On the last day of spring, Norma’s house burnt down. Horrific though it seemed, Norma considered it a blessing, almost liberating, the ultimate sign that she should leave Los Angeles. Truth be told, it wasn’t the fire that convinced her to go away, but the fact that LA had been abandoned, along with the malls, the convenience stores, the grocery markets, and the highways. The heat had driven anyone who thought they were someone off to find a more habitable home.
Driving north on the San Diego Freeway after most people had already fled LA, Norma adjusted the car radio, looking for a station that still broadcasted the news. Static.
She slapped the steering wheel with both hands. “Damn.” Now, there was no telling what lay ahead.
Fires to the west of her, fires to the east of her, and with a tank filled with gas (and three spare cans in the trunk) she gunned her silver Ford coupe toward Oregon, where she looked forward to seeing a green forest. A long way to go; she hoped she had enough fuel.
She gripped the wheel of the car and swerved, avoiding the abandoned minivan. The highway was littered with broken-down vehicles drivers had discarded, making for a difficult exodus for cars that actually worked.
Norma shook her head in annoyance and drove onward. “I can’t wait to get out of this city.”
The Getty Museum appeared ahead on the hillside, and she realized she had miles to go before LA vanished in her rearview mirror. The structure clutched its rock foundation like dead ivy tendrils clinging to a stucco house. She could see it slipping, tilting slightly, toward the highway. The last earthquake had weakened the already severely eroded hill upon which it perched. Had she not been in a hurry she might have stopped and plundered what the curators had left behind.
A convoy of Harleys sped past her, and she slowed down as they rode onward like the highway was one big fat lane. A cloud of dust followed them. They had just passed the Getty Museum when an earth jarring sound occurred, and there, straight ahead, the travertine marble structure plummeted down the hillside, its quake-proof steel reinforcement mingling with the treasures it held. The wake of the cycles was but a mist compared to that created by the museum as it crashed onto the freeway.
She slammed on the brake and skidded off the road. She didn’t remember hitting her head on the dashboard, but somehow, she blacked out.
###
Norma woke up with her face buried in a patch of sponge-like grass. The freeway had disappeared, along with the heat, the dust, LA and her silver Ford coupe. Instead of spandex shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt, she wore a soft, carroty-colored frock that fit like a muumuu. Sandals, made from something that looked like tree-bark but felt like silk, laced up her ankles.
She got to her feet and turned in circles. The meadow where she now stood stretched on forever, like an LA freeway, but instead of having buildings bordering it, clumps of trees and shrubs edged the field. A still silence filled the air. The sounds of a dying city were gone.
“Hey, is anyone here?” She yelled her loudest, a sick, foreboding feeling washing through her. “Where am I?”
The silence broke with a flutter, and she gazed upward as a throng of birds flew overhead, sprinkling the ground and her hair with cranberry-speckled poop. The shadow they cast nearly blocked out the light. Pigeons, she thought. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them.
She waited until they had gone, then with slight caution and a feeling of dread, she moved toward the tree line. The plants took on a bizarre, palm tree-like image as she neared, like something seen in a prehistoric exhibit. Red orchids grew beneath them. Beautiful orchids, prettier than any from the florist shop where she had worked at in LA. She picked a flower and stuck its stem into her hair, the absurdity of it easing her distress for one moment. She nearly laughed. There she was, wearing a muumuu and sticking flowers in her hair, like a dimwitted island native.
Norma spent the day wandering through the primitive-looking forest, finding no familiarity in her surroundings. What she had thought to be a prank masterminded by paramedics who had plucked her from the San Diego Freeway had turned into a surreal, unnerving experience that she wanted to end. The distant howls spooked her. Ape-like creatures scurried up trees at the sight of her. Huge, long-billed birds screeched and scooped rodent prey from her path. It was like being in a primeval jungle in the middle of what used to be LA.
Suddenly it occurred to her: she was dead and didn’t know it yet. Or perhaps she had gone back in time. The only way to find out was to keep walking. If she were dead, this must be heaven because she had come from LA, so she had already lived in hell.
Norma eventually reached the end of the grove, and there, in the center of the meadow, stood a triangular-shaped hut. She trudged toward it. It was constructed from the same material from which her sandals were made. Inside she found a pad rolled like a sleeping bag and a rock trough filled with orange pellets and strips that looked like beef jerky. A mousey-colored pony ate from the trough--a small horse, with a stiff erect mane, long ears, and a dark dorsal stripe.
The pony glanced her way with little regard, then went back to its eating. With a thrust of her hand, she reached into the trough and stuffed her mouth with the pellets, which tasted bitter, but she found that they were better then the jerky. A clear liquid seeped from a spout in the wall. She bent down and tasted it. Water, cool and refreshing.
Then, with a gentle shove from the pony, she landed on her butt and succumbed to exhaustion.
###
The pony was a tarpan, she decided after weeks of recalling what she knew about horses, which she called Tarp. Like everything around her, the tarpan was an extinct species. Not that she was an expert on extinct species. It was hard to remember what she had seen living in the real world, if LA could ever indeed be called the real world, but she did remember some biology she had learned at school, especially those lessons on endangered species and extinction. After all, global warming had catapulted Earth into its sixth mass extinction event, so it had been a hot topic back then.
Norma peered out the hut, seeing not a cloud in the sky, and yet, there it was--rain. She hadn’t strayed far from the hut’s safety since she had found it, because being caught in the downpour, which came frequently and without warning, was not her idea of fun. The knife-like droplets stung and pierced her skin like needles.
She put her hand on Tarp, who appeared agitated by the rodent-like creature that had scurried into the hut when the rain started. The pony cornered the small animal in the pool beneath the drinking-water spout, where spiny-shelled snails nestled. Everything sought the hut’s protection during the rain. Then she got an idea.
“Okay, Tarp,” she said, kicking an insect the size of a field mouse out of the hut. “I miss choices and foul air and people and the prospect of better days. Let’s get out of here.”
She pulled off a section of the hut to shield herself from the rain. It would not protect her from the night beasts, which emerged when the light had gone--a sudden, and absolute blackness--but it might keep her dry. Hopefully, she would find shelter and answers to her questions before the sky darkened.
She jumped on Tarp’s back. Cloaked in a section of the hut, she brought Tarp to a klutz of a gallop and entered the downpour.
They had been riding a long time--hours, maybe--when more shelters appeared.
“Whooo, Tarp,” she said, and yanked her coarse mane until the horse stopped.
Rain dripping off her makeshift raincoat, she dismounted and neared the huts. The pounding inside her chest increased as she peered into one. Except for the rodents eating from the food trough, it was vacant. The second hut had an empty trough and a horde of those spiny-shelled snails nestled in a pool beneath the water inlet. No sign of human habitation existed.
She collapsed and screamed. Tears flowed from her eyes faster than the rain from the cloudless sky.
Then it happened again: she blacked out.
###
“Time to get up.”
Norma’s eyes popped open and she jumped to a sit, unable to breath at the sight of another human being. An old man leaned over her, his eyes grazing her with prudent concern. Strands of long gray hair dangled around his face. He wore pants and a shirt the same carroty color as her muumuu.
She was in a bedroom. Not a very modern one, but she had seen similar items at her grandmother’s house, and in magazines with pictures of antiquities. Among them, a clock with a bell on top, a “transistor” radio, a dresser covered with numerous doilies and small bottles, a standing lamp and a wrought-iron bed on which she sat. Most everything was in shades of orange or green. The room reminded her of something on late night TV.
“The name’s Harvey Daniels,” the man said with a nervous twitch. “But you can call me Harvey. Last names don’t carry much weight here. Where are you from?”
She gazed at him, then looked for a window, expecting characters from the Wizard of Oz to appear at any moment, but there were no windows. “The land of Oz,” she said.
He laughed and waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “No, really. I’m from Virginia, 1971.”
1971. Right, she almost said. Then out came, “LA. 2021. The name’s Norma. Where am I?”
Harvey took a startled leap. “2021! Holy moly.”
“What is this place?”
Harvey drew in a deep breath and backed out of the room, gesturing for her to follow him. “Well, that’s a little complicated.”
He led her down a flight of stairs, into the lower level. Like the bedroom, it lacked ultra-modern conveniences. There was a couch, a chair, a wooden coffee table, an antique record player, a box-shaped item that looked like a TV. Most everything was orange.
She plopped upon the couch. She had had enough. The paramedics, or whoever had kidnapped her, had gone too far. “How do I get back to LA?”
“LA? You’re on a planet called Gu-rgu-lu-op ... ” he said with a growl. “I call it Gurg. This is Dangig. Some call it a zoo, but I call it a sanctuary.”
Norma almost laughed. Almost. “What are you talking about?”
“The Gurgians are collectors,” Harvey explained. “ They take human made artifacts and endangered species from Earth and bring ‘em to Gurg. Everything stays in a refuge until it’s sold. The owner of Dangig bought you, so here you are.” He spread his arms wide.
“I’m not en—“
“Endangered. Yes, you are. The Gurgians extrapolate an organism’s demise based upon Earth’s condition, and they extrapolated our extinction to be somewhere about ... the year 3000. Most organisms here are extinct by now. How’d it happen?”
“What? The kidnapping?”
Giving her a nervous look, he shrugged and nodded.
Harvey was clearly nuts, but she decided to humor him. “I was leaving LA. Pollution and natural disasters destroyed it. I was driving north when--“
“You blacked out.” He pointed a finger at her, hopping and grinning like he had just won a game show. “I was on my way to perform at a fiddler’s convention ... ”
She didn’t listen to his story. Instead, she looked for a quick way out. She had always known LA was doomed, but this was preposterous. But than, she had made friends with a tarpan, had her skin pierced by rain, and had been pooped on by carrier pigeons. Her sense of normality had been scrambled. Who was she to say what really had happened to her.
“... beam me up, Scotty!” Harvey waved his arms wildly in the air.
Spotting what appeared to be a front door, Norma darted to it but stopped the moment she opened it. A plumb, thick-billed bird stood directly before her. The thing was nearly a meter high. Harvey came up behind her.
“That’s a dodo,” he said. Somehow, that didn’t surprise her. “Cool, ain’t it. Friendly things. There’re two of them here. Stupid birds keep nesting on the open ground and rodents get the eggs. Soon they’ll be extinct on this planet as well.”
“How long have you been here?” she asked, realizing now that she wasn’t anywhere near heaven.
He rolled his eyes and tapped his fingers in the air. “Oh, ‘bout ... 183 years, give or take a decade or two. That’s in Earth’s time.”
“Yeah, right.”
“They really should prepare people before bringing them here,” he mumbled. “Certainly you don’t think it’s still 2021. It takes over a century just to travel from Earth to this planet. Gurgians ain’t got this whole space-time continuum thing nailed yet. You’re kept in a suspended state during that time. Then when you get here they evaluate you, make sure you’re healthy, determine your nutritional needs, then put you in a refuge and wake you. That could take decades, even centuries. Everybody’s different. I’ve been in Dangig for nearly 200 years. But I don’t know how long I’ve been away from Earth, 'cause I don’t know how long I’d been in a suspended state, and I was in a refuse for a while before coming here.”
Norma ran out of the house and around to where she thought would be the backyard. But there was no backyard. Instead, a transparent wall separated the sanctuary from a copper-colored room, which surrounded the sanctuary.
Harvey came up beside her. “That’s the viewing area. Dangig’s visitors will be here soon, and I’ve gotta warn you, they ain’t pretty.”
###
It took a walk along the periphery of the sanctuary, which was huge, for Norma to believe Harvey. Past the garden of extinct plants, the viewing area separated them from another exhibit.
“Neanderthals,” said Harvey, pointing to the large-faced people dressed in orange muumuus in the exhibit across the viewing area. A group of them stared back.
“Are you here alone?” she asked, wondering where the other real humans were.
Harvey tapped his knuckles on the clear panel. “Yup. For about a year now. Mary died shortly before that, and the last guy, that’s a story in itself. People like us don’t fare well in captivity. The Neanderthals are a happy bunch. They’re too stupid to realize what’s going on. They do better here then they had on Earth, now that they’re separated from the saber-tooth.”
“Then you and I are the only people?”
“There are many sanctuaries on Gurg, but here at Dangig, yes.”
She walked away from Harvey and headed back toward the house, the thought of spending the rest of her life in the company of an old man creating an unpleasant, hollow feeling inside her. If she had to stay, why couldn’t it be with a hunk?
Harvey caught up to her. “Dangig’s not that bad. The Gurgians have a lot to learn about us, but they try to keep us happy.”
He grabbed Norma’s arm and stopped her. “Just don’t start acting goofy. The last guy would take off his clothes and strut around flinging his willy at the visitors. It was funny, but the owner was bamboozled by his behavior and gave him the Gurgians version of a lobotomy. He didn’t last long after that.”
Norma was done being scared or confused. She was mad. “Why me?” she asked angrily. “Of all the people in LA, why did they take me?”
“Happenstance, I guess. Maybe they did take others. They’re just not here. Consider yourself lucky. You might have been spared an awful life had they left you on Earth.”
With a huff, she broke free from his gentle grasp and trudged onward.
“If there’s anything you need,” he said, quickening his pace to keep up, “let me know. I’m friends with a keeper here. If it weren’t for him, I’d still be wearing a tent dress.”
Harvey came to an abrupt stop. He bent over and examined the plants by his feet.
“Hum,” he grumbled, then started walking again. “New plants arrived. I’ve been waiting for that cannabis for years now. Well, will you looky here. A horse.”
She gazed to where he looked. There was Tarp, grazing on the garden greens.
“It’s a tarpan,” she said, happy to see the animal. “And don’t touch her. She’s mine.”
“A what?”
“Never mind.”
Harvey had made an understatement when he said the Gurgians weren’t pretty. When Norma neared the house, there they were in the viewing area, their bulbous, gray bodies pressed against the glass, peering at her with huge, ghostly eyes. They had three arms jutting from their centers, each with numerous tentacle-like fingers that slithered across the window like spider legs. Rope-like hair, in the most bizarre shades of the rainbow, extended from the top of their head, down their back, to the floor--one heck of a mohawk.
She screamed.
“I-i-i-i-it’s show time!” said Harvey, doing a floppy-legged jig past her.
###
Harvey wasn’t as nuts as Norma had initially thought. He had just been in Dangig too long and had run out of ways to keep himself entertained. He might be an old man, but she appreciated his desire to please, and she envied his spunk.
“It’s all in the food,” he said, spooning what looked like beef stew into her bowl. “Took time for the Gurgians to optimize our nutritional needs, but now that they have it down, our lives are prolonged indefinitely, maybe. Just wish they’ll figure out this gray hair thing.”
He sat opposite her at the kitchen table and started to eat.
Norma’s captors kept them well fed. Food appeared four times a day in an orange box Harvey called the munchie carton, but it looked like an old microwave oven to her. Culinary mishaps ushered into it from above through a tube that connected it to somewhere beyond the ceiling. The stew they now ate wasn’t bad. Like all the other food, the dish had a texture and flavor not consistent with the real thing.
He sat his elbow on the table and flapped his spoon in the air. “You know what I miss most? Music. Don’t matter how hard I explain it, they still don’t get it. That phonograph they brought me is just a big tease.”
The phonograph, like everything else, didn’t work. The appliances were there to make them feel at home, or, she suspected, to give Dangig’s visitors a sense of how humans lived on Earth.
A “ding” sounded from the munchie carton. “Ah,” said Harvey, swiveling in his seat. “Here come the biscuits.” He opened its door and retrieved the round, flakey-looking items.
A high-pitched scraping noise resonated through the house, and the kitchen’s back wall opened, exposing them to the visitors.
“Here we go,” said Harvey, glancing at them. He spooned food into his mouth and waved.
Norma flashed them her middle finger.
It had taken weeks for Norma to get used to being on display. Regardless of where they were, she and Harvey were revealed during all hours of the sanctuary’s operation. There was no place to hide: the ground moved, transporting them to the edge of the exhibit if they were in the middle; The house’s back walls parted, regardless of what they were doing; stairs twisted and turned suddenly. She had never felt so violated. The simple act of urinating became a dreadful experience.
She dropped her spoon into her bowl. Oh, how she missed sushi.
“What’s wrong? Don’t like my cooking?” asked Harvey, a childlike pout on his face.
“I lost my appetite,” she replied, rising from her seat.
He furrowed his brow and gave her one of those raised-brow looks. “You can have fun here if you try. Fun, fun, fun. That’s the key. The only way I survive is to keep my sense of humor. Make the best of it, ‘cause you’re gonna be here for a long time. I hate to see you end up like the others.”
She headed for the front door. “Don’t worry.”
“Where’re you going?”
“Taking Tarp for a ride.”
“I’ll save your dinner,” he yelled as she stepped outside. “And check out the new plants. See if that cannabis arrived yet.”
Norma found Tarp grazing on the grass beside the life-sized statue of a nude male, which she nicknamed “David’s Brother.” The statue arrived days ago, compliments of the Getty Museum, no doubt. With Dangig’s visitors following her, like they always did, she jumped on Tarp’s back and rode toward the Neanderthal exhibit. Watching them had become her new obsession. She had learned more about the prehistoric primates since she’d been there than any anthropologist on Earth could learn in their lifetime.
But, oh yeah, there probably weren’t any more anthropologists on Earth, she reminded herself. Like Harvey kept telling her, she should feel lucky and savor this experience.
The sky had turned a severe shade of orange when she and Tarp returned to the house--the Gurgian’s version of sunset, and their favorite color. The visitors had gone, and the house’s back walls were closed. Tarp pranced off past “David’s Brother” toward the dodos, her new friends, and Norma went inside.
She came to a dead stop. Seeing the blob-shaped Gurgians in the viewing area was one thing, but having one in the living room was quite a different experience. There it stood, encased in a transparent atmosphere bubble, engrossed in an incoherent verbal exchange with Harvey.
Harvey turned and greeted her. “Norma, you’re back. This is Ulgug, the keeper I told you about.” He gurgled a few undecipherable words to Ulgug, then Ulgug moved his arms, his fingers moving wildly, and garbled back.
Norma didn’t believe Harvey when he said that he had befriended a Gurgian. She had thought it was just another of his wacky tales. But perhaps Harvey getting things that he wanted wasn’t a coincidence after all, like she had thought.
With a grim expression, Harvey nodded a goodbye to Ulgug, who glided out the door, its bubble swaying along with him. Once outside, the ground reached up around Ulgug and engulfed him, and he was gone.
Harvey handed her a bundle of orange cloth. “I got you the pants you wanted.”
“Orange,” she stated.
“They’re still working this color thing out. Wouldn’t think it’ll be a problem, seeing as they have every known color right on top of their heads.”
At least it wasn’t a muumuu, she thought.
“Seems there won’t be anyone joining us,” Harvey continued. “The humans Dangig’s owner wanted to buy had a fight in their refuge and nearly died. They could be in a suspended state for years until the Gurgians heal them and figure out what to do about their violent tendencies. Guess they weren’t happy about being here.”
Norma snickered. “Can’t blame them.”
“You may not wanna be here, but you don’t hurt anyone.”
“There’s nobody to hurt.”
“Well, you’ve been nice to me.”
That was an overstatement. Harvey had been alone for so long and yearned for companionship, and Norma rode off with Tarp every chance she got. She could hardly call that being nice.
“I don’t know how the Gurgians are ever gonna reseed us if they can’t keep us alive long enough to make babies,” Harvey added.
“Reseed us?”
“Yeah. Sometimes the Gurgians put extinct plants and animals back on Earth after their populations increase on Gurg. I call it reseeding. They got lucky reseeding an African frog. Ulgug says the critters did well after a long absence.” Harvey’s expression saddened. “Didn’t work for the dodo though, or the Neanderthals.”
Norma’s pulse quickened. “You’re telling me that the Gurgians put organisms back on Earth?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Will they put me back?”
Harvey looked at her like he had been stung. “You want to go back to Earth?”
“Of course. Don’t you?”
“I’ve lived in this sanctuary for nearly 200 years. If I go back to Earth, I might be dead the next day. This is my home, Norma. I miss a lot of things from my old life, but the home I knew isn’t there anymore. My family and friends are dead. My home town probably ain’t even on a map no more. What would I be going home to?”
Harvey was right. All the people she had ever known were just memories. If the Gurgians’ extrapolations were correct, LA may not be there either.
But she was a survivor; she had lived in LA most of her life; she knew hardships and disappointments and pain and strangeness. And after being on Gurg, she could deal with anything.
“Harvey, tell them I want to go home, please. Maybe they’ll take me back.”
He stared at her open-mouthed. Then he said, “Nobody ever made a request like that. Would you be happier here if they brought in a younger guy? They have this sex thing all figured out now.”
Harvey was taking this personally, and that’s the last thing Norma wanted him to do. He had been too kind to her.
“It’s not your company, Harvey. I think you’re great. But if there’s a chance of me returning to Earth, I’d like to go. I don’t care what condition it’s in. I’ll take my chances. I wouldn’t feel good about leaving you alone, but I want to go home.”
Harvey regarded her for many moments, a watery gleam forming in his eyes. “I don’t know if the owner will do it. He’ll certainly need a good reason, and I’m sure it’ll cost him.”
She clasped her hands together. “Please talk to them, or what ever it is you do.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to Ulgug next time he comes ‘round.”
###
Norma stuck around the house more often, visiting the Neanderthals only when Harvey immersed himself in other things. Ulgug stopped by numerous times, delivering new goods. They’d become the proud owners of a pink flamingo, two blue jays, a Western Electric dial telephone and numerous old books written in languages neither she nor Harvey could read. She watched earnestly while Harvey spoke with Ulgug, and had to give the old man credit. Learning to communicate with the Gurgians was no easy task.
But as Harvey had told her, you could learn anything given time. And time was all they had.
“He’s still talking it over with his boss,” Harvey said to her one day after Ulgug had left.
Ulgug had brought Harvey a fiddle, which he immediately began plucking because Ulgug didn’t bring him a bow. Norma was brought Mickey Mouse ears, compliments of Disneyland.
She placed the ears on her head and left the house. What was there to talk over? It was a simple request: could she go home, yes or no?
Tarp waited for her on the front lawn next to the pink flamingo. With Harvey’s fiddling music in the background, she jumped on Tarp’s back and rode off just as visitors arrived. They followed her to the Neanderthals’ exhibit, and she barked her usual obscenities at them.
Norma had come to realize that scientists had been wrong about the Neanderthals--they weren’t stupid. In fact, they learned quickly. Within a few weeks, the prehistoric primates imitated all of her rude gestures, and even invented a few of their own. Taunting Dangig’s visitors had become a sport in which she and the Neanderthals both participated.
She arrived at the house long before the sky turned orange and found Harvey stringing thick-stemmed plants upside down to the clothesline. He didn’t look up when she approached.
“Canada or Siberia,” he said.
“What?” she asked, inspecting the green leafy plants. Cannabis.
He turned toward her. “You left before I could explain. The Gurgians extrapolated that the only place habitable for humans if you left Gurg soon would be on the far Northern continents, somewhere in Canada and Siberia, I imagine. You need to decide if you wanna go to an English speaking society, or if you’re willing to learn Russian.”
She couldn’t breath and stared at Harvey as he returned his focus on the plants.
“Wonder how long it’ll take these plants to dry,” he mumbled.
“Are they taking me home?” She could barely ask the question.
“I believe so. Seems the owner’s glad to see you go. What have you been teaching the Neanderthals? The visitors keep complaining, and that’s bad for business.”
“I’m actually going home?” She still didn’t believe it.
“Yeah, but not just yet. There’re still details to work out. The owner needs to find someone to transport you. Seems you’re not worth the cost it’ll take to get you there, but when he extrapolated the cost of keeping you here, it’s ‘bout the same.”
“Canada,” she exclaimed. “I want to see a forest.”
###
The day had come for Norma to go. She and Harvey spent most of her waiting hours wandering through the sanctuary, eating berries from bushes that had recently been brought there. She said good-bye to the Neanderthals, who lifted their muumuus and mooned her. Then she and Harvey went back to the house for their last meal together, a horrid rendition of spaghetti and meatballs, and Harvey rolled her a joint for the ride.
“You’ll be in a suspended state for over a century,” said Harvey, the Mickey Mouse ears on his head. He handed her the joint, which she put into the pocket of her orange pants. “Don’t expect much from your new home. Probably won’t be many humans left because you’ll arrive there within a century from our extrapolated extinction date.”
He rested his feet on the coffee table, leaned back against the sofa, pulled a joint from his pocket and lit it. He blew smoke toward her.
“Maybe their extrapolations are wrong,” she said.
He inhaled and shrugged. “Maybe.” Then he adjusted the Mickey Mouse ears, which she had given him. “Hope Ulgug finds me a watch to match the hat.”
A flurp and a bump announced Ulgug’s coming, and she rose from her chair, where she’d been sitting. Harvey followed her outside, carrying the fiddle and a bow he had made with hairs from Tarp’s tail.
Ulgug stood inside his bubble speaking gibberish. A small zebra and a gray haired woman wearing an orange muumuu, each encased in their own bubble, lay still on the ground beside him.
Harvey mumbled something to Ulgug. Then he popped the woman’s bubble with the tip of the bow. He knelt and looked her over.
“I’ll wake her after you’ve gone,” he said to Norma. “No use making her more confused than she’ll already be.”
Harvey gave Norma an awkward hug, hitting her back with the fiddle, his face buried in her chest. She pried herself loose.
“Take care of yourself, Harvey. I won’t forget you.”
“No, I reckon you won’t. Ulgug’s going to put a bubble around you. That way you can breath when you leave the sanctuary.”
Ulgug glided toward Norma and reached his arms around her. An extension of his bubble began to form over her. Harvey pulled her away before the bubble encased her.
“Hold on,” he said. He whistled, and Tarp galloped toward them. “You forgot the horse.”
It never occurred to Norma to bring Tarp. “I didn’t think I’d be allowed to bring Tarp.”
“Actually, you’re not. But the owner’s never here, so he won’t know the two of you left.”
“Doesn’t he want me to go?”
“Not really. The Neanderthal problem can be worked out. Ulgug’s doing this because he likes me, and has friends who owe him favors. The zebra and the woman were snuck out a refuge. As long as two humans are here, the visitors won’t know the difference. We all look alike to them. This is a baby zebra, nearly the same size as Tarp now. I’ll worry about the strips if it becomes an issue.”
Norma couldn’t find the words to express her gratitude. Compassionate acts weren’t something she was used to. But perhaps Harvey had sensed her appreciation, because he flushed and his eyes drifted to the ground. Then she realized they were both crying.
“Better go, now,” he said. “If you find any Daniels in Canada, tell them I said ‘hey.’”
Ulgug’s arms surrounded her, encasing her and Tarp in a bubble that formed from his.
She watched Harvey playing the fiddle with the Mickey Mouse ears on his head, the pink flamingo beside him, and grinned. Then the ground reached over her, taking her out of the sanctuary, and she wondered what she would find in the green forests of Canada.
###
Norma woke up in a forest, but the forest wasn’t real.
The phony vegetation barely reached her knees. She crushed the fake pine growth as she stumbled toward a clear pane that separated her from another room.
A sick feeling overwhelmed her. Was this ... a viewing area? Her palms against the pane, her body slid downward. "Nooo!!!" This could not be happening!
“Hey, you!”
Her head spun toward the voice. A bald-headed man wearing a light-blue jumpsuit stood inside an opened panel at the back edge of the phony plants.
“Get out of here,” he said. “The museum’s about to open.”
In shocked surprise, she rose from the ground, grabbed Tarp by her mane, and lumbered through the bogus forest. She followed the man out of the exhibit into what looked like a large storage closet. She couldn’t stop staring at the man, whose waxy, flawless face looked unnaturally perfect.
He scanned her with narrow eyes. “Okay, who set you up to this? How did you get in here with that ... donkey?”
“It’s a tarpan,” she said. “Where am I?”
“You’re in the Manitoba Museum of Natural History.” He laughed so hard he could barely say the words.
“What year is it?”
“What year is it? Are you nuts? It’s 2933. Take your tarpoon--“
“Tarpan.”
He studied her, his eyes roaming through her hair, her clothes, her Gurg style sandals.... With a twisted grin, he asked, “Where’d you come from?”
“LA,” she responded, suddenly realizing how ridiculous she and Tarp must look to him.
“What? Where’s that?”
“Southern California.”
“You’re kidding, right? That’s a wasteland, what’s left of it. Get out of here, you nut-case, before I call the guards and have you taken back to whatever space asylum you’ve escaped from.”
Hustling out of the closet with Tarp, she raced down a short flight of stairs into the viewing area, pausing before the spot where she had stood behind the glass. Below her read, “Canadian Forest, circa 2400 CE.”
Ulgug had kept his word. She and Tarp were brought to a Canadian forest, but like Harvey would’ve said, “The Gurgians haven’t got this forest thing worked out yet.”
Nobody tried to stop Tarp and her as they walked through the museum’s crowded atrium and out the front door. The museum’s patrons were all too stunned. But no one was more astounded than her, because the masses she saw outside didn’t epitomize a dying species. Quite the contrary. There were more people within her sight--on the streets, the air-trolleys, basking on sky-rise porches--than she had ever seen before in one place.
Harvey had often said that the Gurgians had much to learn about humans, so maybe they got their extrapolations about human extinction wrong. What they hadn’t factored into their calculations was the fact that unlike other creatures on Earth, humans could adapt to inhospitable changes to their environment and not consequently perish.
Wearing her orange clothes, she and Tarp walked into a busy world that neither of them recognized.
This was going to be tough. But she’d manage. After all, she had outlived LA.
The End
"Norma and the Fiddler of Gurg" was first published by Labyrinth Inhabitant Magazine in 2009.
