Aquarium Floaters

A couple of nights ago I dreamt about a new acquaintance for the first time. I was in their home city, visiting a museum that had an aquarium of sorts (places are never fully what they are supposed to be in dreams) and I was having a dismal time. Not only was the city a grey, featureless metropolis, but the museum aquarium was rundown and leaking. In the main foyer, some of the larger fish were able to swim around near the ceiling, seemingly suspended in thin air. There were red coloured tub gurnards (Chelidonichthys lucerna), bulky, medium-sized fish bumbling along in loose shoals like miniature fighter planes. I steered clear of those, for I am a raging icthyophobe, and I remember reading somewhere that a flying gurnard can kill you if it smacks into your head.

My friend decided she wanted to catch some of the fish and guide them back to their tanks. To do so, she brought with her a large hoop surrounded by hanging strips that acted like baffle boards. Using a pole, she raised the hoop towards the shoal, trapping a few of the fish and sweeping them back towards an open tank. She then tried the same on a baby reef manta ray (Mobula alfredi) that was also gliding in circles near the ceiling. The ray, despite being a baby, was too large to contain in the baffle hoop, so she gave up and turned her attention to a small hammerhead shark. I told her that it was a scalloped hammerhead (Sphyrna lewini), as distinguished by the notch in the centre of its 'hammer.' She was likewise unsuccessful in trapping the shark, and we left the museum to go somewhere else.

Colchester Zoo Revisited

When I resided in Colchester, I was a regular visitor to their zoo, which is ranked highly in Europe. The Colchester Zoo of last night's dream would not even pass WAZA standards, let alone make it onto a leaderboard of any description. I was there with my friend, D, and one of his friends from Devon, with whom I was unacquainted. The first enclosure we encountered was a grimy, indoor compound of Lubetkin's Disinfectant Era legacy, a tiled compound with puddles of stagnant water and heaps of dirty hay. Inside were hippos of both species, common (hippopotamus amphibius) and pygmy (Choeropsis liberiensis). They could only be viewed by squatting in an uncomfortable position and peering through windows that looked as though they had not been washed in at least a decade. The common hippos were slumped in miserable heaps of flesh in the corner out of sight, snoozing their lives away. The pygmies were more active, but nonetheless lethargic in their movements as they monotonously munched straw.

Around the corner from the hippos was an old-fashioned Victorian cage resembling a giant bird cage with a ring on top, where an iron chain might be attached. The bird cage was made up of rusty iron bars with wide gaps between them, easily wide enough to admit an arm or a leg. Around the cave was a stone spiral staircase that led up and outside. Inside the cage there sprawled a number of resting ligers, the hybrid offspring of a lion and tiger. They were cramped into the tight space with barely room to turn around. Without a thought to his safety, D's friend put his arm through the bars and tried to stroke one of the beasts. I warned him to withdraw it immediately, which he fortunately did. We tramped up the staircase to an outdoor courtyard of more cages, though of larger dimensions that the oppressive liger cage. There seemed to be no clear indication as to how animals were being grouped.

One of the cages was all ugly wooden beams connected by rusty mesh through which the guests could view the animals. Inside were stunted Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) dragging their straw-ridden cloaks through the muck. Sharing the space with them was what an information sign claimed to be a dhole (Cuon alpinus), yet its hair was so matted and overgrown it could have been just about anything. A curious clacking sound attracted my companions over to another cage. I followed reluctantly, resigned to yet more squalid conditions. It was a bald ibis (Geronticus eremita) standing in a shallow pond and rattling its beak over and over. Its eyes were protruding and covered in a strange mesh of pulsing blue and pink veins. Eventually the ibis managed to dislodged one of these flaps of skin, pulling out the eyeball with it. which the ibis promptly swallowed. D's friend explained that the disease was caused by a 'crystallisation of unstable chromosomes.'

Window Skunks

Recently, new neighbours moved next door to me, yet besides a couple of conversations on the driveway, I have yet to get to know them properly. I dreamed that they had opened up an art appreciation society, with monthly gatherings at their home to discuss the woman's favourite artist, an impenetrable modernist from Los Angeles, who, to my shame, I pretended also to be a fan of to curry favour. Starved of intellectual conversation, I was desperate to be accepted into their inner circle, but unfortunately I drank too much wine and was unable to coherently converse about the artist at hand. I spent the afternoon embarrassing myself to the point where my imposter syndrome was laid bare for all to see. Feeling not a little sheepish, I retired next door to hang my head in shame.

For some obscure dream reason, my wife and I were also new homeowners in our house, and we explored the three stories of our new abode, discussing where our furniture would go. When we reached the second floor bedroom, we saw a large bay window with two panes of glass, forming a sort of lounge space within where one could sit on cushions, drink tea, read, and look down over the street. Just as I was about to draw back the inner window to check it out, I noticed a family of striped skunks (Mephitis mephitis) nesting in this alcove. My wife and I were excessively surprised, and remarked on how our daughter would react to this, but we were unwilling to slide back the glass and let them into the room. Upon noticing humans on the other side of the glass, the mother skunk began to talk.

"We need to leave babies! Come on, out, out, out, back through the way we came!" There was a metal grate over the outer window, yet the top left pane had come loose, and it was through this that the skunks now attempted to leave. "Please, don't leave on our account!" I told them as they attempted, one-by-one, to wriggle free. "It's a high drop to the pavement below," I continued, "you're liable to do yourselves an injury. Why not stay here until I call animal control, and they can help you get out." Although I could understand the skunks, they were incapable of recognising human speech, and my recommendations were given in vain.

The Neglected Horse

 Sometimes I dream about having to care for an animal I have no experience with, resulting in a series of disastrous husbandry blunders. A couple of weeks ago it was a horse, and whilst having some limited experience with horses when I was much younger, I had no clue what I was expected to do. Indeed, to begin with, I did not even know that I had a horse, much less was expected to take care of one. It was a fine summer's day and I was out in the country, my family and loved ones scattered here and there following their own leisure pursuits. A skinny nag, not unlike Don Quixote's long-suffering Rocinante, trotted over to me, a nosebag attached to its head. 'This is my horse' thought I, as I gingerly attempted to mount her. After a few false starts whereupon I fully expected to feel a swift hoof ploughing into my midriff, I managed to attain the saddle.

I took the horse along a country trail at a modest plod, trying to remember the riding lessons I had learned so long ago. When my confidence had increased slightly, I moved from a walk to a trot, but was unwilling to go any faster. My sisters came towards me on horses of their own, more experienced and fully enjoying a spirited canter. "Show offs..." I grumbled. I noticed that my steed was agitated and kept trying to veer off the track looking for food. I leaned over her neck and saw with dismay that the nose bag was zipped shut, meaning the horse had probably not fed for quite some time. I opened the bag to let the horse feed, which it promptly did, gulping down the expired food that had turned into an unappetising brown sludge at the bottom of the bag.

My next concern was where to stable the horse, and where to let her graze. As anyone from the country knows, every field, hedge, dike, and ditch is owned by some red-faced, land rover driving nincompoop, so you may imagine my consternation in allowing the horse to graze just anywhere. Thus overburdened with this dilemma, I remounted the horse and turned her back the way I had come, hoping to find someone to advise me in my predicament. This dream was no doubt born from the anxiety currently ruining an otherwise idyllic existence, namely that of undergoing weekly driving lessons and feeling my complete inadequacy in the enterprise.

African Vista

I had another dream where the view outside my window did not match what I see in reality. I had awoken to find the house shrouded in mist, pressing thickly against the windows. Eventually it withdrew enough to show me that the town had been encircled by a towering fortification, such as might be found ringing the realm of Mordor. The looming grey walls rose oppressively from the mist, and were topped with spiked battlements that weighed heavy on my heart. I called my father to see if he could also see the walls from his residence. He told me that it was a Zionist government plot and to pay it no heed, the whims of power would change and the walls would melt away as swiftly as they had appeared. More confused than before, I ended the call and returned to the window to take photos. The mist had swept in again and concealed the view. Hoping to find a better angle at the back of the house, I went upstairs to the study window.

I was unprepared for the startling change of scenery. Rather than mist and the wall of doom, I was confronted with a sunny vista of an African wilderness replete with winding, sparkling rivers, emerald green swathes of well-watered veldt, in the middle distance, the ruins of a sandstone temple, and in the far distance, a majestic mountain range, above which an immense rainbow curved over the blue firmament. Roaming across this landscape in staggering numbers and variety were the beasts of the bush, all those well known species of an African safari. Rumbling elephants, loping giraffes, whooping zebra, grunting wildebeest, roaring lions, laughing hyenas, snorting rhinos, yawning hippos, snapping crocodiles, strutting ostriches, quarreling baboons, foraging warthogs, prowling cheetahs, galloping gazelles, and flocks of brilliant white egrets. I immediately took out my camera and began clicking away, overwhelmed with wonder, but worried lest the scene should dissolve before I could finish taking photos. As I tried to zoom in and focus on the pink gape of a hippo in full yawn, the camera died and the dream dissolved.

Jungle Safari

One does not usually associate South America with safaris, but I hear there are some jungle tours available, and these may have influenced my latest dream. During an extraordinarily long and stressful sojourn at an airport with my wife, from where we were trying to fly back to the UK from Europe, we were told to board a bus to another airport. This put me at a great disadvantage, as I was supposed to be meeting up with David Attenborough and embarking on an international ecological trip, starting at Costa Rica. Regretting the cancellation profoundly, I boarded the bus with my wife and we sat back for what promised to be a long and bumpy ride.

As we pulled away from the airport, the scenery around us changed, and we were on a muddy jungle trail punctuated every so often by corrugated metal shacks. It was whilst passing one such shack that I saw a green anaconda (Eunectes murinus) slithering out from behind a building. Despite its species name, this particular snake was its characteristic brown with black spots. As we were travelling slowly and forced to stop frequently due to the bad quality of the road, I had time to point out the snake to my wife, whereupon several other people on the bus also took an interest. We moved off again, and before long we saw a small jaguar (Panthera onca) wearing a collar and lead, clearly a roadside curiosity.

The air had a certain thickness, and the sickly sweet scent of the rainforest, yet as far as I knew, we were still supposed to be in Europe. More animals appeared out of the side windows, a wild boar (Sus scrofa), a serval (Leptailurus serval), greater rheas (Rhea americana), and a ragtag herd of camelids, most notably scruffy-looking llamas (Llama glama) and alpacas (Vicugna pacos) moulting clumps of shaggy hair. Mixed in with the llamas were some curious camel-like beasts I had never been before. Physically they resembled Bactrian camels, but they were rather longer and had dappled coats. Some locals on the bus told me that they were giraffe-camel hybrids, but I forget what they called them. They seemed to be bred for no purpose other than to look strange.

Israel Zoo

There's a highly recommended computer game called Planet Zoo, which I confess to buying an expensive gaming rig for, purely so I could play on the highest settings. The zoo simulation with linked to an online workshop where you can download other players' creations to explore and admire. Lacking the time to make elaborate builds, this has lately been my go-to strategy. In last night's dream, set in the future, the zoos I perused were ones I could visit in real life. The Israel Zoo caught my eye, and after confirming on the holographic catalogue, I arrived at the gates to see what I could see.

The zoo was on the coast, and the first enclosure, right at the entrance, was made for a killer whale (Orcinus orca). It swam around in his blue pool, only a low sandstone wall separating it from guests. I watched the tall dorsal fin slicing through the water, marveling at the rarely seen sight of a captive orca. Before I could head through the gates into the main zoo, I saw my dog Beibei barreling straight for the pool. With an excited leap, he cleared the low wall and splashed into the shallows. At the same time, a keeper had hauled a bucketful of fish into the pool, and it was these that my dog wanted to play with.

The killer whale made a beeline over to the fish, its exposed tongue shining bright pink in the sunlight. Oblivious to the danger, my idiot dog continued gambolling in the shallows with the fish. When he's wet, he somewhat resembles a sea-lion, and those being the natural prey of the killer whale, he was now on the menu. I whistled for him frantically, but as in real life, his recall is abysmal, and he ignored me. With a surge that caused a wave to douse myself and the plaza where I stood, the huge whale rushed at Beibei and closed its jaws around the nape of his neck. It proceeded to shake him like a ragdoll, tossing him free of the pool entirely. He struggled to his feet, still alive but with a deep wound on the back of his neck. I scooped him up ready to take him to the vets, annoyed I would have to forego the zoo.

Poltergeist! Poltergeist!

I awoke at 3 am unable to breathe. I sprang out of bed, sucked in mouthfuls of air until my lungs started working again, and then ran to the bathroom with an urge to vomit. The nausea thankfully passed, sparing me from that unpleasant situation. I was then scolded by my wife for having woken her and our daughter who both slept on the floor above, and it was in a grumbling state of mind that I fell back to sleep. I awoke again, this time with a feeling of intense sickness and my body gripped by an unearthly semi-paralysis. I stumbled out of bed and shakily climbed the stairs to the top floor, feeling as though I were fading from this world. My wife was in bed watching a bad horror film sequel, and in a chair next to her sat a film professor from the university, a middle aged woman whom I had never seen before.

I was invited into the bed on my wife's side, keeping away from the professor, who wore a face mask in-line with Covid-19 regulations. I told my wife of my symptoms and she advised me to stay still and watch the film until my discombobulation should pass. Her advice proved effective, and I soon I felt sufficiently strong enough to leave the room and head back downstairs to check on our daughter, who was now on the middle floor by herself. I knew immediately upon entering her bedroom that something was wrong. Sure enough, my instincts proved correct, for I perceived that her bed lay against the opposite side of the room from where it had previously been. She remained sound asleep, so I turned on the lights to wake her and find out how (and why) she had managed to move it all that way by herself.

When I saw the rest of the bedroom, I gasped in astonishment. The entire layout of the furniture and toys had changed, to the degree that it could not possibly have been done by her. Some of the toys and trinkets were stacked in precarious pyramids that a three year old would be unable to accomplish, heavy furniture had changed walls. With my debilitating sickness of earlier and this bizarre rearrangement of the room, I came to the swift conclusion that it was the work of a poltergeist. I ran into the hallway and attempted to shout out a warning for those upstairs, but fear had constricted by throat, and as is common in these situations, the words were stuck in a husky gurgle. I took a deep breath and tried again, shouting out "Poltergeist! Poltergeist!" as clearly as I could. I awoke again, most confused as to what was real and imagined. I had taken a few glasses of strong wine and some equally strong cheese before bed, so I lay the blame there.

Botanical Sanctum

According to last night's dream, there is a secretive botanical garden/ sculpture garden/ arboretum/ wellness centre (I will come up with a name for it) concealed behind high walls in the heart of a non-specified city in Holland. My driving instructor, along with a close, elderly companion of hers who rather resembled a crab apple, were taken there after our lesson was plagued by motorcycle hoodlums. She decided it was time to learn some holistic theory, such as finding one's balance and managing stress levels. I am less interested in the plot of this dream than I am in its extraordinary location, which I am resolved to feature in a novel. The instructor used a keypad to buzz us into the grounds, and once the electronic gates were closed behind us, the noise of the city was immediately subdued.

We followed a winding drive up a slope covered in strange ivy-covered stone sculptures of all shapes and sizes. Many of the sculptures were humanoid in form, but of an abstract design. Some cradled sundials or globes, others stretched out their arms in expressions of lamentation, while still others appeared to cowering, or attempting to shield themselves from harm. More often than not the people would lack definite features, and might have a stone sphere for a head, or else a triangular fin for a limb. Judging by their cracked and dilapidated appearance, along with the festering coils of ivy thrown over them, they had been around for a long time. I would have liked to have studied them at greater length, but we drove on and were soon pulling up into a small car park where we stopped and got out.

We entered a covered terrace where I was made to sit whilst the instructor and Crab apple went off to brew some herbal tea. A bearded groundsman threw me a shifty glance as he pottered about his duties. I saw a disordered array of nurseries, lobelias, and tall, musty shrubs covered in white, cobweb-like filaments. Although evidently well-tended, the plants did not look as healthy as they might have done, and the whole place had the reek of the sepulcher about it. Nearest to me was a metal table covered in potted Venus flytraps (Dionaea muscipula) the size of saucers. Their dark green jaws hung agape, large enough to take in a hand if one should brush unwarily by. When the ladies returned, I remarked to them on the great size of the plants and we conversed on the folly of triggering their jaws to close when trying to cultivate a healthy specimen. Having once owned one myself, I possess such knowledge of their care requirements.

I was made to fill out a privacy protection form, before receiving some instruction on mental balance. A group of Japanese teenage boys engaged in wellness pursuits caused a stone to fly in our direction, which startled the instructor. She reprimanded them, then Crab apple mysteriously withdrew. We indulged in mindful meditation and the flicking of stones in accordance with bodily chakras. Crab apple returned after over an hour's absence, and upon polite inquiry of where she had been, curtly declared that she had been on the toilet. There was then a bizarre gambling exercise on one of the nursery beds, where stashes of real money were used to display 'richness of spirit.' What all of this had to do with driving was beyond me. The instructor then seized my arm and told me we had been compromised and had to leave immediately.

Still confused, I followed her at a brisk jog back to the car. Crab apple followed behind, but fell away as we picked up the pace. When the instructor noticed that Crab apple had stopped, she told me that she must be the betrayer, and that our lives were in grave danger. At the car, a large branch had been shoved through the glass of the driver's window to impede our escape. I pulled it away and we sped off, passing the jungle of macabre statues whose arms seemed to be reaching out for us. "The sanctum is a cult who took in people from all over the city," the instructor explained, "delinquents and social outcasts, all those who need spiritual healing. But this place is old, and has a strict code of conduct." She jumped out at the gate, hastily re-entered the access code, and we were back into the anonymity of the busy city. I was never to learn the dark secret of the sanctum, but something tells me I am fated to return again.

Battle of the Whales

I knew it was only a matter of time before the tremendous and unnerving power of the ocean reclaimed its place in my dreams. Last night it arrived with gusto, providing a marine spectacle unlike anything I have yet experienced. I was with my sisters at a seaside resort, helping the middle sibling scout out a venue for her wedding reception. From the deck of a docked cruise ship, I leaned over the railing into the seething brine and saw a school of common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) gambolling just beneath the surface, their silvery lengths ghosting to and fro. I pointed them out to my sisters, whereupon our attention was then drawn to a much larger animal closer to shore. It was a killer whale (Orcinus orca) grabbing something from the beach and dragging it into the waves, unmistakable with its panda-like white eye patch and towering dorsal fin. This image was no doubt implanted in my mind from a rewatch of David Attenborough's The Trials of Life, of which the killers hunting seals is the signature image.

Before we had time to be suitably impressed by this largest member of the dolphin family, it was suddenly dwarfed by a pair of larger jaws that opened beneath it. The killer whale was scooped up and raised above the surface of the sea, floundering as helplessly as its own prey had been just moments before. The water churned and boiled as the newcomer rose into view, still attempting to swallow the orca. It was a gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus), a medium sized baleen whale once known as the 'devil fish' from their fighting prowess when hunted. Despite being considerably larger than the killer, even this mighty maw was not wide enough to gulp down its formidable prey. The killer whale, undisputed lord of its own domain, was unaccustomed to such rough treatment. What followed was a battle unrivalled in the annals of maritime history

Drawn by the blood, the killer whale's brothers came to his aid. They lunged at the gray whale, tearing out chunks of blubber. Despite the onslaught, the gray was unwilling to let go of its catch, and continued to toss it around like a rag doll, now more out of spite than any hope of consuming it. To balance the scales, more 'devil fish' appeared on the scene, wallowing like leaden submarines, blowholes gushing with hot vapour, churning up the sea with their rage. We stood and watched the battle from comparative safety, until it occurred to me to try and capture this astonishing spectacle. As is usually the case in dreams, my camera was unresponsive, and I failed to obtain any pictures. It was unclear who the victors were, for the ferocity of the fight had turned the water into a boiling cauldron of blood and spume.

South Downs Leisure Centre

 There have been a handful of dreams lately featuring the familiar rundown zoo or aquarium, but none of them quite substantial or coherent enough to write down until last night's. I was driven far out into the countryside by my wife, who wanted to take me to a leisure resort she was in the habit of visiting for business purposes. As we drove through the glistening green hills of the Sussex Downs, I felt a boyish excitement not often experienced these days. The resort appeared, an extensive golf course, a fancy hotel, a fairground, zoo, prehistoric sculpture park, and swimming pool. I read the signs for the attractions in quick succession as we drove by. We were there to play golf, but I would much rather have visited the zoo and model park.

We parked up and entered the resort, removed our shoes, and scraped our bare feet on deposits of chalk that were scattered around. The reason behind this was never explained to me, and I did not ask. In order to reach the golf course, it was necessary to walk by one part of the zoo. My wife strode purposefully on, ignoring the beasts, but I gave each cage a cursory glance. They were arranged in a straight row of identically square, open air compounds, smaller than they should have been and shoddily maintained. It had the look of an underfunded Soviet zoo, or a Victorian menagerie, and the animals were in a poor state of neglect. It was the sort of place that would have been closed down immediately following an inspection.

The first few enclosures housed a number of small, rodent-like mammals I did not have time to identify, followed by specimens of the lesser monkeys. As we walked at a brisk pace, they passed by in a blur, but next came a family of gorillas (Gorilla gorilla), considerably malnourished and squatting on faeces-smeared concrete. The largest, a gangly male, tugged on his upper lip, which showed signs of advanced infection. The following pen had emaciated big cats, and the last in the row held a lone polar bear (Ursus maritimus), its gaunt, mange-ridden body convulsing in a kennel. I tried to point out this last animal to my wife, for it is rare to find polar bears in British zoos, but she was either uninterested or had seen it before.

We then entered a building that acted as an intermediary between the zoo and the funfair. I was horrified to see a grid of holes in the ground, with long snakes rearing ramrod erect from each. I noticed that they were cobras (Naja sp.) of various species, vividly coloured, the tight holes keeping them trapped in position and preventing them from escaping. They rather resembled the beds of garden eels one sees in aquaria, albeit with menacing hoods and flickering forked tongues. When we got too close, one of them lashed out and tried to bite us, but we jumped away at the last second. There was no barrier between the cobras and visitors, another instance of the resort's appalling safety standards. With the zoo behind us, we reached a shabby fairground, my ears filled with furious hisses.

Deer Park

Spring is finally here, and with it a spate of better weather. The sun alone has made a significant difference in lifting my mood. From my seat in the study, I can see the green fields stretching off towards a ramshackle farm with a rusty silo, and beyond that, the land ascends to a wooded rise, at the top of which stands a stately manor, majestically placed among the trees. This very English setting may have gone some way towards last night's dream which took place in a deer park.

I was in a car with my eldest sister, parked in the middle of a broad field. Ahead of us, the field gave way to woods, also on an incline. Gamboling at the edge of this woodland was a large herd of fallow deer (Dama dama). Like most animals in England, the fallow deer is not a native animal. They are thought to have been introduced from Sicily by the Normans, for sporting purposes. Perhaps the Duke might have known? The deer were in a sporting mood themselves, feeling the freshness of spring, and delighting in the vigor of their supple forms. The breeding season was in full fling, as evidenced by the rampant rutting and copulation taking place. The fawns, as yet too young to understand adult behaviour, mimicked their elders nonetheless. They pranced on their hind legs and boxed the air like mad March hare pugilists, an extraordinarily comical sight.

Further up the wooded slope, where the trees grew taller and closer together, I spotted an enormous western red deer (Cervus elaphus) stag, far larger than any deer has a right to be. It kept apart from its more frivolous cousins, aloof and elegant, gracefully picking its path through the trees with its head held high, its massive antlers scraping the tree branches. I tried to point it out to my sister, who was watching the fawns, but by the time she looked it had disappeared. We strained for another glimpse, and all we caught was its immense belly exposed for a few moments. The fallow deer herd moved further up the slope into the woods, causing the red to retreat. They threw themselves onto their backs and rolled around in the leaf litter, kicking their legs in the air. The fawns followed suit, tumbling head over tail down the hill.

After this leaf bath, the herd abandoned the woods and bolted downhill into the field, over to where our car was parked. We frantically wound up the windows, unaccountably worried lest they should stick their tongues inside. A large buck charged by too close, clipping the passenger side wing mirror. They surrounded the car, gazing at us with liquid eyes. I told my sister to back up to give them some space, taking care not to hit any of the fawns behind us. With the car in reverse, the inquisitive herd did not follow us. There was a nerve-jangling growl from outside, and through the window we saw a ferocious tiger (Panthera tigris) fighting a stag. They battled like coded animals in a video game, taking it in turns to land a blow. Eventually the tiger won by swatting the stag's head with its paw, killing it instantly. We drove away from the bloody scene before it had a chance to notice us.

What could this dream signify? A brief enjoyment of Spring and the renewal of life, only to be cut short? Perhaps the tiger was Covid-19?

Hippo Fecal Impaction

As the humdrum rainy days continue in a life filled with monochromatic greys, I have a singularly grotesque encounter to relate. I was out on a dog walk with my family, when drawing level with an old, disused sluiceway, I discovered that it was occupied by a bloat of hippopotami. On closer inspection, there were two different bloats, separated by a stone wall. One section of the sluiceway held pygmy hippos (Choeropsis liberiensis), whilst the other had their larger, more aggressive cousins, the common, or river hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius). It did not look like they were able to leave the water, being encircled entirely by a concrete barrier, yet all the same, I was concerned to see my daughter lean over and begin petting a hippo on the head.

I shouted at her to stop, then pulled her away. "Are they bad, daddy?" she asked me. I explained that they were unpredictable and dangerous. A crowd of other walkers had appeared, and they came to have a closer look. At the sight of so many people, one of the hippos raised its jowly head out of the water and yawned wide in warning, revealing a cavernous pink, marshmallow maw. I told Lucinda to take note of its yellow tusks, the sight of which caused her to shrink away in fear. As we were engaged thus in contemplation of these hideous beasts, there was a commotion in the water. One of the brutes, a great behemoth that must undoubtedly have been the beachmaster, or in this case, sire of the sluice, launched its hindquarters high into the air.

Two thirds of the behemoth's prodigious bulk was now revealed, full taller than a man, its stumpy hind legs splayed apart, flaccid tail spinning like a pinwheel. As any zoologist worth his salt knows, a hippo defecates by raising its rear in the air and scattering dung in all directions. Before I could take evasive maneuvers, I was appalled to witness the corpse of another animal half ejected from its swollen anus. I recognised the bony, desiccated body of a wildebeest, and realised with horror that the hippo must have swallowed it whole. Hippos are by nature herbivorous, although recent findings have discovered that they will sometimes eat meat in times of drought. Even so, I had never heard of one consuming an entire wildebeest in such a fashion.

The tower of fat bucked and trembled as it fought to discharge the rest of the wildebeest, but its victim's curved horns were lodged in the hippo's bowels and could not be shaken free. This sent the hippo into a furious panic and it churned the water up into a seething maelstrom, splashing the revolted onlookers in filthy sewage water and clods of filth. To witness such a primeval sight was to be unwillingly plunged into a state of abject unrest, I could not help imagining it as some morbid Dali painting illustrating all that is abject, corporeal, and shameful. A contemporary comparison may point to a certain scene from Poltergeist II (1986), in which the father disgorges a ballooning mezcal worm. After a battle fraught with agonised bellows, the wildebeest's broken head finally appeared with a wet crunch, and the exhausted hippo wallowed in a bath of putrescence.

Return to No. 29

As my former readers may remember, there is a house in the southwest of Albion where I spent some formative years of my childhood, and where I was first exposed to the sinister world of the supernatural. It was (and still is) an unassuming semi-detached house in a quiet neighbourhood on the edge of a wood. I could write at great length on that place, but I will refrain on this occasion. One day, I may disclose the house's true location, but for now, let us simply call it No. 29. Like many dreams before, I made the pilgrimage there, this time with my wife, child, and dog. The house had called to me over the years, like a beacon drawing me back. Unable to resist such magnetism, I had convinced my family to settle our affairs on the southeast coast and here we were, claiming ownership of the same house that had driven me out twenty years ago.

I walked through the familiar yet unfamiliar rooms, feeling the floor creak beneath my shoes in certain areas, and considering how much a place could be changed by those living under its roof. Barely any trace of my childhood remained. Dark, unattractive wallpaper had been put up, the carpets were unrecognisable, and a slightly fusty smell betrayed the uncleanliness of the previous tenants. Nonetheless, I resolved to fix the old place up and restore it as much as possible to what I remembered. As I completed my tour upstairs, I was relieved to discover that no trace of bad energy lingered, and whatever spirits may have plagued us back then, were long gone. Or so I hoped. It was time to inspect the back garden, where many a happy summer's day had been spent.

I was greatly surprised to discover that the entire garden and patio, formerly a tiered slope, was now covered in the blue polyester of a child's paddling pool/ activity zone. It was a vintage 'Fisher Price Penguin Run', designed to act as a water playground for young children. There were water slides, a ball pit, hoop games, and inflatable penguins marching up the slopes. I was told by the estate agent accompanying us that it had been found in the loft and meticulously restored by the last occupants. My daughter's eyes lit up at such a sight, and I gave her permission to go and play. Although the use of the garden had been lost, my daughter would have her own personal soft play area, and it seemed like a good trade-off. Memories of owning this 1980s play area suddenly came back to me, and I was astonished at how well preserved it was.

Lucinda was helped into her bathing costume by her mother, and ignoring the chilly grey sky, she scrambled up the bouncy slopes, splashed in the water, and grappled with the inflatable penguins, which were almost her own height. "I know this house is a bit small and shabby compared to the one we sold," I told my wife, "but look how much fun she is having. The Penguin Run is completely childproof, and she will be able to entertain herself whenever we want a break." My wife saw the wisdom in this and used it to overcome her initial dislike of the house. I had felt uneasy about lowering the lifestyle of my family in pursuit of this spiritual, some may say reckless, need to re-inhabit my poky childhood home, but the die had been cast. I turned to the estate agent and said, "We'll take it."

Farming with Anteaters

As the dreariness of the halfhearted government 'lockdown' drags on, my dreams become more fraught with anxiety and apocalyptic calamity. I dreamed that after discovering all of my old friends had disowned me, and feeling as wretched and alone as one possibly could be, I looked up into the night sky and saw a sight both awe inspiring and terrifying. Amongst the stars was an immense series of twinkling lights, in the pattern of a snowflake, sweeping across the broad expanse of space. This turned out to be an enormous fleet of extraterrestrial crafts that was here to wipe away mankind by turning the world into a swirling vortex. But this is not the story I wish to tell, for it is too bleak even for this blog...

In a later dream that same night, I was with my friends Gaby and Matt, and we stumbled into the back garden of a Wyvernhorn academic. As is to be expected from such tenants, the garden was in something of a sorry state. Sitting down in the overgrown grass, I had ample time to look about me. A long window communicated into the dwelling's kitchen-dining area and I observed copious amounts of marijuana sitting on the windowsill, along with an assortment of potted plants covered in brown paper. It looked as though they had not been watered in a very long time. What most caught my attention, however, were the two curious animals bumbling around in the garden.

They were giant anteaters (Myrmecophaga tridactyla), or 'sworders' as I used to call them as a child, going about their instinctive drive to collect as many ants as possible. The garden was in fact an 'ant farm', and some tents housing interested merchants had been erected so as to check that daily ant quotas were being met. I wondered how they stopped the anteaters from eating them all, and how many the animals needed to consume for themselves to continue functioning. (Some quick research indicates 30,000 ants or termites.) Perhaps it was similar to Chinese cormorant fishing, where a string tied around the birds' necks prevent them from swallowing any fish. The poncho-clad merchants got up from their easy chairs and left for lunch, leaving my friends and I alone with the animals.

As soon as the ant merchants were gone, the anteaters came sniffing over to where we sat and began prodding us with their snouts. I told my friends not to be concerned, for they were mostly benign, peaceable creatures that only attacked if harassed. We tried to ignore then, but it was like the saddle-billed storks all over again, and the prodding continued. When asked if they could harm us, I admitted that they could open us up like sandwiches with their long fore claws if they chose to. There are only three cases in recent history of giant anteaters killing humans, but even so, we decided it would be best to leave. The secrets of the Wyvernhorn ant farm would have to remain hidden for now.

Seal on the Ouse

As I sit here ensconced indoors with my morning coffee, gazing outside at the falling snow, I sigh repeatedly for a hint of spring. It has been a long, bleak winter, made all the more claustrophobic with pandemic restrictions. It is therefore no wonder that a couple of days ago I dreamed of verdant pastures and sparkling rivers, blue skies and the fresh breezes of March. I had been having bitter quarrels with my wife, who being in an intractable mood, cast me outdoors to roam at will. Feeling upon me the vagrant pull of wanderlust, and eager to shrug off the hoary cobwebs of winter, I took myself along the River Ouse to Lewes, where I came upon a romanticised and Arcadian setting.

Clement weather had lured people out of doors, and they sat in joyful clusters on the green banks of the Ouse and its surrounding fields. Some people played ball games, others played guitar and sang folk songs, whilst still others followed the all pervading instinct of the war ape to create conflict with its fellow man. No sooner had I arrived on the scene and praised my good fortune at discovering it, than an old busybody gentleman aspiring for a seat on the town council began to harangue a group of of the aforementioned minstrels. They had placed four traffic cones around themselves, and the busybody complained that they were in repeated violation of some obscure trespassing clause. I moved on, unwilling to let the mounting ugliness of the scene intrude on my serene state of mind.

I walked closer to the river, enjoying the sight of the sun reflecting off its blue ripples, and the feeling of springy turf underfoot. A fisherman sat with his line cast in the water, oblivious to all but his bobbing lure. I noticed a disturbance in the water, a grey hump breaking the surface and wallowing close to shore. Seized by curiosity, I followed the hump as it left a V-shaped wake behind it, the smooth water gliding over its glistening curve as it undulated on its way. The fisherman sat by a large rock that protruded all the way into the water, so I had to circumnavigate them both to follow the hump, annoyed that he should be impeding me quite so much. When I came to the other side of the rock, a group of people had already beaten me there and were excitedly watching the creature.

It was a seal, that much was apparent now that it had raised its head out of the water, seemingly nonplussed by the small crowd. Over the heads of the gathering, I tried to make out what species it was. Judging by its round, blunt face, V-shaped nostrils, and distinctly non-equine shaped head, as is found on the grey, I deduced that it must be a harbor seal (Phoca vitulina). I was about to take a photograph and send it to my wife, whereupon I remembered our fight and thought better of it. After watching the seal gambolling in the shallows for some time, I grew weary of the noisy people and wandered off for some peace and quiet. I struck off towards a newly built facility made up of kick start business suites and dormitories.

There was no one around so I entered the building and went upstairs, inhaling that sharp scent of new upholstery and furnishings. I strolled through the smart offices, experiencing vague sensations of unfulfilled ambition, and a little envy towards the students who would soon be moving in to embark on promising careers. The afternoon sun filtered through the window of the dormitory bedroom I was in, creating a shaft of dust motes, and I looked out at the neat plants arranged in wooden planters around the inner courtyard. Suddenly I heard voices coming up to my floor, induction tours by the sound of it, so I made a stealthy exit through a back stairwell. I did not want to be caught snooping around, for despite the unlocked doors, the building was supposed to be off limits.

On my way out, I heard the security guard arguing with a middle aged woman about her rejected accommodation application. She was one of those insufferable, argumentative, completely hopeless types one often encounters in academic institutions, or anywhere else forbearing enough to tolerate them. They usually suffer from a mild psychosis and are just functional enough to avoid being sectioned. This lady was no exception, and I reflected that such a person was undeserving of such a nice apartment. I went to sit on a bench in the aforementioned courtyard amongst the succulents. I closed my eyes to better appreciate the sun on my cheeks and the smell of fresh resin when the annoying lady wandered in, all frizzled hair and frazzled expression. I got up and left, knowing there would be no peace here.

Storks on Safari

In 2016 I had a safari honeymoon in Kenya, which was the fulfilment of a lifelong wish. The experience was all I imagined it would be, and the desire to revisit has been strong ever since. Thanks to the current state of the world, opportunities to travel are non-existent, so I am left to visit the wilds of Africa in my dreams. Last night I was back on the Masai Mara, but it was a restricted sort of trip in that we were without a driver or tour guide and had to rely upon ourselves to get around. We had a rental jeep, however my wife forbade me from driving more than an hour away from base camp when I expressed a desire to seek out hippos. Since there were no large bodies of water for miles around, I had to content myself with what fauna lived in our immediate vicinity.

I drove the jeep around aimlessly, avoiding dense areas of scrub, yet contrary to my real life experience, the well worn roads were mostly barren of life. We decided to visit a small town some miles distant, hoping to stock up on supplies and see new animals on the way. A small herd of buffalo (Syncerus caffa) resembling brooding storm clouds watched us warily from the bush, swishing flies away from broad black flanks. Knowing the moody and unpredictable temperament of these formidable bovines, I made sure to give them a wide berth. Their more fragile cousins, the ungainly blue wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) famous for vast numbers during migration season, were also present, although most of them were corpses strewn about in various degrees of decomposition. Some were entire, recently deceased bodies, whilst others mere sun-bleached bones with scraps of leathery hide clinging to them. In spite of my best efforts, I ended up driving over many, crunching their bones to dust. I was worried lest one of their curved horns should burst a tyre, but they were no match for the robust four-wheel drive.

We passed a lone giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) browsing from a thorny acacia tree, its dappled hide reflecting the sun kaleidoscopically. Soon the road was closely hemmed in either side by bushes, and we were forced to abandon the jeep and continue on foot. It was only a short distance left to town, but being now completely defenceless, we were nervous about ambush by predators. At the end of the sunlit passage we espied a trio of large birds pecking around a yard on the edge of town. I pointed out the species to my wife. There was an excessively ugly marabou stork (Leptoptilos crumenifer), known also as the 'undertaker bird', and with it, two saddle-billed storks (Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis). Where the marabou is a grotesque brute with a fleshy, wizened appearance and a swinging gular sack, the saddle-bill is one of the more attractive specimens of the stork family, sporting a handsome black and white plumage, and a striking orange bill topped by its namesake yellow saddle.

At this moment I was too intimidated about the approaching saddle-bills to admire them, for they reach almost 5 foot in height. I remarked to my wife that they were probably used to being fed by tourists, so we turned our backs on them and pretended to walk away. Unperturbed, the birds followed us closely, ogling us with liquorice allsort eyes. Even though we knew the birds were harmless, we were creeped out by their proximity, and tried to shoo them away by stamping our feet. This only caused to give them a brief spindly flutter, whereupon they immediately recommenced their stalking behaviour. I woke up before the scene resolved itself, realising I'd dreamed about these particular species of storks because they feature dominantly in a chapter written for my novel.

Return of the Pink Lady

Readers from the Before Times may recall when your long suffering narrator was tormented by a particularly malevolent entity known as the Pink Lady. For anyone interested in her likely origins, one can research the Greencastle Ghost. I blame her latest resurgence on my disturbed state of mind after reading Jude the Obscure just before turning in for the night. I had reached that most disturbing of chapters immediately guessable to anyone familiar with the book, and having not been acquainted with or forewarned of this plot point beforehand, I was thrown into a state of despondency heightened by the lateness of the hour and the increased vulnerability of my emotions.

I was with my immediate family, dog included, at the ancestral seat of Heartbreak Hotel, sojourning for the weekend with my parents and their pack of unruly hounds. Heartbreak Hotel is a ramshackle residence, falling apart at the seams, with a hastily added wing that had already begun to deteriorate before it was fully finished. Usually a companionable beast who shadows me everywhere, my dog had opted to spend the night downstairs nestled within the pungent cocoon of his fellow canines. Our child slept soundly in the adjoining room, whilst my wife and I occupied another in the aforementioned new wing of the house. It was a restless night, for I have never slept soundly in that place, and I soon discerned that I was not alone in my nocturnal vigil. My wife was also awake.

"There's something wrong with this house," she whispered. "I'm worried about Lucinda sleeping on her own, oughtn't we to check on her?" Before we could do so, the atmosphere in the room changed abruptly, arresting us with a stifling fear. In such situations one often reads of an icy chill permeating the room, yet in my experience, the reverse is quite usually the case. It is as though all the oxygen is suddenly withdrawn, leaving one as breathless and claustrophobic as though trapped in a tin garage on a hot summer's day. A wavering light had appeared at the foot of our mattress, and we perceived it to be a brown taper, floating quite independently of any hand. "Don't look at it," my wife instructed in a panicked whisper, but her warning had come too late.

Unable to tear my eyes from the candle as it bobbed closer, I was horrified when in its aura I beheld the wasted, spectral features of the Pink Lady. My persecution at the hands of this woman began back in my freshman years when she chased me down the corridors of the university campus one ill-fated night. Sometimes I can still hear the phantom clop of her hooves echoing down those empty halls. This night, only her face was visible, yet I knew it to be she by the all-too-familiar grip of suffocating fear she evoked, and those wild, abandoned eyes starting from deeply hollow sockets. I am not ashamed to admit I let out a cry of horror, cringing beneath the bedsheets in a shameful display of manhood.

When I eventually gathered the courage to look again, the Pink Lady's face was gone, but the hovering taper remained. This time I took my wife's advice and speedily averted my eyes, my breathing laboured in the closeness of the room, my legs feeling paralysed. Without a second assault on my nerves, I was able to rally somewhat, the paralysis left me, and I forced myself out of bed to hit the light switch. With the lights on, my courage returned and I shouted out a defiant challenge to the ghost, daring her to lay a hand on my family. A loud crash, followed by an audible pop of air pressure made me immediately regret my bravado. We checked next door and our daughter remained sleeping soundly.

Next we went downstairs and the dogs were likewise in an undisturbed state, groggily wagging their tails as we entered. Woken by the sound of my scream and our activity in the house, my mother joined us downstairs in her dressing gown and I told her what had happened. She seemed concerned, yet unsuprised by the news of the unwelcome presence. Since sleep was now impossible, she went about preparing to cook a meal in the kitchen. After all, it is far better to face up against the supernatural on a full stomach. A mousy professor of the arts from the nearby university was also staying at the house, for my parents took the occasional tenant, and she came to sit with us in the dining room.

"The Pink Lady was a great admirer of classical music," she explained. "Back when she was alive, the rigidity of the class system prevented her from enrolling on any degree, but after her tragic suicide, she haunted the antechambers of the music dons and many an orchestral performance was plagued by her shadowy presence, watching from the wings. Indeed, if you watch Disney's Fantasia closely, you can dimly make her out hovering next to Deems Taylor. They say she can still be summoned with music." With a return of my former recknlessness, I decided to test this theory, and boldly went to turn on the stereo.

As soon as the local radio station began to play, the lights in the dining room and kitchen cut out, and a glowing golden orb appeared near the patio doors. A throbbing sickness overtook me, and I tried to scream, but nothing but a hoarse croak escaped my parched lips. My mother screamed, and all of the dogs began to bark in terror. "What have you done?!" the professor cried. "Tis Irene O'Hare, we are forsaken!" In the morning, when I awoke, my wife complained that I had woken her by screaming in my sleep, whilst on her other side, our daughter was laughing in hers. I fear this will not be the last I encounter of the dreaded Pink Lady.

Mammoths in the Snow

Allow me dear reader to relate to you a singular incident which lately occurred, and which you may find to be in some measure surprising, and perhaps even a little disconcerting. Over the winter holiday I was spending time with family at our Sussex home, hemmed in by both foul weather and the beastly yet strictly necessary curfew as occasioned by an ongoing pandemic. It was at a late hour that I occupied a room upstairs, listening to the most atrocious blizzard blowing outside and watching as sheets of snow struck the windowpane. I was thankful for being comfortably indoors, lamenting that it must be a wretched man indeed who would brave such Siberian conditions as those raging out there. With a mind to smoke a pipe and lose myself in a book, I was distracted by another sound above the howling of the wind. A low rumbling noise, followed by a terrible crash sent me over to the window to look out onto the street.

Due to the driving flakes of heavy snow and the light at my back, it took some time for my eyes to adjust to the darkness outside, but I was gradually to make out some looming shapes over by my neighbour's property. At first I assumed these to be some garish festive decorations, as we were in that period of gluttony and limbo between Christmas and New Year. I took out my camera, hoping by the flash to illuminate the darkness and get a better view of what I assumed would be some damage wrought by the storm. Imagine my stupefaction when, after clicking the shutter, I beheld two monstrous woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) intruding on the neighbouring lawn. As any self-respecting, half-witted fellow knows, these primeval pachyderms went extinct sometime between the Pleistocene and Holocene, so what then were they doing here alive in the modern day, and on my street no less?

Well, it appeared that, with the aid of their muscular trunks, they were plucking off the brightly coloured baubles and Christmas lights from an overhead wire and popping them into their mouths. In spite of my great alarm, I could not help thinking that such a meal must not only be exceedingly unpleasant, but also potentially harmful. I took all of this in during the space of a few seconds, for at the flash of my camera, the beasts startled and began to lumber out onto the road, blinking their small eyes. I called my family upstairs to witness this extraordinary spectacle, but before they arrived the mammoths were already retreating down the road into the blizzard. They were sped on their way by a man riding a dromedary (Camelus dromedarius), furiously beating them with some manner of riding switch. When I recovered my senses, I remembered that I had taken a photograph of the mammoths, bad though the quality was.

With a frenzy of excitement, I began to communicate with everybody I knew, telling them what had transpired. For reasons I could not fathom, nobody seemed the slightest bit interested in my experience, they dismissed it out of hand and showed signs of disbelieving me, even with my photographic evidence. I spent the rest of the evening in bitter reflection that extinct animals coming back from the dead was less exciting than political debate. In the morning, the footprints of the mammoths had already been covered by the snow, but the effects of their devastation were everywhere present. I was much aggrieved to find that my bicycle was crushed beyond repair, pieces of twisted metal poking out of the snow. I wondered if the mammoths were some ominous portent of things to come, or the results of hybridisation and cloning. Before I could ruminate further, I was called by my wife to the kitchen where we have a broad view of the countryside.

The morning sun revealed a vast floodplain of many interconnected puddles, all glimmering in the golden light of dawn. An astonishing number and variety of waterfowl had settled on the waterlogged ground, as though some heavenly aviary had suddenly let loose all its flocks at once. Where outside the front of the house a fierce blizzard had blown, here at the back it had rained in Biblical proportions. My wife asked what the meaning of all these birds could be, and with grim foreboding I gleaned the truth. They were moving in to re-inherit the world from us humans. The mammoths too, were not the result of Soviet genetic engineering, but were in fulfillment of that prophecy as set down in the Book of Revelation which states 'all the dead will rise.' What could one do, but fall to one's knees and pray?

The Duke's Demesne

Welcome to The Dreaming Dandy - a repository of ruminations on life and its counter realm, the dreamscape. My name is Aloysius Nightingale, a 21st century dandy and your faithful narrator through the often perplexing and sometimes frightening episodes of existence. In some instances, place names and character names will be altered for privacy protection, for one cannot be too careful when publishing information on the Wild West Web. Now that introductions are out of the way, let us without further preamble fling open the gates of horn and ivory and meet a singularly eccentric personage, and explore the curious locale wherein he rules as lord.

I have written before about zoos appearing in strange places, but let me tell you now about an arrangement that would not have been out of the pale in times past. Our destination is the rolling green grounds of Sussex University campus, where I was assisting with the installation of a new teacher. During this task, I made the acquaintance of another professor from the School of Media, Arts and Humanities, known only as the Duke. He was a roguish gentleman rather past the middle years, approaching that age in life where all things are permitted or overlooked. His careless appearance sporting tobacco-stained tweeds and rambunctious side whiskers bespoke of a type more at ease in the stables than the classroom, and a marked preference for the wine cup over the lectern. I soon learned that he was only contracted to deliver one lecture a year, and even this he grumbled about. In addition to his sparing duties, of which he demanded a hefty annuity, he resided on the campus grounds at the university's expense as though he were Vice-Chancellor. Why should this bloated remnant of the aristocracy suck dry the struggling coffers of the university? Due to his contribution to film in a more active phase of his career, the Duke was held in high esteem by the academic community. He had long ago fallen into slothful and disreputable ways, and yet the university persisted in their belief that they were "very lucky to have him."

After complaining to the faculty about his upcoming lecture, the Duke left the teaching block to return to his manor, but not before inviting some staff and students, myself included, for a tour of his estate. On the way to the park on the edge of campus, where the 1960s Brutalist concrete gave way to the bucolic greens of National Heritage South Downs, I was surprised to discover a paddock of zebra (Equus quagga) and hear their distinctive whooping barks. It was explained that they were overspill from the Duke's private menagerie, which we would shortly be seeing more of. My interest thus piqued, we proceeded beneath a decorative archway to the tree-lined avenue that led to his domain. The Duke strolled a little ahead of the group with a haughty air, deigning not to exchange words with his guests. Everywhere one looked there were topiary hedges sculpted into upright phalluses, giving one a telling glimpse into the Duke's nature. In addition to his other vices, the Duke was a predatory invert who notoriously coerced male students to their defilement at his lair. His patrons turned a blind eye to these unsavoury incidents.

The Duke's park was a heavily wooded one, made up of superb beech and elm trees. The sun filtered through this leafy canopy, suffusing everything with a golden green glow, lending an impression of a sylvan grotto. One may well have believed themselves to have entered Circe's enchanted glade, for imagine my great astonishment when we came upon the ornate cages of exotic animals. Some way to the left through the trees was a wrought iron cage with green painted bars in the Victorian style, behind which paced a great tawny lion (Panthera leo). Even from this distance, I could tell that the beast was of a formidable size not often seen today. Hard by the lion cage was a meshed, multi-levelled compound housing a troop of mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx) with their iconic painted faces and rumps. Directly in our path was another enclosure separated by a narrow moat and populated with enormously overfed brown bears (Ursus actos), their wet black noses snuffling expectantly for food as we got closer. To the right of the avenue, opposite the bears, was a dome-topped temple for gorillas (Gorilla gorilla), dimly glimpsed sifting through their hay as hulking black shadows.

I was much struck by the prodigious largeness of all these animals, and upon hearing our appreciative comments, the Duke turned around to boast that they were "Beasts of empire selectively bred from prime imperial stock, not like the piddling specimens found in modern public zoos." Like a spoiled child showcasing his toys, he gestured towards a red and gold oriental pavilion past the gorilla house, proudly asserting that he also kept giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), prestigious gifts from the Chinese government. From an unseen lake came the honking cries of waterfowl, many of which in his philanthropy he had donated to the university for free. He lamented that this was all that remained of a once thriving collection. We were given leave to wander at will whilst he returned to his sprawling stone mansion beyond the menagerie. The Duke spent much of his time indulging his introverted passions of animal husbandry and tinkering with toys. A miniature track had been set up around the grounds, along which he raced radio controlled cars. I was disappointed to learn from a groundsman that the park was normally strictly off limits to visitors, as I had hoped to spend an occasional lunch break there.

The reek of the animals and their copious amounts of waste was overpowering in its mammalian pungency and had attracted large swarms of flies that worried the faces of the resident bears. An American film student with tanned skin, white teeth, and blonde hair, perhaps a future victim of the Duke, posed for a selfie in front of the bears, and soon his face too was covered in flies. The huge animals loomed over a railing I worried was far too low to contain them. When they rose to stand on two legs, they presented a wall of matted fur and brawn eight feet high. Before I had an opportunity to explore the other exhibits, we received word that the tour was over and the Duke kindly requested we vacate his premises. The party dispersed and I made my way back alone, quite overwhelmed by all I had seen. As I exited the park and drew near the zebras, the unmistakable laughing grunts of hippos (Hippopotamus amphibibius) reached my ears, and I saw something I had missed earlier. Part of the Duke's lake extended down to the campus proper, and an enclosed section of the water was hemmed in by teaching buildings.

Hippos have long been a favourite animal of mine, and I walked over for a closer look. I was not alone in hoping to get a sight of them, a Muslim man and his young children were excitedly pressing against the rails. Preferring such experiences alone, I tarried until they should move on, but unaware of the danger presented by these African juggernauts, in a brace of shakes, the children had scaled the fence and were down in the mud and water. Their delighted cries turned to screams of fear as they were boisterously harassed by two junior hippos. The broad grey bulk of a full-grown adult hippo cruised through the water towards the children. Like any father worth his salt, the man was over the fence and floundering to rescue his offspring. A crowd of bewildered spectators gathered, and with their assistance, the family were dragged to safety not a moment too soon. The avenging hippopotamus erupted from the pool, chomping its fleshy jaws and splashing everyone with muddy backwash.

I reflected on the university's indulgence of the Duke, the dangers that his animals represented, and the less than sanitary conditions in which they were kept. It was evident that before long, a more serious incident would occur, and that would be the end, if not of his unorthodox position, most certainly of his bestiary. I do hope that you enjoyed this surprising tale of a man out of time, and that you will look forward to more such adventures in the years to follow. For now, I bid my gentle readers a happy and prosperous New Year. May the less than exemplary conduct of the Duke stand as warning to your own.