A PAOt FROM XOCIOMIICO On Feasting Palnergast > Conviction Rats Like Bloodhounds Saved By Candlelight A Roar In The Night by Doctor Xochomilco That night I ate dinner at Seronera Lodge in the Serengeti, Tanzania. East Africa. Southern Hemisphere, Earth, third planet from the sun in a solar system of nine planets in a galaxy named after a candy Par I had a light meal. Put some accounts would have it that I feasted By accident. I sat w ith two German women and an American py the name of Palnergast whose eyebrows were Drought together in the center of his forehead as if in permanent prayer The siience after the spar, Gappy and Palnergast were in a funk, disgusted Gerta had not said a thing Quite unpopular. I was. however, fine and dandy The topic had Peen Somal ia Mi 11 ions of starving people versus im perialist American fo rc e s . you see Ive never starved, Put once I slept two nights on a bench, eating a banana for breakfast, lunch and dinner - the same one, that ,s Then there was that stretch in Taiwan where my neighbors went round sampling the stray dog population I kept hoping they d invite me over it was insanity Palnergast told Gabby that he d tried before to reason w ith me. to forget it, it is useless Gabby was downright caustic Palnergast said he was stuffed A zebra cantered in front of the vehicle as we drove back to the bunkhouse The outside light had been le ft on so there were Dugs a-plenty Along the walls, cluttering the floor, crawling over the window screen Real exotic ones, too I tucked my mosquito net round the m attress, and when the light was nixed I trickle d quickly away into that much acclaimed gutter between re a lity and dreams And I did the time-space tw ir l A Huey thundering over some bleak god-forsaken scape Blank sky, white sun, frying-pan desert Somalia Palnergast s ittin g opposite looking airsick, and w ith those worried eyebrows I'm feeling fine Below us, something Four life forms, barely I motion the p ilo t this is the spot Rodger Down we go, rotors whirling, slapping, a red dust devil rising The door opens The black, emaciated life forms They are thinking, Angels7 Devils7 No, human beings Palnergast is wreched from his seat, yanked out the door Standing there disheveled in the desert of his convictions, I te ll him he s going to take a tumble down Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs real fast, but that if he gets started before the sun evaporates his senseless hide, he can make the UN re lie f station in Baldoa a scant twenty klicks due east, whichever way that is I note that some say logic taken to its inth is illog ica l I motion to the barely life -fo rm s w ith bloated bellies we carry on board, saying, perhaps the same holds true for starving Anyway, something to ponder over in his wanderings Raving mutely in the rotor wash, Palnergast s hair whips w ith the q rit of the resurrected dust devil My heel is just grinding Palnergast s fingers from the landing skid when Ben7 W illard7 Quite right - and all the rest of rat pack back home in the bunkhouse They bound across the ra fte rs like bloodhounds, poured up from the cracks African w ild life , get your camera Hey, whattayas think this place is 7 A H a bitra il7 Rats were all over the place Planergast h,gh-tailed it and slept in the car the three of them drove in on I found out later when Palnergast and Co had gone on, the rats came for the bugs - crunch crunch crunch The bugs that kamikazed the candle flame, crackling and popping in their own funeral pyre In the morning they were p e trifie d in a puddle of dried wax I li t a candle and the beasts retreated from the light like the lit t le furry vampires they were into every nook and cranny Greta thanked me Gabby peeped she wanted one too by her bed Fine I slept like a stone Alone, several eves later I awoke to hear a lion roar I had never heard a lion roar before, but the instant it seized the night, s tille d the savanna, somehow grazed my throat, my liver, my stomach, my heart, w ell, it was clear enough what prowled out there, along the venues of darkness $ ty A •z , - r • • " ♦» n • •• OSBORNE W O R K IN G H TVIM O A GALLERY n t U 'r r i i > sau o ( ntfmi ' okaky a ORIGINAL FINK ART, KMA1J MOTION PRINTS. GHATH1C& CVMMFKi IAI ART AKi H m d T V K A I RKNHKK1N<.- ACUOTOM FRAMING »IIM N FSS HIM Its Fnday. S»iurd»t A Sutxb* 1100 am 600 pm M ui " H i «» 6.IY M aitrun ila A*rnui PO boa XH Ma.'.Uk.uU> U><« 5 03 3