It had been forty days and forty nights. They had grown sick to the back teeth of water. The animals were playing up, especially the orang utangs. The orang utangs were taking the radical evolutionary persepective, agitating amongst the rest of the crew, working on the line that if god had been truly smart he’d have favoured them. They’d have taken a more simian, ecologically responsible attitude. The crew would never have ended up in the soup if the orang utangs had been running the show. Wouldn’t even have had to even get to grips with this stinking 'boat' concept.
Noah was getting worried. The food was running out. The masses were on the point of revolting. He’d forgotten what his home looked like and if something didn’t happen soon the world cup wasn’t going to take place, let alone his team standing a chance of winning it. (During on-board kick arounds the wasps had proved unexpectedly effective, using a sting and pass tactic that bemused the opposition.)
Then the dove turned up with an olive branch between its teeth. Phew, thought Noah, thank heavens for that. There is a god after all.
The dove kind of preened around on deck, acting like a superstar. The other animals stared at it. You can imagine how they were feeling. Not exactly impressed. Where had the bloody dove been the whole time? Now they knew. Swanning around on mountain tops. Whilst they’d been slumming it on a boat.
The chaffinch was the first to perk up. With a sly whisper, the chaffinch said to the blackbird, ‘Looks more like a pigeon to me.’ Noah overheard. He said ‘What?’. A general debate broke out. Most decided the dove was nothing special. Especially the pigeons. Despite the bird’s protestations, the committee came to the conclusion that it was not a dove, as recognised by pre-flood dove directives. They decided doves were probably extinct. This was some kind of albino pigeon. The pigeons treated it like a black sheep. The dove got bored and went and sat on the mainmast.
Attention turned to the olive branch. Noah could see from the tutting and the general head shaking that the creatures weren’t impressed. Even Ham and Seth joined in. The branch was passed around. In truth, it wasn’t much of a branch. More of a twig. This point was forcefully made, in particular by the giraffes and ostriches, who both claimed to have been key workers in the Eden olive branch analysis labs, which neither Noah nor his wife had ever heard of.
Disdain for the twig increased. The jackal pushed it across deck with its paw. ‘We’ve been here forty days and forty nights, and this is what they send us?’ It asked. ‘I was expecting something a bit more impressive.’ The swallows and the newts agreed. They’d been anticipating a mobile hot dog stand. The lion laughed. He’d been expecting an en-suite, all-inclusive flock of sheep. Which didn’t impress the sheep, who just baa-ed.
Overall, the consensus was they were anticipating something…better. They sent the reclassified albino pigeon packing. Told it to come back when it had something to show for itself.
Noah sighed. He went below deck and filled in his redundant pools coupon, for old time’s sake. One thing was for sure. It wouldn’t be long before they were going to need a bigger boat. He got out his tools and thought about how to build that extension.
The fact is that they never got off that boat. Every living creature, no matter what Darwin contended, is descended from that grumpy group. All of us still floating. After centuries of skilled carpentry, the boat has come to seem like something completely stable, incorporating dry land, mountains of its own, and even oceans. Noah’s ark has been extended almost as far as it can go, but it still floats on the waters of the great flood.
The early descendants of the creatures on the boat devised an alternative version of the story of the olive branch. In the bright shiny world of the new Ark, a positivistic take on the deity seemed more appropriate. They made a movie about it with all the animals gazing in mute awe at the arriving dove, saying things like, ‘My dear, I do believe it’s an olive branch’, before their sang froid went and they began to blub. Some still chuckled at what was essentially satire, but as the centuries rolled on, people began to take it literally and in the end the true story was eclipsed. Such is the power of myth.
Doves were the only species made extinct in the great flood. Sometimes scholars get together and wonder what a dove might have looked like. Most agree that they probably resembled some kind of albino pigeon.
april 2006
