It’s not so strange. In Sydney you can buy an AB pizza – that’s AB for abortion. If that’s to make a point or just be crass, I don’t know. Here the message isn’t subtle but they pull it off with class. It’s Friday and we order Tourist Kill, Finless Shark, Orphan Orangutan – we ran out of week to save the whales but don’t want to drown our conscience. The pianist wears a panda suit and the barman wears a tee which reads, "Adopt a Vaquita." He winks at us and fills his shaker, topping up the chrome with vodka shots and healthy juice, the vaquita sloshing happily around the bar. A waitress speaks to us in tiger. She brings us two Blind Elephants in glasses ringed with coloured ice, creamy like liquid ivory. I wonder at the name. To get their tusks they take it all – the eyes, the face. It’s cooler now – the days are getting shorter, we’re in to autumn. The rhinos take to the floor and dance and no one finds them foolish. Some think we’re odd, sad eco-weirdos, nothing but a bunch of dodos. I say we’re doing something, say what are you going to do? Are you going to do it now? You say you have time, that the shortest day has just as many hours. Though most of them are dark, I think, but don’t want to offend. I offer to buy you a drink. Will you have a Passenger Pigeon? A Baiji White Dolphin?
(First published by Arachne Press in "Shortest Day Longest Night" anthology, 2016)
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