Tasmanian Dreams
Extinction, the annihilation of a species through natural, or human, cause. For centuries, human kind has hunted species as food, for fur, or just because it's a menace. Sometimes we hunt a species down because it is killing livestock, and once there was a bounty on animals that had been hunted as revenge. The Thylacine is, possibly, one of humanity's greatest mistakes when it comes to causing the extinction of a species; we had been lied to, told that it killed chickens, sheep, even cattle on occasion, when in truth the animal would rarely approach any human settlement. This story, however, is not supposed to be a complaint, this is supposed to be a work of fiction that lets me express my personal dreams into one piece, so here we start.
The joys of travel.
Pater Mason was sitting in a small van's back seat, grumpily staring at his father's head as they drove deeper into the Tasmanian wilderness. He never wanted to travel to Tasmania; it's cold and much damper than the rest of Australia, hell, there weren't even any worthwhile amusement parks about unlike up on the eastern coasts. They had been driving all night, his father hoping to get out and do some early morning fishing while the fish were still active. The van rumbled to a halt out front of a small building, barely a house but too large to be a hut, and the engine cut off. Putting as much emphasis into the effort required as possible, he helped his parents move their stuff into the building. He hurried to set up his laptop, making sure that it was connected to the meager internet connection before planting his arse on a chair in front of the screen and staring at it like it was the most interesting thing in the world.
He didn't want to be out here, in the middle of nowhere where even the animals seemed to avoid. It was peculiar how dead quiet the gentle forests were, but he didn't mind much, it allowed him to brood more and worry about feral, dangerous animals less. The only interest he had in the isle had died out a century ago, hunted to extinction for supposedly raiding henhouses and killing chickens. Now he devoted himself to computers, the only thing other than that animal that he knew more than average about. He could dismantle a desktop computer and put it back together in less than twenty minutes, and he had once proven it possible to install operating systems onto five at a time. He sighed, scrolling the internet with no real interest in anything on the pages. He was, yet again, reading the Wikipedia article on his personal favourite animal. His mother came in and handed him a bag of Twisties.
"Here." She mumbled. "Breakfast will be a while, you can make do with these for now, yeah?"
Pater rummaged through his backpack for a moment before producing a whole handful of beef jerky packets and putting them on the top.
"I should be fine, mum." He said, tearing open a packet and starting to chew a piece.
"Alright then." She turned to walk away, stopping to straighten up the bedsheets. "You'll be alright in here, the single bed and all?"
"Yeah, I'll be fine, mum." He replied drearily, never bothering to look away from the screen.
"Okay." She said, sounding a little depressed. "Your father is out fishing, I'll be in the family room watching the television if you need me." And with that she walked out.
He sat in near silence, only his chewing and the clicking of his computer breaking the dead quiet. This was how he liked to waste his days, quiet and alone to think, where he could do what he wanted until dinnertime. He had just finished one packet of jerky, discarding the packet to one side, and had torn open another when he heard a quiet noise. It sounded, very much, like a whine, but he brushed it off as an animal outside, a Tasmanian Devil or some other creature fussing its presence. He put a piece of jerky into his mouth and heard the noise again, only this time it sounded like it was actually in the room. He did a brief search, under the bed and inside the cupboards, finding nothing out of the ordinary, and returned to his desk. A third time, and now he was very curious; the animal sounded young, that much he could discern from the very sound, but its position still baffled him. He hazarded a look up to the roof above him.
The roof was tiled, those same ceiling tiles you see in schools or offices, and several of them were misplaced slightly, allowing him to see the edge of the rafters that they were supported on and all the way up to the roof above in all of its cobwebby glory. He could see, in the darkness above, a little canine like face looking down at him, holding a stuffed toy in its maw. He stared at it distantly for a moment, before taking a large piece of Jerky, standing on his chair, and holding it out. The small fuzzy face considered this, sniffing at the meat before putting the stuffed toy down and gingerly taking it. Carefully Pater picked the small creature down from the darkness, holding it gently and taking the stuffed toy, which proved to be a kangaroo, down as well. The animal didn't protest, sniffing at him curiously and licking his hand. He sat back down, put the young pup on his table after shifting his laptop to one side, and gave it another piece of jerky, allowing himself the chance to look it over. He smiled a little bit.
Maybe this isle wasn't all bad after all.
Carefully he checked for a gender, discovering the pup to be female, and he continued to cautiously feed her jerky until she didn't want anymore, which she managed sooner than he had expected, possibly due to her being but a cub. She sniffed his hand and nuzzled him contently, and he carefully picked her up to caress her in his hands before teasing her, ever so gently, with the stuffed toy. She playfully snapped at it before growing bored and nuzzling into his shirt and falling asleep. He took this chance, putting down the stuffed toy and shoving a packet of jerky into his pocket before standing and carrying the olive brown striped marsupial out of the room with him, careful that his hand didn't accidentally slide into her pouch.
He found his mother in the 'family' room, sitting on a large couch and watching a sewing video on the television. He motioned for her to follow him, not letting her get a glimpse of the creature in his arms, and he continued walking out to the small pond out the back, where his father was fishing. There probably weren't many fish, if any, but that didn't dissuade him from trying. He was a great believer that all fish are just dying to get onto the hook, if only you can dangle it before them. He had just cast out when Pater and his mother walked up to him. Pater nudged his father with his foot.
"Yeah, what is it?" The grown man asked slightly irritably.
"I found her in the roof over my room." Pater said, showing his parents the little sleeping bundle.
"Who would leave a puppy alone in a house all the way out here..?"
"She's not a puppy, look." Pater mumbled, showing him the pup's back and tail. "See? Stripes, and her tail isn't quite right for a dog."
"Then what the hell is she?"
Pater's eyes gleamed for a second. "If I'm correct, and this time I reckon I am, she's a Tasmanian Tiger." He said.
"But they're extinct!" His mother protested.
"Well, she's vey much alive." Pater replied. "I'll check around the house, see if I can find her mother." He said. "It's doubtful that one this young would venture far from the pouch. She'll be sleeping on my pillow, can you check on her in a few minutes mum?"
"Yeah, sure I can." She said, before he walked back into the house.
He carefully put the joey on his bed, laying her on a pillow so as to keep her comfortable before he pulled himself into the roof to look about, climbing off his chair with a small torch in hand. It was dark and musty, not to mention extremely cramped, and he worried endlessly about what spiders might be above him, but he couldn't see any in the cobwebs. He noticed light in a far corner, and he carefully crept aong the roof, making sure that he didn't misstep and fall into whatever room was below him, but making sure that he didn't move too fast and make himself seem a threat. There was a shape, unmoving, near the source of light, and when he got close enough he saw what it was.
An adult female thylacine, dead, was lying in a corner. A bullet in her side telling the sad tale of what had happened to her. She hadn't been dead long, possibly only an hour or two, and Pater sadly pulled her from the roof, taking her out the opened hole, which proved to be a broken window. He gently put her on the ground out side. A shovel was nearby, and he quickly dug a pit deep enough to bury her in, making sure that there weren't any animals that might try to make a quick meal of her sad corpse. He placed her in the pit, mumbled an apology, and buried her. It was... anti climactic, if not a little saddening. He expected something odd to happen, but, as if burying a simple bone or seed, all that happened was soil in the hole until it was full, then he put a large stone at the end her head was at. His mother dawdled over, the sleeping joey in her arms.
"What's this then?" She asked.
"I found the mother in the roof." He replied dismally. "She was dead, didn't look like she'd been there long, but I didn't think it was right to leave her in the open like that." He sighed a little, turning his eyes to the small thylacine in his mother's arms. "Now what do we do? We can't release her to the wild without a parent, she'll never survive."
"Give her a name." She said. "Your father and I will do what we can to smooth over any crinkles. He's already called a wildlife conservation group, and they said they'll be here sometime today."
"Then what's the point in naming her? They're only going to take her away from us. Naming her would make me grow attatched to her, and then all hell will break loose when they take her from me." He mumbled.
She put the small pup into his hands, letting him hold her. "Look, you name her and we'll do what we can." She said. "The more attatched you get, the easier it'll be for us to fight them taking her from you."
He nodded. "You might want to board up that window there." He said, pointing with his spare hand. "That's where she got in." And he then headed back to his computer, putting her on the pillow on his bed again while he looked for an Aboriginal name online that he could give her, hoping to find one. Eventually he found one he liked, and she awoke in a playful mood soon after, so he picked up the stuffed kangaroo toy she had with her when he discovered her and started to play with her using it. She was having bundles of fun, and she would nuzzle him or try to jump into his lap every chance she got, and he eventually ended up lying down face-to-face with her.
"Who's a good girl then, Weema?"
Laws of Science
Pater spent most of the day with the little joey. He had managed to house train her in but a few short hours, sure she wouldn't be perfect, but she still had a fair few years to grow up and perfect herself. She was very playful, for such a reclusive species and all, and Pater did find himself becoming more and more attatched to her as the minutes ticked by. She was so cute in her innocence, chasing a tennisball, gently thrown, through the house and eating meat that Pater could scrounge and cook for her. His father had caught a few fish, they had discovered that there was a stream that fed the lake he was fishing in, and he had managed to get a fair few good sized fish from here, but his mother had snuck down to a nearby town and bought some meat and other foods, as they had been understocked to begin with.
Eventually Weema was worn down again, and she fell asleep in Pater's arms as he carefully brushed her fur with a hand. She was so adorable as she slept he didn't want to stand up and disturb her, but instead he traced her stripes with a finger, stimuli which she writhed a little as he traced across her ticklish stomach. There were thirteen in total, and her tail ended in a 'dipstick' tip, but only the last centimeter or so. He was already falling for her, she had come to him when her mother died, the last creature that would have loved her unconditionally, and he was going to make damned sure that she didn't make a bad choice; she was his charge now, his pup, and he was doubtful if he'd give her up for anything. Eventually there was an impolite knock on the front door, and his mother answered it.
"Hello?"
A tall, middle-age man stood in the doorway wearing a lab coat, pens sticking out of a pocket. The nametag read Colins, and he had a sly, almost self important look about him, which made his attitude seem all so much more slimy.
"Ah, good evening madam, I have been informed by the Science Beureu," he said this pair of words with the same reverence that one holds a king, "that you have a live Thylacine on the premesis?"
She gave him a critical look, but allowed him to pass. "She's playing with my son at the moment." She said. "You can probably hear them from here."
He nodded and flowed past her, his air of arrogance and self-righteousness following him. Another, smaller scientist, whose nametag read Alvin, followed him carefully, stopping to chat a moment with Pater's mother. He had a large moustache, and thick glasses to boot. He gave her a curious look.
"Tell me, has she got a pup with her?" He asked. "It's quite important."
Pater's mother stood in silence for a moment before closing the door and pulling him into the house. "I think you've been misinformed." She mumbled, before there was another knock to which she answered.
Pater and Weema, in Pater's current bedroom, were playing with the tennisball again. She was having the time of her life, and he loved watching her play so happily. He rolled the ball past her, intending to bounce it off the door, but the door opened and the ball was caught under a man's shoe. Weema, not noticing the human, ran to get the ball, but was lifted just short of her prize by the man.
"Thankyou for looking after her for us." He said. "I'll be taking her now."
Pater stood up, fury in his eyes. "You can't just take her from me!" He snapped. "Give her back!"
The scientist eyed him like one eyes gum underfoot. "What makes her belong to you? She could be the last Thylacine ever to be discovered by man; she belongs to the world, not to you!"
Another scientist, shorter, stepped behind Colins and tapped his back.
"Ah, are you ready to go now? Well, I have the specimen, let's go."
"We have an opportunity here, one that we might never get again." Alvin mumbled, not letting Colins leave. "She is too young to be taken from a parental figure, Bob."
"We can't leave her here with this... boy!"
"Then take me with you!" Pater snapped. "I-I've spent a lot of time studying the species, I know it well, please, you can't take her Weema from me!"
"You're just a child, what value could you possibly be?!" Colins snapped. "None, compared to the rest of us real scientists!" He pushed Alvin out of the way. "We're going, Alvin!"
Pater rushed into his way, standing in the hallway defiantly. "You can't take her from me, I won't let you!"
"Shut up and get out of my way, boy!" Colins yelled, kicking Pater in the gut and managing to shove him to his ass.
Weema, having seen this, wrangled out of the Scientist's grip and bit his face, quite hard, leaving a large gash in his cheek and nose. Colins, unprepared for this turn of events, dropped Weema to the floor, where she landed with a painful yelp. Colins growled and pulled a foot back.
"Mangy mutts need discipline!" He shouted, moving to swing his foor forward. His foot, however, stayed right where it was, and the rest of him tumbled down onto his ass.
Alvin had grabbed his foot, and now he stood with quite a fair amount of fury in his face. "Colins, I'm ashamed of you!" He shouted. "Not only would it not do us any good to harm this poor joey, but you have no right to simply take this boy's pet from him! You call yourself a scientist? Pfuh! I've been in this field for a long time, and I've never seen anyone act this selfishly! It's as if you're trying to cover something up!"
"It couldn't be an adult female that was shot, could it?" Pater's asked, carefully picking up Weema and trying to calm her down. "Looks like you're too late to hide poaching, but I did bury her corpse out back." Colins' eye twitched, Pater had struck a nerve there. "Oh, sorry, did you not want anyone to know that someone had shot a pregnant female Thylacine, despite them being on several protection and conservation lists? I think you're in a fair amount of trouble!"
"You can't prove anything!" Colins shouted angrily.
"This, alone, is enough to get you in quite serious trouble, Colins." Alvin said. "I've got recorded proof, might be able to get an actual corpse, physcal evidence, and I've one more thing to go with it." He whistled, and a pair of police officers stood from the couch in the next room. "Backup."
One of the two officers, a woman with sergeant stripes, stepped forth and pulled him from the ground, cuffing him. "Robert Colins, you are under arrest for suspected poaching of a protected species. You have the right to-" She continued reading his rights as she pushed him out the door, the other officer stepped up to Pater and lifted him from the floor with ease, shoving a collar and animal registration tag into his spare hand.
"I filled out the paperwork earlier, when I went to the town." His mother said. "I didn't expect them to bring it so soon, but with this being a special case and all, I guess the paperwork got pushed hard."
"You've no idea, ma'am." The officer said. "You take good care of this pup, you hear me? It's not often that we get the chance to recover an extinct species."
"We don't live in Tasmania, though..." Pater mumbled. "How do I get her back home?"
"Well, your plane tickets have already been booked, what with you having both return and departure flights in the one bundle, and we'll talk with the airline and get some special criteria set up." The officer said. "Have a nice holiday, good night." And he left.
Pater stared after them for a few moments, before rushing to the door after him.
"Hey, if you really wanna nab this guy-" He started. "The mother is under that rock out back, the large one that's stood on its own."
"Thanks, kid. We'll send a crew out to get it tomorrow." The police officer said.
Pater nodded, and watched the police drive away, Colins in the back seat glaring daggers at him. He felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Just let me-" Alvin's voice said in his ear as he clipped a small, almost unnoticeable tag onto Weema's ear. She yipped for a moment, and gave Alvin an annoyed look. "There we go." He said. "This tag allows us to track her wherever she goes, so you won't be able to lose her, and it gives us information on her wellbeing by reading her blood. Take care of her for us, kid."
Pater nodded. "Of course." He said. "She came to me, and I took her in. She's my joey now, and I'll treat her as such."
Alvin chuckled a little. "Alright then." He said. "I may see you again in future." he said. "You never know, we might find a male to have you care for too some day." He said, with a fair amount of humour in his voice as he got into his truck. The engine started, revved, and he drove off.
Pater cuddled Weema close, nuzzling her forhead before he turned into the house and closing the door behind him. It was late at night, so he took her to his room, where he put her into a wicker basket full of soft pillows next to his bed, and went to bed himself.
He awoke the next morning thinking that it was all a dream. Him? Lucky enough to get his hands on a Tasmanian Tiger joey? Right, like that'd happen. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, and was instantly tackled by a small bundle of striped fur that licked at his face furiously. He smiled and playfully wrestled with Weema, who yipped happily.
Pater Mason never wanted to travel to Tasmania. It was cold, and there were few amusement parks, but, while there, he had found something that was better than all that. While there, he found the dream that didn't end when he woke, and, for once, he was truly happy.