Beast Machine

by Brad McKinniss

  “Ja, do tell Frau!” said Owlbert cheerfully. Owlbert already knew the main cause of harming the environment was pollution from humans: automobiles, aircraft, factories, garbage, deforestation and so on. He didn’t know exactly how the pollution harmed the environment, though. His forte as a human was dealing with mathematics and physics! He also dabbled in humor.

  “Ugh, okay,” said Gora. She cracked her knuckles. Crunch-ch-ch. “I’ll do my best to explain this simply enough.”

  “This’ll be good,” said Hitbear. He firmly held the belief that the Earth’s climate was fine when he was a human, that Earth’s climate is fine now that he is a bear and that Earth’s climate will be fine forever until the sun explodes.

  Gora grabbed a previously unseen chalkboard and wheeled it to the center area of the lab. The beasts sat down in front of Gora. Each beast wore a look of wanting eager, except Hitbear. He worn the look of a haughty know-it-all, per usual.

  “So, do you all know how the Earth is heated?” asked Gora.

  “By the Sun, duh,” said Hitbear confidently. He crossed his arms and looked at the other two beasts as if he were the smartest one there. “This isn’t kindergarten!” His arrogance rose.

  “That is only partially correct,” said Gora. “There is an entire process that sums up how the Earth is heated with the process beginning with the Sun.”

  “Well, technically I’m correc-,” began Hitbear.

  Tubman interrupted him, “Shut up, Hitbear. I want to learn how it’s all done.” Tubman, a common sensed and smart woman in her past life, never truly got the chance to expand upon and shape her intelligence because of her race. She wanted to hone in on knowledge now that she had the opportunity to do so. Tubman often felt like an outsider among the group, though was never sure why she felt that way. She may have been the smallest of the group, yet didn’t let her stature limit her abilities.

  Hitbear scowled at Tubman and then began to physically pout as Gora continued to explain manmade climate change.

  “Thank you, Tubman,” said Gora. “The process does begin with the Sun. The Sun sends rays of light towards Earth and every which way from its spot in the solar system. We know these electromagnetic radiated rays simply as sunlight.” Tubman and Owlbert nodded approvingly at this revelation, Hitbear kept pouting. “Those same rays from the sun enter through the Earth’s atmosphere and as the rays make their way through the Earth’s atmospheric zones, they are weakened. If they weren’t weakened by the atmosphere, those same rays would fry all living creatures on this planet.”

  “By God!” said Tubman. “That would be awful!”

  “Ja, ja,” spoke Owlbert, “zee vorld vould be scorched quicker than ein wiener-schnitzel in ein atomic blast!” Owlbert and Tubman looked at one another with shocked looks and nodded in agreement.

  “Somewhat, yes, Owlbert,” said Gora. “Let’s not get into that, though.” Gora drew a sun on the left part of the chalkboard and accompanied the sun with arrows representing the rays the sun emits. The arrows shot outward in every which way from the sun, as Gora had told the beasts.

  On the left part of the chalkboard, she drew a circle with the world ‘Earth’ inside the circle. She then drew a handful of circles around the main Earth circle.

  “Why are you drawing those circles around the Earth?” asked Tubman.

  “These are the atmospheric zones,” replied Gora, still drawing. “There are five total zones that make up the entirety of the atmosphere. Starting from the ground up, the five zones, or layers, are known as: the troposphere, the stratosphere, the mesosphere, the thermosphere, and the exosphere.” Gora wrote troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere next to their respective circles on the chalkboard. Her handwriting was less than elegant but still legible. “They’re actually closer to the Earth than this, but for lesson’s sake this will do.”

  “All five make up the atmosphere, huh?” said Tubman. Tubman looked at the chalkboard firmly and tried to make sense of it all the best she could.

  “Don’t began contemplating about this sparse amount of information just yet, Tubman,” said Gora. Tubman looked at Gora and broke out of her short concentration. “This lesson isn’t over yet!” Gora laughed slightly.

  “Okay! Keep it coming,” replied Tubman. Hitbear had fallen into the prone position and had his hands covering his ears, as he did not believe any of the nonsense Gora was spewing. His beliefs were firmly held.

  “Ja!” cheeped Owlbert. “This ist enlightening! I vant more!”

  “Ha!” giggled Gora. “Just pay attention.” She never had this sort of attention in a long time and was enjoying being the main figure of peoples’ attention, albeit it was creatures she had made. “This is quite nice,” she thought.

  “Those rays go through our atmosphere, as I previously stated,” continued Gora, “and they essentially bounce off the Earth and back up toward space. On the way back up toward space, the stratosphere catches most of each rays’ heat being produced. That is where the Earth gets a majority of its heat from – from heat being caught by the atmosphere from sunlight. Heat is also given off directly when the rays first hit Earth, but the atmosphere is what keeps it all on Earth to keep us warm.”

  “So what’s the problem then?” asked Tubman. “That seems pretty cut and dry. I’m not sure how these, uh, zones came to be – probably by God or some sort of god-like being – but what’s happening to make these zone-bobbers weak? That seems to be where you’re headed at least.”

  “Excellent, Tubman!” said Gora. “You are correct in that the atmospheric zones are being weakened, but they’re being weakened by manmade means and being weakened by an astronomically small amount of radiation from the sunlight that permeates through most of the atmospheric zones every day!” Tubman smiled and her floppy ears perked up.

  “With the weakened zones, more radiation and heat comes with the rays. They come right through the atmosphere with nearly their original strength.” Gora drew the rays shooting straight through the circles representing the atmospheric zones. “The more powerful sunlight still bounces off the Earth and back into the atmosphere, which catches the more powerful sunlight in the stratosphere. This weakens the stratosphere, where the ozone is located, even more so than before but the stratosphere still holds onto the heat tightly to keep the Earth warm. Except instead of warm, it’s beginning to be blazing hot – and not just in places that have been blazing hot for centuries. It becomes blazing hot everywhere.”

  Gora erased part of the stratosphere line and draws a thinning line to represent the current stratosphere. She uses orange-red chalk to draw small flames inside the Earth circle to indicate heat levels rising. Owlbert and Tubman were gripped by Gora’s lecture and Hitbear finally relented slightly by removing his hands from his ears. He still held a look of stubbornness and doubt while listening to Gora.

  “When the heat on Earth finally gets to be too much, these places on Earth,” said Gora as she drew the northern ice-cap and then the southern ice-cap, “will melt completely. They’re actually melting slowly – you would have to sit and watch them for some time to see any real change – but they melt more significantly every day because of climate change! Once the glaciers of the north and south icecaps are mostly melted, it will cause a drastic change in nearly all our climate zones because of mass flooding, among other issues. The world as we know, as you used to know it, will be radically altered or completely gone if the ice-caps melt. Not to mention all the species of plants and animals that will go extinct as well.”

  “Wow, this is just…,” started Tubman, “just amazing information. Why do people not want to fix this problem right now!? Right this instant?!” Tubman began to adjust her bandana as if she were about to get up and go solve this climate change problem this instant. She began to sweat and twitch like an epileptic during a rave.

  “Ja, ja!” said Owlbert, “Vee must do something about this now! Or soon!” Owlbert joined Tubman by beginning to have his own mini p
anic attack. They were flustered about all this new information.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, guys! Guys!” said Gora. “It’s a process that humans are dealing with currently and we likely won’t see too much of it concern us in our lifetime – erm, your second lifetime?” Gora had reassured them slightly as the two panicked creatures began to slow their breathing and cool their bodies. “Though, even the little things help: like recycling, not dumping hazardous liquids in our waterways and switching to an electric vehicle! Oh, and not using gasoline powered things when you can. It all adds up!”

  Gora knew, however, that climate change was a dire situation that would lead to the Earth dramatically changing between 2050 and 2100, if not sooner, but did not see the reason in keeping her beasts in a frenzied state. Gora feared what the reaction from Tubman would be if she told the little hare that the sixth major extinction was right around the corner!

  She felt her part in the climate change situation was ridding the scientific community of humans like Dr. Borehole and her ilk that look to purposely misconstrue scientific findings in order to confuse the public. The misconstruing of facts has helped Dr. Borehole become very rich in the process.

  “Thank you, Gora,” said Tubman. “I don’t know what came over me!” Tubman grasped her chest and smiled a smile of relief.

  Owlbert’s feathers had been gently ruffled during that moment of sheer anxiety, but he tucked in any stray feathers to return to his sleek looking self.

  “But what does manmade pollution have to do with this all?” asked Hitbear. “You didn’t explain that part. I think you just proved my point in that the Earth’s climate reacts however it wants!” Hitbear was sure he had won this debate. “The chemicals are naturally found on Earth and Earth produces these chemicals through natural means! Volcanoes surely make most of those toxic chemicals that harm the o-place-thing-zone you mentioned.” Hitbear made a strange motion with his hands to resemble a volcanic eruption and added explosion sounds – that aren’t typical of volcanoes.

  Boom! BOOOSH! Boom! went the man bear, several times to the displeasure of the others.

  “Ah, yes!” said Gora after Hitbear’s volcanic presentation. “I forgot that part – thank you Hitbear!” Gora looked at him mischievously. She was about to throw a dagger right through the heart of his poor argument. “Sure, there are real natural causes that harm the ozone, but it’s miniscule in comparison to manmade pollution! The manmade pollution – from cars, factories, coal mines, houses, even our own butts and cow butts – weakens the atmosphere. Specifically, it weakens the ozone layer in the stratosphere, just like the sunlight, or rays, have been doing for – for a very long time. Except the manmade pollution is escalating the process so much faster than the sunlight has been doing for the past billions of years! We are speeding up the death of life.”

  Hitbear blew air fiercely out his nose and furiously scratched at his neck. He was trying desperately to think of anything to salvage this argument. But Gora had blinded – erm – destroyed him with science and common sense; he had no argument to retort.

  Tubman’s heart began to race once again at the thought of the Earth coming to an abrupt end and fainted dramatically. Gora had not noticed the hare fall on her back. Gora and Hitbear were still debating the merit of “manmade climate change” despite coming to the conclusion that manmade climate change was real.

  Only Owlbert paid mind to the fainting hare. Owlbert began to fan the hare with one of his wings to ease her anxiety stricken body.

  “Not to mention, we humans have changed the landscape of the Earth so much by altering waterways, overfishing oceans and lakes, acidification of oceans, deforestation – this kills the home of an incredible amount of organisms! – and by generally just being the worst organisms to walk the face of the Earth, aside from rats. Rats are the rodent form of humans.” Gora sighed at the thought of how much damage humans have done in such a short amount of time, geologically speaking, but finally smiled because she was finally going to shut up Hitbear.

  Tubman regained her consciousness and thanked Owlbert for fanning her.

  “Psh, that’s dumb,” said Hitbear, knowing that his argument was for naught now.

  “You lost, it’s not dumb,” said Gora with a giant smile on her face. Tubman and Owlbert laughed at Hitbear’s visible frustration.

  “WHATEVER!” screamed Hitbear. “Are we going to kill this woman or pretend that we can actually save the world from its eventual destruction?”

  Chapter 25

  Damage Control!

  It had been nearly a week since Chairman Obelis had various objects hurled at him in a crammed gymnasium in the town of Bella Vista. Jeffrey, and McCarthy behind the veil of a computer and telephone, had been working on damage control.

  Jeffrey was assuaging the situation at hand; the situation that Chairman Obelis had gotten himself into in a smelly, crammed gymnasium at the beginning of a debate. Not often does a debate end before the opening statements even end, but somehow Chairman Obelis accomplished that feat rather swiftly by pissing off every single Bella Vista resident in that gymnasium.

  Luckily for Chairman Obelis, most, if not all, audio recordings of the opening statements caught by local reporters were destroyed since the local reporters, too, were outraged at Chairman Obelis’ harsh opening statement. So outraged, that the reporters threw their audio recorders at Chairman Obelis and the reporters didn’t care to recover them. None of them seemed to report anything of substance other than Chairman Obelis being “highly disrespectful” to the city of Bella Vista and the state of Arkansas.

  There wasn’t a single full video of his opening statement, either, as the expensive local news cameras – which weren’t tossed but knocked over by incoming items – were destroyed or the memory cards malfunctioned, but there were countless upon countless cell phone videos of the items being thrown at the brave, if not stupid, Chairman Obelis standing firm at his podium. The cell phone videos provided several angles of the fracas but the sound was so distorted by the yelling that what Chairman Obelis was saying couldn’t be deciphered.

  The videos quickly found refuge on the internet by way of Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Vine; national media partners and websites quickly played as many of the videos as they could of a political race that they had zero interest in before. The videos were a hit and 24-hour news channels had to cover the hits!

  The videos’ popularity made the Arkansas governor’s race gain immense traction throughout the nation and on websites that shared domestic and foreign views alike. Everyone wanted to know what would happen next in the governor’s race for a state that neither Democrats nor Republicans seemed to care about.

  The videos didn’t harm Chairman Obelis’ campaign or image, outside of Bella Vista, but it led the rest of the nation to believe that Arkansans were a rowdy, brackish bunch that angered easily.

  Which was true; however, Chairman Obelis wanted Arkansas to be the benchmark for how states – American and otherwise – should operate, and wanted every Arkansan to be filled to the brim with knowledge, happiness and curiosity. He knew that the Bella Vistans in that crammed gymnasium were merely acting human, but each view of the videos only reinforced the thought that Arkansans were rowdy and brackish. Mainstream news wouldn’t pull any punches either – let alone scrape up context.

  Every television in Chairman Obelis’ main Arkansas house was turned on, each to a different station. Each station was covering the wild debate videos, even Spanish and Arabic channels were covering the nonsense found in the videos. Most foreign stations mocked the people throwing objects and used it as more fuel, rightfully so in this instance, to poke fun at how Americans act.

  “Cantankerous, and likely drunk, residents of Bella Vista hurled their shoes, chairs, cell phones, and even their children’s diapers at Arkansas gubernatorial candidate, Huxley Obelis,” said one of the 24/7 news stations every time the video played, which was played every fifteen minutes for a week straight. Then played at
every half hour interval for two more weeks.

  “Unruly humans toss debris and their own items at political candidate that hurt their feelings,” read a headline on a popular news site. The accompanied picture was of an elderly woman in raggedy overalls frothing at the mouth; it was an unrelated picture but was used to describe the average person that was in the gymnasium that night to an audience around the world.

  “The people of Arkansas are unhappy with gubernatorial candidate, Huxley Obelis, because he insulted the University of Arkansas football program!” said another all-day news station. “Find out more about the state that cares more about athletics than their own well-being at six during a special broadcast!” Video clips of the University of Arkansas football team went across the screen. Then videos of couches being burned in the streets were shown.

  That obviously wasn’t what inspired the Bella Vistans to hurl items at Chairman Obelis, but Jeffrey decided to run with it considering the media had run with it first. “It’ll be easier to steer this narrative than trying to correct what actually happened,” thought Jeffrey.

  “Chairman Obelis had accidently insulted the University of Arkansas football team!” Jeffrey said into his telephone. “He said something along the lines of, ‘The Razorbacks are to football as chihuahuas are to dogs.’” Jeffrey paused to listen in. “Yes, yes, it clearly angered the folks in that gymnasium as they take great pride in their football team.” A ten second pause took place. “No, thank you, Ms. Santana! Pig sooie to you too! We hope your grandson makes the honor roll too! Have a wonderful day and remember to vote for Chairman Obelis this fall. Goodbye.” Jeffrey hung up the telephone and rubbed his temples. A deep sigh was let out from the skinny assistant. His eyes had dark circles under them.

  “That’s at least the fortieth person that has said pig sooie to me and it’s fucking annoying,” continued Jeffrey. “I’ve always considered athletics stupid, but their chants and traditions are deeply stupider. At least in athletics you are exercising and showcasing your talents, with the chants and traditions you’re just being an annoying twat that doesn’t do jackshit. Team spirit my ass.” He fanned himself with a newspaper with the headline of OBELIS FORCES BELLA VISTA TO THROW DEBATE.