either boring or shocking, there’s not much in between.’

She tucks her long fringe behind her ear and I consider the clip I once saw of a panda springing back from a baby that had recently catapulted from her vagina with a sneeze. That clip was shocking for both the panda and me. Then there’s the amount of times I’ve left work early, only to walk back to the bungalow and stare at the phone or computer with nothing to do. Completely boring. Or how the aftermath of sex is so similar to death, with patches of fluids, excess hair and dry skin. Quite shocking.

Judy clearly knows about life, and I regret not making the time to speak about these things sooner. I would have loved to know a little more about boredom and shock. I’m sure when humans were more communal beings we didn’t need to talk so candidly about things like this to gain common understandings. All that village living and communal space would have done wonders for group learning. Bonding over hide backpacks and so on. General kinship and whatnot. Everyone would have known how boring and shocking life is; it would not have been such a surprise back then.

Judy accelerates erratically as we pass the billboard advertising Floyd’s Bananas. As we take a left on to the main road up the mountain, she points out colourful parrots that are scattered through the trees like handfuls of thrown jewels. I nod and have a go, pointing out the banana palms that have dropped their fronds in the wind and now show their fresh pink trunks underneath. She nods. Then I take another turn, pointing at the geranium flowers that have self-seeded by the side of the road, the fuzz of their leaves more magnificent than the fabric of the robes of the gods.

‘The leaves are so soft,’ I say.

‘Like ears,’ she says.

It’s clear we both agree that everything on this mountain is important and beautiful.

Judy pulls into the empty car park and swiftly undoes her seatbelt, getting straight out of the car and heading for the lookout. I watch as she leans further than I would expect over the side of the platform to look down into the ravine.

‘It’s not as far as I thought,’ she says.

‘It’s very steep, though, and there’re rocks,’ I point out.

‘I’m going down.’

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

‘It’s actually the best idea I’ve had in a while,’ she counters. ‘You’ve been coming here all the time lately, so you must be sensing something. Or maybe you feel the psychic imprint of Daniel. Anyway, it’s good to follow these impulses. Especially now, with your mum and everything.’

I can see that she is willing herself not to cry as she moves towards the edge and takes a wobbly step, before lunging at a sapling and grasping its branches. As she lowers herself onto the rock below, her hand drags along the sapling, stripping its new leaves; they fly out from the edges of her clenched fists like confetti.

‘There’s a reason for everything,’ she yells up at me. ‘It’s all interconnected. We are part of a large cosmos churning and flowing and …’ She trails off to focus on her descent.

I step off the platform and notice two wild strawberry plants. They have each shot out a few thin stems of berries, and although they are much smaller than normal, I’m reasonably sure they are edible, so I pick them.

The berries are tart and crunchy, and I search for some to share with Judy. I find a few more, but they look as if they’ve collapsed in on themselves with the heat. I hold one up to inspect the wrinkled skin which, if you look hard enough, could represent the deflated stomach of my mother after she birthed me. Maybe Judy is right, and we are all bubbling together in this cauldron of life and living, death and suffering. That would explain why I see my mother in every living thing. But if that were the case, surely I would also be able to sense if she were happy or not. A daughter should know. I shove all the berries into one cheek and hold them there, because I’ve decided that I can’t share my mother with anyone else at the moment.

I tread carefully down the escarpment after Judy, using tufts of grass and tree stumps to support me while I chew on my mother. Judy has got her momentum up, and pivots from one rocky foothold to another, each step triggering a tiny landslide of rocks and soil.

‘Those clogs have got to go,’ I call down to her.

‘No, they’re like hooves. I saw this documentary on mountain goats and they have feet like this—I feel very balanced,’ she says, careening from shrub to shrub. ‘Besides, exercise is brilliant for moving the trauma through our bodies. It’s just so good to sweat, isn’t it?’

‘Yes and no,’ I say.

I survey the land below while eating the rest of the mother-berries. If I allowed myself, I could become untamed with grief. If it were socially acceptable and not frightening for everyone else, I would love to make a sacrifice, or burn an effigy