“So, in theory, your colleague lost two-thirds his due,” said Lucas.
“I didn’t understand the media’s reaction,” Jayna said. “What’s so special about living to one hundred rather than ninety-nine?”
“Teasing failure from success,” said Harry.
“Anyway, I don’t believe they should massage the figures to achieve an extra year,” said Julie. “They were even suggesting taking deaths through natural disasters out of the statistics. The facts are the facts.”
“Well, I can tell you one thing,” said Jayna. “I don’t think any massaging would keep Tom Blenkinsop out of the statistics.”
The group of friends fell quiet. Jayna took a piece of bread from the platter at the center of the table and chased the remaining traces of a thin gravy from her plate. Her companions registered her eagerness and, in turn, they too reached towards the bread.
With barely two hours of her evening remaining, Jayna returned to her small room and, prompted by Julie’s remark about the savannah, she downloaded a wildlife program on the Serengeti. She turned to the cage on her bedside table. Hester had given her a branch of privet last week and it was now stripped almost bare. Observing her insects, as she always did in the evening, she jotted a note: Leaves are consumed by an insect that looks like a twig. So what is the difference between a leaf falling and a stick insect dying?
Out on the Serengeti, a lioness pounced at the flanks of a bolting zebra. Jayna had watched hundreds of similar murderous sequences over recent months and she recognized that only a few animals were immune to the carnivorous advances of others. She decided to formalize this thought by writing an essay on food chain hierarchies and biomass diversity. There were plenty of learned treatises already on the subject but she wouldn’t consult them. She preferred to work it out for herself; it all came down to basic mathematics.
The lights in her room dimmed and she prepared herself for a twelve-hour sleep. As she lay in bed she looked into her little wildlife park and, in the remaining half-light, could just discern her twiggy roommates from their twiggy habitat. She knew Hester would bring another privet branch from the suburbs. With family to take care of, she had plenty to think about other than stick insects. And she might be preoccupied over Tom’s death. But she simply wouldn’t forget.
Anne Charnock’s A Calculated Life is available from 47North.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2013 Yvette Owen
Anne Charnock’s writing career began in journalism. Her articles have appeared in the Guardian, New Scientist, International Herald Tribune and Geographical. She has travelled widely as a foreign correspondent and spent a year driving overland through Egypt, Sudan and Kenya.
Although Anne’s education initially focused on science—she studied environmental sciences at the University of East Anglia—she later attended the Manchester School of Art, where she gained a master’s degree in fine art. At the end of her art studies, she began exhibiting her work internationally, and on the quiet, she started writing a novel. Her debut novel, A Calculated Life, was a finalist for the 2013 Philip K. Dick Award and the 2013 Kitschies Golden Tentacle award for a debut novel.
Anne is an active blogger, and she contributes exhibition reviews and book recommendations to the Huffington Post. She splits her time between London and Chester, and whenever possible, she and her husband, Garry, take off in their little camper van. They have recently travelled as far as the Anti-Atlas Mountains in southern Morocco, and they next plan to drive from London to Athens.
Learn more at www.annecharnock.com and on Twitter at @annecharnock.
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