[“How To Read A Language For Animals” Was Originally Published in Porous Skull Magazine And Is Now the End Preface For]
How To Read A Language For Animals
(A Preface for)
He dreams that the whole world is condemned to a strange new plague, a new microbe that attacks the human body. These microbes are endowed with intelligence and will. The infected become mad and furious, but never have they considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth, never have they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible. Whole cities go mad from infection. The most ordinary trades are abandoned, because every one proposes new ideas and improvements, and no one can agree. No one can even agree what is good, and what is evil. The earth is abandoned. The plague spreads. Only a few chosen people will be saved, destined to found a new race, a new life, and renew the earth. But no one has seen these people. No one has heard their voices.
-Fydor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment1
I may not always love you
But long as there are stars above you
You never need to doubt it
I’ll make you so sure about it
God only knows what I’d be without you
-Beach Boys, “God Only Knows,” Pet Sounds
What we want is, I think, what everyone wants, and what you have: civilization.
-Brain Gremlin, Gremlins 2: The New Batch