2. L.Bear-Taxonomy
L.Bear-Taxonomy (by Andrew Guthrie-Dow)
It started-off so well. An act of charity that pleased everyone, the rescue of a little bear off the railings at Earl’s-Court. It was raining hard and Marvella took him under her jacket. He soon settled-in and he learnt to speak very quickly and fluently, unlike our other animals - Ratty for example, who could only say “Tooting” (he was purchased from a stall on Tooting-Common). We did some research and we found-out he was a Huggy-Bear” a close-relative of the European-Honey-Bear (Europae-Mel-Ursi). The research said these bears were ideal human companions, only wanting love, affection, and of course, honey. Perfect - what could possibly go wrong?
Bear’s progress was rapid. He said he needed to improve his numbers, but he was finding using a pen difficult during the calculation. Marvella and I struggled to think how we could help – then a mutual brainwave. Onto the internet and there it was – a giant calculator with keys big enough that Bear’s paws could use them. This coincided with Bear’s proclamation that he needed a birthday like everyone else, and expensive birthday-gifts would be much appreciated. Well, a calculator, even a giant one, wasn’t that expensive, so we secretly bought one for him. We then all agreed when his birthday should be (June the 1st) which was just a few days away, and on the day, he got his giant-calculator, all wrapped up in pretty wrapping-paper.
Bear was ecstatic – he knew what it was and said “a big calculator for big numbers - just what I needed”, and immediately set about calculating. Not just for a few minutes, but hours at a time, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing numbers. There was no stopping him. Occasionally he would write-down a result, then continue. He didn’t stop at the four basic operators of mathematics, but progressed to percentages, and even the square-root. He asked me about what this was used for, and I struggled to give an everyday example. “No matter” he said, if I need it, I’ve got it. Truly we had never seen an animal take to arithmetic so well. We were well impressed, and proud.
Bear was also becoming more socially aware and adept. When some friends came round to our flat Bear noticed something – they spent a long time looking at our animals – Ratty, Captain-Cedok (our Czechoslovakian bear), and many, many others. He suggested, ever so politely, that some people may be slightly “taken-aback” by our commitment to the world of soft-toys. We considered this, and agreed. He then volunteered to help, and over the next few days there were disappearances. He said nothing to worry about, they have decided to transfer to a nice warm cardboard-box in the cupboard. After a short time there remained just him, with Ratty and the Captain on a dimly-lit shelf. It had to be done.
Bear began joining us on our travels. He quickly became accustomed to the airport business-lounges, business-class travel, taxis, and all the activities which go with an international-consultant lifestyle. Holidays as well; Bear would be there. It was no surprise that he was soon part of the decision making-team. Gaining confidence, he suggested that he be allowed to choose a holiday destination; not Italy, but the home of finance and gold – Switzerland’s Zurich. Bloody Zurich I thought – at least Geneva had an international feel. But the die-was-cast, and we all spent seven days there. Bear was ecstatic with being there at the heart of capitalism, Marvella and I less so. But we made the best of it, though it was definitely a one-off for us.
He also changed Xmas. Instead of him receiving presents that were not exactly “right”, we could just give him the money instead. This sounded a little soulless, so Marvella suggested a Chinese solution. We would stuff little red-envelopes with money, and he could then undo them and put it away safely in his money-box (a previous present). This is what millions of Chinese children do, and it was good enough for Bear and us. Another problem solved.
What else? Bear would sometimes join me in business meetings where he might add a few words of wisdom into the conversation. I could tell the other meeting attendees were pretty impressed. Of course, he was doing more-and-more himself, like renewing his Amex-card, joining online groups, buying things off the internet etc. He had a complete six-hundred-pound facelift from us via the Leith-Toy-Hospital. This bear had “arrived”, and we were part of it. How would you feel under similar circumstances, proud like us, I hope? Then a little thing happened that dented our pride a little, but only a little. It was more of a recalibration than a revelation, and it was all to do with taxonomy.
It started with Marvella casually saying Bear acted more like a Money-Bear than a Honey-Bear. Like many observations people make, this one was quickly packaged-away, residing only in that grey area between conscious and unconscious memory. It lay there for weeks, until I read an article in one of my scientific magazines (Geek-and-Nerd-Monthly). It was about recent discoveries in cryptic-species and mimicry. It began with frogs (why does everything in Biology begin with frogs, or fruit-flies? – don’t they know this pisses-off ninety-five percent of potential enthusiasts, leaving only a very strange five-percent “a rump” of frogo-philes).
Research showed that some species, are in fact, two species. They are virtually indistinguishable visually, but can be separately identified by their calls. The article then went on to snakes, and evolution often throwing-up one or more mimicry species for each venomous one. Evolution had found a free-lunch – look like something far more dangerous than you actually are. It then went onto the “killer” sections; those dedicated to the newly discovered species of the European-Cuckoo-Bear (Europae-Cuculus-Ursi).
Biologists identified it by luck via a genetic test that gave results quite-distinct to those of the European-Honey-Bear. The species looked very similar, initially behaved the same, but whose behaviour diverged once it had found a safe home with humans. It became, in their words, a parasite. The Cuckoo-Bear would consume all the resources available to it from the humans looking after it, whether they be love, money, influence or whatever. How it managed to do this was urgently being studied. There were two initial hypotheses. Either it used imperceptible emotional-triggers to force their human host to support it, or it produced pheromones to the same effect, or it used a combination of these two methods.
The article did not stop there. No, it went on to describe some of the manipulative-behaviours other Cuckoo-Bears had conducted, and asked the reader (me!) to assess whether I or close friends-and-relatives had been affected. Had it/they given the bear money? Had I taken it to work? Had it ever “neutralized” other competing animals? Had it gone on holidays with you? And the final killer question – had it ever undergone plastic-surgery to disguise the slight physical differences between it and the mimicked species? (the Cuckold-Bear apparently has close-set eyes with an evil expression it tried to hide). Accurate taxonomy was vital, the article said, to protect humans and society from this novel pathogen.
Finally, it said special bio-hazard units had been set-up by the government to identify infected households and separate the pathogen (the Cuckoo-Bear) from its surroundings. People affected would receive counselling, and the bears would be kept securely-and-safely for life in a high security environment. All you had to do was take your bear to the unit, wait a few minutes for the genetic test, and everything else would be taken-care-of. It also warned that some households were so deeply infiltrated that even with incontrovertible-proof of their animal’s duplicity, they would irrationally defend it against this humane scientific and medical course of action. These were the very hard to treat cases, but treatment was getting better, and less coercion was now generally possible.
Well, that was it. Why was I reading this “rag” anyway? I immediately decided to cancel my subscription, before remembering we didn’t have it on subscription. No-one was coming anywhere near our bear, whatever species he was. If society didn’t like him so much for society – sod them all. Bear would continue to receive our full-support with whatever projects he was involved with, and if anyone didn’t like that, they had Marvella (and me) to deal with. Scientists – they know nothing. Perhaps we could subscribe to a philosophy magazine instead – there was plenty to choose from (e.g. Philosophy-Monthly, Thinking-Straight, and who could forget-or-ignore the title Hegel-Don’t-Bother-Me).