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Safari

Rosemary and Butch sat around a crackling campfire, slowly roasting the meat they’d gotten during their hunt that morning. It was twilight and they could see lightning bugs flickering on and off down in the valley.

‘I think supper’s ready, Rose,’ said Butch, pulling the spit from the flames.

‘Goody,’ said Rosemary, ravenous beyond belief. She held out a paper plate and Butch laid a chunk of Roland, the teenager they trapped that very morning, nosing around the bait they’d set out.

‘Um, God, this is good,’ murmured Rosemary with satisfaction. ‘Oops’ A trickle of savory juice ran down her chin.

‘Finish that butt and I’ll give you a slice of pecker,’ said Butch temptingly.

‘I want a toe,’ said Rosemary. ‘I know they’re bony, but I like to gnaw the meat off.’

‘Coming up,’ sadd Butch agreeably.

The 30-something couple had been on safari since the day before, but had been so occupied with setting up camp and then laying the traps that they hadn’t had time to eat. Now they dined with relish.

‘You know,’ said Rosemary chewing thoughtfully, ‘I sometimes feel sorry for the poor animals we catch. I mean, don’t they have a right to live, same as us?’ She looked bleakly at her husband of seven years.

‘Best not to think about it, Rose,’ counseled Butch. ‘If they weren’t fair game, then God would have made them smart enough to avoid the traps.’

‘Yes,’ said Rosemary. ‘But the traps are pretty sophisticated: AI, holograms, the lot. You’d have to be pretty smart to avoid getting caught…’

Butch chewed on a knuckle, loudly and with his mouth open. Rosemary winced. Butch said, ‘That’s why smart people, people with brains, like us, don’t end up on someone’s dinner table.’

‘Speaking of brains,’ said Rosemary, remembering, ‘how is…what was his name, Roland’s…brains coming along? They’ve been simmering for what seems like hours.’

By way of reply, Butch used a pair on tongs to dig into the embers and extract the skull of the late teen. Setting it on the ground, Butch turned up a cold chisel and a wooden mallet and split the top of the head open.

‘Ooh, Goody!’ said Rosemary. ‘Gimme a scoop, Butch!’

‘Hold out your plate,’ he instructed. She did and he scooped up Roland’s gray matter, now a buttery yellow, and ladled it onto Rosemary’s plate.

Later, after they’d eaten their fill, Rosemary and Butch cuddled before the dying fire, warm, content and well-fed.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘my grandma says that when she was a girl, hunting and eating subcultures wasn’t allowed.’

‘Yeah?’ said Butch, yawning.

‘They called it cannibalism,’ remembered Rosemary. ‘What an ugly word,’ she said with a shiver.

‘It’s been legal almost forever,’ said Butch, digging the flesh from between his teeth with a toothpick. ‘You know, Roland didn’t have much meat on his bones.’

‘I was just thinking that,’ replied Rosemary. ‘Why do you suppose that is, Butch?’

‘The game reserve don’t feed ’em much,’ he answered.

‘That seems cruel, to starve the poor creatures.’

‘Yeah, but if they were well-fed then they might get wise to our traps.’

Rosemary nodded.

‘Hey,’ said Butch, pulling binoculars from his eyes. ‘Guess who just tripped the lake sensor?’

‘Aunt Dolores?’

‘Even better, it’s Francine. Feel like dessert?’ …

‘Goody,’ said Rosemary.

About the artist

Bill Tope is a retired caseworker, construction laborer, Hilton Hotel line cook and one-time nude model for university art classes. He lives in the American Midwest with his mean little cat Baby.