PLATYPUS - Shane Jones

Week One

We’ve carried the platypus from the river and put him on the wooden table. The table is high and long and the platypus spends the evening wobbling from one end to the other. He sniffs at the tools. The children laugh at the snorting noise his bill makes, the river slush that he sprays into the air. That’s not true. Not all the children laugh at the platypus who is now leaning dangerously over the edge of the table. Isadora doesn’t laugh. But she’s not really a child. She’s a surrealist and like any surrealist she’s in love with the platypus.

When the platypus extends his little legs over the edge of the table it’s the hunters that run up and push him back on the table. They say, “Back on the table, platypus,” in a very condescending tone. Then they walk back to the wall with the rest of us and watch the platypus stop and lie down on something shiny.

“Stop hurting him,” says Isadora and she makes a fist. She shakes her fist and inside her fist is a squid that she throws onto the floor where it sails across the floor and out the door that is now made of broccoli.

“Platypus stopped at the knife,” says Earl.

“Perhaps for the snorting bill,” says James who takes a step forward from the group.

We look back at Isadora expecting her tears again. But she’s not crying. Her face is a watermelon now. The squid is outside smashing itself against the window like a blind bird. The squid leaves black ink on the window that says to leave the platypus alone or else.

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