Margaret Atwood - Oryx and Crake - Chapter 1: Mango, Flotsam, Voice lyrics

Snowman wakes before dawn he lies unmoving
Listening to the tide
Coming in, wave after wave sloshing over
The various barricades, wish-wash, wish-wash
The rhythm of heartbeat he would so like
To believe he is still asleep

On the eastern horizon there’s a greyish
Haze, lit now with a rosy
Deadly glow strange how
That colour still seems tender
The offshore towers
Stand out in dark silhouette against it
Rising improbably out of the pink and
Pale blue of the lagoon
The shrieks of the birds that
Nest out there and the
Distant ocean grinding against
The ersatz reefs of rusted car parts and
Jumbled bricks and assorted rubble sound
Almost like holiday traffic

Out of habit he looks at his watch
– stainless-steel case, burnished
Aluminum band
Still shiny although it no longer
Works he wears it now
As his only talisman a blank face
Is what it shows him: zero
Hour it causes a jolt of
Terror to run through him
This absence of official time nobody nowhere
Knows what time it is

"Calm down, " he tells himself he
Takes a few deep breaths, then
Scratches his bug bites, around but
Not on the itchiest places, taking care
Not to knock off any scabs: blood
Poisoning is the last thing he
Needs then he scans the ground
Below for wildlife: all quiet
No scales and tails left
Hand, right foot, right hand, left foot
He makes his way down
From the tree after brushing off
The twigs and bark
He winds his dirty bedsheet around
Himself like a toga he’s
Hung his authentic-replica
Red Sox baseball cap on a
Branch overnight for safekeeping
He checks inside it, flicks out a spider
Puts it on

He walks a couple of yards to the
Left, pisses into the bushes "Heads up
" he says to
The grasshoppers that whir away at
The impact then he
Goes to the other side of the tree, well
Away from his customary urinal
And rummages around in the
Cache he’s improvised from a
Few slabs of concrete
Lining it with wire mesh to keep out the
Rats and mice he’s stashed
Some mangoes there, knotted in a
Plastic bag, and a can of
Sveltana No-Meat Cocktail Sausages
And a precious half-bottle of Scotch –
No, more like a third
– and a chocolate-flavoured
Energy bar scrounged from a trailer park
Limp and sticky inside it's foil
He can’t bring himself to eat
It yet: it might
Be the last one he’ll ever find he keeps
A can opener there too
And for no particular reason
An ice pick and six empty beer bottles
For sentimental reasons and for storing fresh
Water also his sunglasses he puts
Them on one lens is missing
But they’re better than nothing
He undoes the plastic bag: there’s
Only a single mango left
Funny, he remembered more the
Ants have got in
Even though he tied the bag as tightly
As he could already they’re
Running up his arms, the black kind and the
Vicious little yellow kind surprising what a
Sharp sting they can give
Especially the yellow ones he rubs them away

He bets they didn’t refrain
Though nine times out of ten

"In view of the mitigating, " he says he
Finds himself standing with his mouth open
Trying to remember the rest of
The sentence he sit's down
On the ground and begins to eat the mango

FLOTSAM

On the white beach, ground-up
Coral and broken bones, a group
Of the children are walking they
Must have been swimming
They’re still wet and glistening they
Should be more careful: who knows what may
Infest the lagoon? But they’re unwary
Unlike Snowman, who won’t dip a toe
In there even at night
When the sun can’t get at
Him revision: especially at night

He watches them with envy
Or is it nostalgia? It can’t be
That: he never swam in the sea as a child
Never ran around
On a beach without any clothes on
The children scan the terrain, stoop
Pick up flotsam then they deliberate
Among themselves, keeping some items
Discarding others their treasures go
Into a torn sack
Sooner or later – he can count
On it – they’ll seek
Him out where he sit's wrapped
In his decaying sheet
Hugging his shins and sucking on his
Mango, in under the shade of the trees
Because of the punishing sun for
The children – thick-skinned
Resistant to ultraviolet
– he’s a creature of dimness, of the dusk

Here they come now "Snowman, oh Snowman
" they chant in their singsong way they never
Stand too close to him is that from
Respect, as he’d like to think
Or because he stinks?

(He does stink, he knows that
Well enough he’s rank, he’s
Gamy, he reeks like a walrus – oily, salty
Fishy – not that he’s ever smelled such
A beast but he’s seen pictures)

Opening up their sack, the
Children chorus, "Oh Snowman
What have we found?" They lift
Out the objects, hold them up as if
Offering them for sale: a hubcap, a piano
Key, a chunk of pale-green
Pop bottle smoothed
By the ocean a plastic BlyssPluss container
Empty a ChickieNobs Bucket O’Nubbins, ditto
A computer mouse
Or the busted remains of one
With a long wiry tail

Snowman feels like weeping what
Can he tell them?
There’s no way of explaining to them
What these curious items are, or were but
Surely they’ve guessed what he’ll say
Because it’s always the same

"These are things from before"
He keeps his voice kindly but remote a cross
Between pedagogue, soothsayer
And benevolent uncle – that
Should be his tone

"Will they hurt us?" Sometimes they find
Tins of motor oil, caustic solvents
Plastic bottles of bleach booby
Traps from the past
He’s considered to be an expert on
Potential accidents: scalding liquids
Sickening fumes
Poison dust pain of odd kinds

"These, no, " he says "These are
Safe" At this they lose interest
Let the sack dangle but they
Don’t go away: they stand
They stare their beachcombing is an
Excuse mostly they want to look at him
Because he’s so unlike them every so often
They ask him to take off
His sunglasses and put them
On again: they want
To seewhether he has two eyes really
Or three

"Snowman, oh Snowman, " they’re singing
Less to him than to one another to them
His name is just two syllables they
Don’t know what a snowman is
They’ve never seen snow

It was one of Crake’s rules
That no name could be
Chosen for which a physical
Equivalent – even stuffed, even
Skeletal – could not be demonstrated
No unicorns, no griffins, no
Manticores or basilisks but those
Rules no longer apply
And it’s given Snowman a bitter
Pleasure to adopt this
Dubious label the Abominable Snowman
– existing and not
Existing, flickering at the
Edges of blizzards, apelike
Man or manlike ape, stealthy, elusive
Known only through rumours and
Through it's backward-pointing footprints
Mountain tribes were said to have chased
It down and killed it when they had
The chance they were said to have
Boiled it, roasted it, held special feasts
All the more exciting, he supposes
For bordering on cannibalism

For present purposes he’s shortened
The name he’s only
Snowman he’s kept the abominable to himself
His own secret hair shirt

After a few moments of hesitation the
Children squat down in a half-circle
Boys and
Girls together a couple of the younger ones
Are still munching on their breakfasts
The green juice running down their
Chins it’s discouraging how
Grubby everyone gets
Without mirrors still, they’re
Amazingly attractive
These children – each one
Naked, each one perfect
Each one a different skin
Colour – chocolate, rose, tea, butter, cream
Honey – but each with
Green eyes crake’s aesthetic

They’re gazing at Snowman
Expectantly they must
Be hoping he’ll talk to them
But he isn’t in the mood for
It today at the very
Most he might let them see
His sunglasses, up close, or his
Shiny, dysfunctional watch, or his baseball
Cap they like the cap
But don’t understand his need for such
A thing – removable hair that
Isn’t hair – and he hasn’t yet
Invented a fiction for it

They’re quiet for a bit, staring, ruminating
But then
The oldest one starts up "Oh Snowman, please
Tell us – what is that moss growing out of
Your face?" The others chime
In "Please tell us, please
Tell us!" No nudging
No giggling: the question is serious

"Feathers, " he says

They ask this question at least
Once a week he
Gives the same answer even over such a
Short time – two months
Three? He’s lost count
– they’ve accumulated a stock of lore, of
Conjecture about him: Snowman was
Once a bird but
He’s forgotten how to fly and the rest
Of his feathers fell out, and so he is
Cold and he needs a second skin, and
He has to wrap himself up no:
He’s cold because he eats fish, and fish
Are cold no: he wraps himself up
Because he’s missing his man thing
And he doesn’t want us to see
That’s why he won’t go
Swimming snowman has wrinkles
Because he once lived underwater
And it wrinkled
Up his skin snowman is sad because the others
Like him flew away over the sea
And now he is all alone

"I want feathers too, " says the youngest a
Vain hope: no beards on the men
Among the Children
Of Crake crake himself had
Found beards irrational also
He’d been irritated by the task of shaving
So he’d abolished the need for it though not
Of course for Snowman: too late for him

Now they all begin at once "Oh Snowman
Oh Snowman, can we have feathers too
Please,?"

"No, " he says "Why not
Why not?" sing the two smallest ones

"Just a minute, I’ll ask Crake" He holds
His watch up to the sky
Turns it around on his
Wrist, then puts it to his
Ear as if listening to it they follow each
Motion, enthralled "No
" he says "Crake says you can’t no
Feathers for you now piss off"

"Piss off? Piss off?" They
Look at one another, then at
Him he’s made a mistake, he’s
Said a new thing
One that’s impossible to explain
Piss isn’t something
They’d find insulting "What is piss off?"

"Go away!" He flaps his sheet
At them and they scatter
Running along the beach they’re
Still not sure
Whether to be afraid of him, or how afraid
He hasn’t been known to harm a child
But his nature is not
Fully understood there’s
No telling what he might do

"Now I’m alone, " he says out loud
"All, all alone alone on a wide
Wide sea" One more scrap from the
Burning scrapbook in his head

Seashore

He feels the need to hear a human
Voice – a fully human voice
Like his own sometimes he laughs
Like a hyena or
Roars like a lion – his idea of a hyena
His idea of a lion he used to
Watch old DVDs of such creatures
When he was a child:
Those animal-behaviour programs
Featuring copulation and growling
And innards
And mothers licking their young why had
He found them so reassuring?

Or he grunts and squeals like a pigoon
Or howls like a wolvog: Aroo! Aroo!
Sometimes in the dusk he
Runs up and down on the sand
Flinging stones at
The ocean and screaming, Shit
Shit, shit, shit
Shit! He feels better afterwards

He stands up and raises his arms to stretch
And his sheet falls off he looks
Down at his body with dismay: the grimy
Bugbitten skin, the salt-and-pepper
Tufts of hair
The thickening yellow toenails naked
As the day he was born
Not that he can remember a thing
About that so many crucial
Events take place behind people’s backs
When they aren’t
In a position to watch: birth and death
For instance and the temporary
Oblivion of sex

"Don’t even think about it, " he
Tells himself sex is like drink
It’s bad to start brooding about it
Too early in the day

He used to take good care of
Himself he used to run
Work out at the gym now he can see his own
Ribs: he’s wasting away not enough
Animal protein a woman’s voice
Says caressingly in his ear, Nice
Buns! It isn’t Oryx
It’s some other woman oryx is
No longer very talkative

"Say anything, " he implores her she can
Hear him, he needs to believe that
But she’s giving him the silent
Treatment "What can I
Do?" he asks her "You know I "

Oh, nice abs! comes the
Whisper, interrupting him honey
Just lie back who is it?
Some tart he once bought revision
Professional sex-skills
Expert a trapeze artist, rubber spine
Spangles glued onto
Her like the scales of a fish he hates
These echoes saints used to hear them
Crazed lice-infested hermit's in their
Caves and deserts
Pretty soon he’ll be seeing beautiful demons
Beckoning to him, licking their lips
With red-hot nipples and flickering
Pink tongues mermaids
Will rise from the waves, out
There beyond the crumbling towers
And he’ll hear their lovely singing
And swim out to them and be eaten by
Sharks creatures with the
Heads and breasts of women and the
Talons of eagles will swoop down on him
And he’ll open his arms to them
And that will be the end brainfrizz

Or worse, some girl he knows, or knew, will
Come walking towards him through the trees
And she’ll be happy to see him but she’ll be
Made of air he’d welcome even that
For the company

He scans the horizon
Using his one sunglassed eye: nothing the
Sea is hot metal, the sky a bleached blue
Except for the hole burnt in it by the sun
Everything is so empty water
Sand, sky, trees
Fragments of past time nobody to hear him

"Crake!" he yells "Asshole! Shit-for-brains!"

He listens the salt water is running
Down his face again he
Never knows when that will happen
And he can never
Stop it his breath is coming in gasps
As if a giant hand is clenching around his
Chest – clench, release
Clench senseless panic

"You did this!" he screams at the ocean

No answer, which isn’t surprising
Only the waves, wish-wash
Wish-wash he wipes his fist across his face
Across the grime and tears and
Snot and the derelict’s
Whiskers and sticky mango
Juice "Snowman, Snowman
" he says "Get a life"