The Latest by
Darwin
by Grace
Mattioli
One dull day
about a week before Christmas, while working at
my bookstore job, I was approached by a small man
with brownish skin and an overgrown mustache.
“Has that Darwin fellow written anything
lately?” he asked me in broken English.
“Excuse
me?” I said trying to keep a straight face.
I could have heard him wrong. It was difficult
for him to enunciate because he only had about
three teeth in his head.
“You know
that Darwin fellow- the one that wrote the books
about the apes turning into people?”
I nodded
indicating that I was familiar with Darwin, and
he continued: “Well, I was just wondering if
he wrote any new books.”
I would have
been taken aback, but by this time I realized
that he was not sane, so when I answered him, my
face was expressionless and my voice was
completely neutral. “I don’t think so.
He’s been dead for quite a while now.”
He scratched
his head full of stringy hair and his deep black
eyes opened wide and stared back at me with
disbelief. Then he said, “Do you think that
we came from the apes or that they came from us?”
I was ready to
respond when I looked over at a group of crazed
shoppers rummaging through piles of wall
calendars in the gift section of the store.
“I’m not sure,” I said to the
strange little man, making him more baffled than
ever.
He gave me a
final stare. This one had much more disbelief
than the first one. In fact, it had distrust in
it, as though he thought that I’d been
conspiring with this “Darwin fellow”
all along.
He then ran
out of the store like he was being chased, and I
haven’t seen him since.
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