The Hippopotamus And His Hippopotamissus (Part Three)

© 2012 David Jasmin-Green

“You haven't told me how you got here yet,” Blodwen said. “I know you set up a small fund to pay for your groceries, a mate of mine at the Tesco regional head office told me that. And you took a substantially larger sum out of our account just before you absconded, but it was nowhere near as much as I expected – certainly nowhere near enough to pay for this pile of shit and transport it to the sodding moon.”

“I, er, a friend of mine saw to that for me,” Daffyd said.

“That's it? I expect a better explanation than that, you mysterious, deliberately deceptive dick!”

“Oh, all right then, I'll tell you,” he said with a big old sigh. “I should have told you about my friend ages ago, I suppose, but I doubt if you'd have believed me, and you're no more likely to believe me now. Apart from our human and animal friends and acquaintances I have an old friend who's not of this world – the Earth, I mean, not the moon, because the moon is the place he calls home. And when I say old, I mean really old.....

Stan, that's what I call him, because he doesn't have a name. He might have a serial number or something, I dunno. He's a grey. You know, one of those little extraterrestrials with the huge, slanty eyes.”

“Fuck off,” Blodwen said. “You must think I came in on the last banana boat, you must think I came up the cut on a bleeding bubble.”

“I'm afraid it's true,” Daffyd replied. “I was abducted a long, long time ago in Fochriw, when I was just a calf, really. The aliens were studying the taffs, they might have been trying to figure out why there's so much animosity between the Welsh and the English, I suppose, they didn't say. I was perhaps eight or nine, I was with a few other kids ratting in the stream with a couple of terriers when we were beamed up. I was taken by mistake, because at the time they were only interested in humans and the various anomalous sentients on the planet were ignored, but the likes of you and I should be used to that..... Anyway, they flung me into a holding pen while they probed the other kids, which was when I got chatting with Stan, and he told me a lot of interesting stuff.

The greys, that's Stan's kind, are slaves, they're sexless, genetically modified drones with limited intelligence, while the Head Honchos, the ones in the driving seat, are tall, thin, vaguely humanoid creatures. They own the moon, in fact they built it many millions of years ago. I asked Stan to pass a message on to his bosses when, in a proper tizzy, I guess, I decided it might be a good idea to come and live here for a while. Surprisingly enough they said 'Yeah, why not? It might be fun, dude, it might even prove mutually educational.' I'm not sure if they've learned anything useful from me because they've been curiously silent about the whole thing, and the little I've learned about them has come via Stan – and though it's had its moments my three years here has been far from fun.

Every few days the tall ones, I don't even know what they call themselves (and I've never actually met one) send a bunch of greys over to collect my dung - apparently they use it as a medium to grow certain psychotropic fungi from their own planet that they're fond of. Now and then they bring me food, colourless, bland tasting sludge and greenish tortilla type things made of algae, Stan tells me. It's very nutritious, I know that because I analysed it. Usually I eat their gifts with something a bit tastier, because as I've said, it's a bit drab otherwise. Sometimes they take blood and tissue samples. Don't ask me what they do with them because I don't know, and I don't think I want to know.....”

“Hang on,” Blodwen said. “You're serious, aren't you? Three years stuck in this glorified toilet cubicle hundreds of thousands of miles from home without anyone to talk to apart, maybe, from your Facebook friends if you have an account under an assumed name and the Microsoft bloody paper-clip has sent you Lady Gaga. How could your little alien buddies have built the moon? It's a natural satellite, it's a chunk of lifeless rock.”

“That's what you think, and that's what NASA wants you to think. Why and exactly how do you think the moon was placed in its current orbit if it was originally a passing meteorite or other chunk of natural debris? If it were a few thousand miles further out it wouldn't have such a beneficial effect on the world's tides and weather systems, and if it was much closer than it is it would cause utter havoc. The moon is a sort of bio-mechanical planetary modelling device, I've grown to believe from talking to Stan. It's a bit like the heaters and humidity controls and what not outside a vivarium, and we, it follows, are the little snakes and lizards under observation..... Oh, and it's hollow.”

“What's hollow?”

“The bloody moon, you dimwitted gimp, you donkey with horns. Ha! Sorry.....

In 1969 the Apollo 12 astronauts sent their landing module crashing to the moon after, they insist, their return to the command craft after a spot of moonwalking - but in truth they've never actually landed, because the aliens won't allow it – and the shock waves from the impact continued for almost an hour. The following year Apollo 13 dumped the fifteen ton spent third stage of their rocket on the moon, and scientists back home on Earth said on live TV that the moon 'rang like a bell.' That, my dear, is the Gospel truth - Google it when we get home if you don't believe me.

And that is by no means all. The NASA photographs of the moon, at least the ones in the public domain, are nearly all doctored. The sly bastards are particularly fond of airbrushing out the openings at the moon's poles, the dioptre like devices where the alien craft fly in and out, and of course they don't release the spectacular images they have from here on the dark side..... I've spent the last three years doing a little reconnaissance of my own, with the blessing of the owners of this dusty orb, I assume, because although they're not exactly breaking their necks to discuss the matter they haven't interfered with my activities. I have many thousands of interesting photographs of all sorts of wonderful things, but no harder evidence, I'm afraid – Stan advised me that if I tried to take away any actual artefacts I would be immediately terminated.”

“Hmmm,” Blodwen grunted. “I've gotta get you out of here, hun, and back onto solid ground as soon as possible, if not sooner. This place has had an even worse effect on you than sodding Surbiton. Shit, you've gone completely batty, you're doolally tap, you're a wolf-free bloody lycanthrope!”

“I knew I should have kept my big mouth shut,” the hippo said.

**************************************************

“I thought it was you who wanted to move to Surbiton,” Blodwen said.

“And I was convinced that it was your idea,” Daffyd replied. “I understood that my wigwam in the Gobi Desert wasn't good enough for you, I sincerely believed that lots of wonga and numerous fancy shops to spend it in and all the trappings of twenty first century civilisation were what you craved, and that awful eight bedroomed semi in the poshest suburb of Surbiton epitomised your raison_d’être.”

“Well you thought wrong. I hated fucking Surbiton with my entire heart and soul, and I'm glad I got my arse out of there and moved to Brummigem a bit sharpish after you abandoned me – it was the wisest move I ever made. I hate Surrey as a whole, in fact, and I hope that if the sea level does rise as a result of global warming the stuck-up bastards infesting the place all bloody drown. No one there made me feel welcome, not a single, solitary soul. Mind you, I suppose that's because I was the only moose there. Well, almost the only one.....

There were a few Muslim moose with kids at the same school as ours, upper middle class professionals ones, doctors, lawyers and the like, but it took me a long time to figure out that they were moose and snobs into the bargain. Bloody burkhas, they should be banned in civilised countries, they could be concealing guns and bombs and who knows what else. To tell the truth, though, at first I had no idea that they were moose in burkhas – I thought they were pantomime horses in mourning until someone explained the error of my reasoning.

Those fuckers hated me more than the white snobs, if that's possible. They used to stand around in tight, racist little bunches, their appearance almost daring outsiders to approach. I reckon it was the Jamaican part of my ancestry that they hated most of all. I was fool enough to toddle over to say hello once, but it was only the once. I thought maybe they assumed I disliked them because they were foreigners, and all I wanted was to spread a little kindness and prove them wrong.....

The ringleader turn around, checked to make sure that no male moose were looking, who might have found her ugly mug sexually arousing, in her mind at least, then she pulled her face veil aside and spat in my face. 'Zind!' she growled. 'Fuck off and die!' It was years later when I met a few working class Muslim moose, who are an entirely different kettle of fish, that it was explained to me that she called me a black slave. Fucking bitch, I ought to have torn that funereal rag off her and hoofed her to death – that might sound brutal, babe, but it's a whole lot kinder than stoning.”

“Shiiit.....”

“I reckon the kids would have done better if we'd raised them in a more down to earth area, Daffyd. Actually they're already doing better than they were. Here, there's loads of pictures on my phone.”

“Aah, Kirsty and Jordan, our eldest two,” the hippo said, “just over a year between them. I miss them so much, even though they became impossible to reason with as soon as they hit their teens, particularly my not so little boy. Did they go to Uni, or what? I left you the bulk of our fortune, my dear, to use as you please – as you know, all I took was the cash to pay for this place and a little to keep myself, so there'd be no worries about paying the kids' college fees. Don't say anything just yet, let me guess.....

Kirsty should be just finishing her second year, and Jordan should be wrapping up his first. Jordan was into hip-hop and gangster rap, and he insisted on hanging around with the bunch of worthless hoodlums that he foolishly called his friends. Macho crap, I frequently told him, too frequently, perhaps. Would he listen? Would he heck. I reckon he failed his A levels rather dismally, hung around with his scum-bag buddies for an indeterminable period, squandering his talents, and realised the error of his ways at his own leisure. I reckon he's at A level college now, trying to boost his grades. As for Kirsty, I guess she did very well with her maths and science subjects as I expected and went for a psychology degree, because she always professed an interest in going into forensics. Why are you looking at me like that, aren't I even close?”

“Nope,” Blodwen replied. “Jordan went into turbo mode educationally speaking not long after you pissed off, it was the shock, I suppose. He got five A's and two B's, and now he's getting ready for his second year at Leeds University on a combined Physics and Chemistry course. He says he wants to go into Quantum Physics. He's, erm, he's living with someone, has been since not long after he started. Long term partnership, he calls it..... It's a bloke, Daffyd, I didn't know how I was going to break the news that Jordan bats for the pink side.”

“Aah, I see. Mind you, I always was a bit suspicious of those Fifty Cent muscle DVD's he watched over and over again. I don't mind at all, my dear, if my boy's gay he's gay. There's not a fat lot he can do to change it, and who am I to question his choice? It's better than marrying some poor lass and living a lie like a lot of folk I could mention. Rest assured, he has my blessing. Good job he was born into these times, though, because it was a whole lot less acceptable when we were kids. What about Kirsty, how's she doing?”

“I'm so glad you didn't take the news about Jordan badly, love. I don't mind either, and his boyfriend's a lovely lass. Chap.....

Kirsty's fine now. She rebelled big time after you left, she dropped out of the sixth form, got herself pregnant by some daft young buck and had an abortion, which I didn't happen to agree with, but it's her life. Eventually she settled down, studied hard and sat the exams she missed. She made a few changes, though, she became a whole lot more independent. She's landed a place at Bristol University on a Fine Art degree course, she starts in a few weeks and I reckon it'll suit her down to the ground. She said you never encouraged her artistic side even though it was what she really wanted to focus on. Funny old world, isn't it?”

“I don't mind Kirsty trying her hand at being an artist if that's what she really wants,” Daffyd said as he continued to flick through the pictures on the phone. “My, how they've changed..... Or I don't mind her being an artist, I should have said – saying 'trying her hand at it' implies that I don't approve and I think she'll fail, and that isn't how I feel at all. Art is an excellent subject to study, it nourishes the imagination, and you're right, I did tend to overlook Kirsty's rich imagination and push her towards the so called academic subjects, and that's unforgivable. I wish all of my kids joy and success in whatever they choose to do with their lives. How about the quads? I can see from the pictures that they've grown tremendously. They're thirteen in three weeks or so, aren't they? Time bloody flies.”

“I'm having a few problems with them. It's complicated..... They're hard work, it's their age, I really can't cope on my own. Attila, Adolphus, Phobos and Deimos – where do I start? They're much the same as Jordan was at their age, I suppose.

Attila pinched all of Jordan's old rap CDs, and he's convinced himself that he's black. You know, he walks the walk, talks the talk, has silly tennis ball patterns cut into his hair, hangs out at the Afro Caribbean centre and swears at me in patwa, the language of the ghetto, but that's because he knows that I hate patwa nearly as much as I hate frigging dreadlocks. If he calls me a bloodclot or a pussyclot or most especially a bumberclot again I swear I'll strangle him, and if he ever grows his hair and puts it into dreadlocks I'll kill him without swearing to. And I don't know what I'll do if I ever catch him smoking dope.....

Adolphus hates Attila's supposed blackness so much that he tried to join Column 88, or its modern equivalent, but it turned out that it only had one member, some crazy, Pakistani hating old geezer in Croydon, so he joined the BNP instead. Which all went more or less his way until he went to one of their fool bleeding rallies. They didn't seem to mind that he was mixed race, or at least they never commented on it – it was the mixed species thing that the narrow minded fascist bastards couldn't handle. Anyway, he's resigned himself to being a one moosapotami army in charge of upholding the morals of the white race, or something like that. I don't take too much notice, and I didn't even grumble when he had a swastika tattooed on his knacker-sack. He's full of shit, you know that as well as I do, it's probably a harmless fad and I'm sure he'll grow out of it.

Now where are we? Phobos. What can I tell you about Phobos that'll even begin to make sense? He's been into everything you can mention. First of all it was Country and Western and Line dancing, but I reckon that was only because Attila hated all that shit with a vengeance. He abandoned that episode pretty swiftly after Attila and Adolphus set fire to his rhinestone spangled boots in the sodding kitchen during a rare incidence of brotherly camaraderie, but unfortunately it was shortly after he borrowed his mate's birth certificate and had Shania Twain tattooed on his chest.

Life is strange, sweetie, and its subtle twists and unexpected turns never cease to amaze me.....

Somehow Phobos deviated towards Heavy Metal, then Death Metal, anything that's a bloody racket, anything he intuitively knows I can't fucking bear. At first he just claimed to like the music, if that's what you can honestly call it, but eventually he grew his hair almost to the ground and started wearing Ozzy Osbourne sunglasses summer and winter, morning, noon and night. And talking mindless, brain-dead crap, copying bloody Ossie, no doubt. I feel sorry for poor Sharon, honestly I do.

A while later he decided to become a Goth. He started poncing around in black lacy clobber and eye-shadow, and he was listening to some seriously weird vibes. That was about when he had a couple of vampire fangs and a trickle of blood added to Shania's otherwise beautiful face.

Now he's an Emo, he announced jut a few weeks back. The daft cunt's started cutting his legs with a bit of broken glass and catching the blood in a chalice that he seriously believes once belonged to Count Dracula, even though it's plastic and he bought it at Equinox. He drinks it, the blood, usually but not always on the street in front of gibbering old ladies. Twat.....

I had a mooch through his stuff the other day while he was at school, and now I'm even more worried than I was before. According to a recent entry in his diary – I know I shouldn't snoop, but I honestly can't help it - he said that he plans to murder all of us in the middle of the night, preferably during a thunderstorm. He intends to crucify Attila on the back of the front room door and keep him ticking for as long as possible to watch over our slow, bloody demise. He really despises Attila, because of what happened to his boots, I guess..... To top it all he's writing suicidal, angst ridden poetry as well – I really don't know what I'm gonna do with the puddled little fuck.

And last but no means least, we come to Deimos, and I really don't know where to start with that one. He's completely different from the others, our Deimos. He's quiet and thoughtful, sensitive, I guess you could call it. He's always been a quiet, private kid, and for reasons I can't explain that's more of a worry to me than the constant bickering, the casual violence and the endless yap, yap yap of the rest of the tribe. He's a train spotter, did you know that? He's been doing it secretly for a few years now, according to his scrupulously kept notebooks. And a philatelist. And an amateur archaeologist, fossil collector, bird watcher and astronomer, to name just a few of his interests.

I only found out by accident that he has a girlfriend, and out of all the fish in the ocean he had to pick the daughter of that burkha wearing cow who spat in my face, would you believe it? For fuck's sake.....

The lovebirds have kept in touch on the sly since we fled from Surbiton, and just recently Aisha, that's the kid's name, has moved to just a couple of miles away from us after her mother, who's now a fully qualified GP, landed a job at our local Health Centre. They tried to put me on her books when Doctor Neaves retired, but I as you might have guessed I told them to fuck right off.

The kid's parents know all about the tryst. At first they played their bloody faces up, or at least the mother did, but then they had a family meeting and decided that maybe stoning or beheading the kid isn't the most sensitive moral response. The mother, who's name is Fatima, sent me a letter, which I got towards the end of last week, and I have it in my handbag. Listen to this, kiddo, it's a belter.....”

'Dear Mrs. Davies,
it has come to the attention of my husband and I that our daughter,
Aisha, is conducting a romantic relationship of sorts with Deimos, whom I believe to be your son. My initial reaction was one of shock, horror and, I have to say, disgust. Thoroughbred Muslim moose do not dally with infidels under any circumstances, and they only marry within their own cast and creed. It is written. That is the way it always has been and that's the way that it's going to remain, you bet - or at least that's what we thought at the time. We were considering whisking Aisha back to the Yemen pronto and pairing her up with Khaleel, her cousin, but then, out of the blue, it seems, a series of disturbing events befell my family, and I see it as a sign from Allah that maybe we should reconsider our decision.

Firstly my uncle Ahmed, a very religious man indeed, or so I thought, left his wife and eighteen children and shacked up with an unlettered, agnostic wallaby. Can you believe it? Because I bloody well can't. Then my cousin, Asma, left her husband of several years and her four young children to become a pole dancer and, so I've heard, part time prostitute in a seedy club in Dagenham. Shortly afterwards my elder brother, Paja, was caught red handed doing unspeakable things with a herd of under-age Sikh caribou in Hyde Park. The time consuming good deeds that my family feel compelled to do in the local Sikh community in a feeble attempt to repay if not repair that affront doesn't bear thinking about, I'm telling you.....

As if that lot isn't bad enough, my husband, Leroy (I recently divorced my first husband because he was a waster and a drunk and a violent bastard) was hit over the head with a baseball bat while he least expected it when he was tying his shoelace at the bus stop. He was hoofed half to death by what the police suspect was a white supremacist youth - and a moose into the bargain, according to the only witness, a half blind old man who obviously didn't want to get involved. It was dark, the cowardly fucker did a runner after the attack and so far the police have no leads..... Leroy only came home from hospital on Tuesday. He suffered several broken ribs, a punctured lung and a fractured skull, but thankfully he's making an excellent recovery.

The moral of this story is that you can never judge a book by its cover. Look at your boy, a sweet, generous young thing as far as I can see, though I wished a horrible lingering death upon him at first, and I can't see my little girl doing any better wherever she looks for a spouse. The two of them have my blessings, and I sincerely hope they have yours.

And now I reach the hardest part of this letter. I did something unforgivable to you a few years back in Surbiton, Mrs. Davies, I'm sure you haven't forgotten. All I can say in my defence is that I was a new arrival from the Yemen, and I only came to what I thought of as a seething nest of Western vipers to do the final couple of years of study necessary for my medical qualification. I had a sheltered upbringing by my well meaning but somewhat overprotective family, I knew nothing of the outside world or its assorted denizens and I was very indoctrinated. You, my dear, were only trying to be friendly, I realise that now – you were trying to break through the apparently insurmountable barriers between us, but I was too suspicious, too stupid and too vicious to understand that. I don't expect you to forgive me, of course, I only hope you can find it in your heart to at least begin to understand.

I would like it very much if you and your husband would come to tea at our house one day soon at your discretion to informally discuss the future of our children, the youngsters whom fate has mysteriously intertwined the destinies of despite the odds against it and my initial foolish reservations. You and I, of course, are already acquainted, I just wish we had met in more pleasant circumstances. I have never met your husband, however. Deimos speaks very highly of his father, and I look forward to meeting him.

Yours Sincerely,
Leroy and Fatima Hussain.'

“I've been such a prick,” Daffyd mumbled. “I've missed three years of my kids' lives and three years with you, time I should have spent helping you to fight life's inevitable battles and sharing your joys and woes instead of hiding on the dark side of the sodding moon. How could I have been so selfish? You deserve better than me, my love.”

“It's you I love, and as far as I'm concerned there is no one better. And I don't want anybody else..... Look, when we get home, once you've settled in, of course, I think we should arrange a second honeymoon somewhere nice and quiet. But first I'd like us to restate our vows, in church this time rather than in a soulless registry office, and later on we could throw a massive party. What do you say to that?”

“It sounds like a splendid idea, but I'm not inviting your cousin to the 'wedding,' so you can kiss that idea goodbye.”

“Which one?”

“Beverley bloody Knight. We invited her to our wedding but she failed to return the compliment when she got married, which pissed me off no end, I'm telling you. She didn't consider us good enough to grace her big day, I suppose - we might have embarrassed her other guests by vomiting on the groom or setting fire to the bridesmaids or shitting on the cake or something. She invited the Mayor of Wolverhampton, the great, steaming ponce, but not us..... If I could afford it I'd invite the entire population of the planet, including Beverley's new husband and their cat, if they have one, but definitely not her. OK?”

“You the man, honey bunch,” Blodwen grinned, “and what you say is what goes!

Look, we still have quite a while left before the taffs pick us up. I've sorely missed that ginormous, ever-hard river horse cock of yours, so how about a bit? It's bloody ruined me, mind, your Mahogany Knob of Africa, that and the vagaries of pregnancy and childbirth – I was fit and firm uddered and practically sag free before you buggered me up. Beyond repair, I think whenever I look in the mirror. You still make me come like the clappers, though, it just takes a while longer to get there nowadays.....”

“Sounds good to me, sugar plum,” Daffyd replied. “And you still look pretty good to me, you fetching little Welsh tart. Get in that bedroom and get your kit off, you Cerys Mathews lookalike, I'm going to shag seven kinds of shit out of you. And then, God willing, we're going home.”