Dressing the Kill

Fables from The Quick Brown Fox : IX

( A scene behind the kitchen of the Club. Brown Fox and Lazy Dog are standing at the window looking in. The Hunters' Lodge, a sub-committee of the Club returned with a deer, shot while hunting. It lay on the table.)

Lazy Dog : ( in a low voice ) Its still alive …

Brown Fox : ( glaring ) You're kidding me?

Lazy Dog : I can feel it.

Brown Fox : Git outa here! That's rubbish …

Lazy Dog : You're denying that? I mean in yourself?

Brown Fox : ( speaks in a delayed fashion ) Well … its a defensive thing … its about the dangers of life in the wilds. ( then after a moment adds ) But you are looking at the anima view of death. A man would not say that.

Lazy Dog : Yeah … okay … I was just thinking about my best friend … he's lost the instinct for these things.

( A trainee chef carries the deer carcass outside and strings him upright on a post. Brown Fox and Lazy dog climb down and watch him work.)

Brown Fox : So what is death?

Lazy Dog : Well … my best friend says, its when the heart stops beating … then the brain stops functioning … that's death.

Brown Fox : ( impatiently ) Then?

Lazy Dog : The mother of the specie! The life of the tissues … Then there's the life of God … I mean the immortal life … they leave later.

Brown Fox : Then the scopo is …?

Lazy Dog : I'm thinking … mother … the Betelgeuse factor … ' they ' say she lives in the Nile.

( They stare at the carcass as the trainee makes the incisions. They are both quiet. )

Brown Fox : So what's it like being mother? ( whispers )

Lazy Dog : ( in a gruffy voice ) You get what you can deal with. Its parceled out equally at birth.