The New Old Days - a RESURRECT story for Whimword, 14th July 2017

In the year 2000, the last Pyrenean ibex died, crushed by a falling tree. Nine years later, scientists successfully brought it back to life via cloning. A landmark in biology: the first extinct taxon to be raised from the dead. Alas, no sooner had they achieved this remarkable feat than the fruit of their labour died from respiratory failure. It was alive for seven minutes, giving the Pyrenean ibex the dubious distinction of being the only creature to go extinct twice.

*

Sir Edwin de Machin-Hague X picked up a book a pauper had left on the tube. This was stupendously unlikely for two reasons: firstly he was using the tube for charity. Ordinarily he never would. Secondly he seldom touched anything a peasant had previously owned, least of all a book, as his were all far superior, the knowledge bound within them of an altogether better quality than that cack-handed white-collar fare. Nevertheless he skimmed a few pages and lighted on the story of the Pyrenean ibex, and subsequent ignominious homecoming, and it gave him an idea. 

It was a year in the belly of the 21st Century, and most megafauna was long dead. Particularly in the parish of England, which was ruled with an iron fist lubed with the twin tenets of stupidity and an especially banal brand of evil. Yet here Sir Edwin was, perched proudly on his jumentarious equine, charging through a sea of beagles at a terrified vulpes trumpeting merrily like a toddler with a gutful of bean casserole. In seconds the fox was dead, and Sir Edwin, otter-like (well something had to be since the waterways had started melting angler’s hooks) slipped and slid happily in the blood of its breached jugular.

When he was thoroughly coated, he climbed to his feet, panting exultantly, and invited his tenth child, Dix, to bathe and wallow just as he had. Don’t waste a drop! he warned, that stuff wasn’t cheap…

As the coppery paste streaking his face dried in the noonday sun, he slung his bugle horn over his shoulder and trudged up to his manservant Thingface.

“Afternoon, twat,” he said happily, licking the proto-black pudding from around his lips, “and what a smashing one it is, what?”

“Aye, sir” replied Thing flatly, proffering his owner a towel. Sir Edwin took it and dabbed his eyelashes, upon which blood still clung like morning dew. He threw the incarnadine material back at Thing, hitting him squarely in his strangely indefinable face.

“Good Lord,” breathed Sir Edwin suddenly, “it must be twenty years since the boffins came up trumps, what?”

“To the day, sir” murmured Thing phlegmatically. Sir Edwin held up the fox’s disembodied head.

“Which would make this number…?”

“1,972, sir” said Thing.

“Crikey!” exclaimed Sir Edwin, “must be some sort of record.”

“I expect so, sir” mumbled Thing. But Sir Edwin wasn’t listening. He cupped a hand to his mouth, and pitched across the downs.

“Come, Dix!”

And with that they set off, back towards the estate.