I hope you're not expecting something exciting from the start. As a `zoo animal' in a cage, not much changes in my life from day to day.
In fact, Mr. Hammond's absence made things twice as monotonous as before. I imagine if he'd never returned to the island, I would have nothing to recount at all.
I spent so much time alone.
In solitary confinement, you have to acquire a tolerance for boredom.
The scientists included Mr. Roger's Neighborhood as part of my education. When Mr. Rogers said I was special, and that he liked me, I felt he said it directly to me. I also liked watching the little puppet shows.
Since I owned a collection of dinosaur toys and puppets, I spent hours playing with them, making up stories about what they did in the little doll houses. The Ninja Turtles and He-Man would come to visit.
I owned Spiderman comics that I'd read from time to time. I used to have a Nintendo, but I got frustrated trying to beat the second quest on Zelda and smashed up the console. They understandably didn't want to give me another one.
Anyway, I kept myself entertained, but I couldn't do much about the loneliness.
And now that Mr. Hammond had taken off, it felt even worse. Mr. Henry Wu just wasn't the same.
The tan, black haired man visited the observation booth once a day, clad in labcoat. He did not seem too overly happy to see me.
During those days, he would take out a tape recorder and say, "Hello, Albert. How are you today?" though I could tell he didn't care. Well, not for me as a person.
He seldom if ever used `The Batphone', or visited me more than once per twenty four hours.
Our conversations fairly resembled a session with a psychologist. "And how does that make you feel?" Or "I'd rather not talk about me. Let's talk about you."
I told him the usual stuff about being lonely and wishing to have dinosaurs my age to play with.
"Sorry. Wish I could do something about that, but we don't have approval for more of that sort of cloning in the program...Unless you want to try your luck in the raptor paddock again."
I shuddered. "No thank you."
One day I felt philosophical, wondering what would become of me once my life ended in this little prison cell. "Do you think I have a soul?"
"I don't know," the man said. "What do you think?"
From his tone and facial expression, I kinda got the impression that he didn't. "You don't, do you?"
"It doesn't matter what I think. What you believe is important to you and it is valid, regardless of what I think about it."
Or whether or not it's true, I thought.
I snarled at him. "That is not an answer!"
"I am not here to provide them. I'm just here to listen."
I blew air through my nostrils. It took an entire minute to dial back my anger. "Mr. Hammond gave me a bible."
"I am aware of that. What did you think of it?"
"I do not know if I will go to heaven or hell when I die."
"And how does that make you feel?"
After that session, I once again found myself alone.
Oh, by the way. Yo habla español.
One hazard of living off the coast of a South American country is that you don't have much of a selection when it comes to radio. I had marine band, the endlessly repeating weather station, and Ministerio Montaña Del Fuego. In regards to the latter, their transmitter must have been taller than the Tower of Babel.
Our compound had radio stations of its own, but they tended to be contrived theme park music and repetitive lectures about dinosaurs, for various `zones,' and they'd only play at random times before going silent for long periods of time. One channel played only classical music, and I became somewhat weary of the genre.
I listened to it a lot, perhaps because it was live and on all day, the music sounded lively, featured choirs.
I liked the stories I heard, not only from Santa Biblia, but also the anecdotal tales about other things, like juego del futbol. All these things moved me like nothing else had, in ways I couldn't comprehend.
I mention this because that day after my `spiritual' discussion in Mr. Hammond's absence, the loneliness and isolation finally got to me. As the man on the radio, in Spanish, spoke about the nature of pecado, the guilt and shame I felt about mauling my keepers weighed especially heavy upon me, and as the program progressed, acepté a Jesucristo en mi corazon.
I know, this is a dinosaur speaking, but Padre Santiago didn't specify.
In fact, if I had access to a satphone, I could have dialed a number and gotten a free instructional booklet and possibly discussed making a sizable donation to keep their giant transmitter in operation.
As I tuned the radio dial, I came across CB chatter about raptors mauling one of the handlers. At first I thought it had something to do with me, and got to feeling guilty again, but as they described the incident, the details didn't add up.
I asked Wu about it the next morning, but he seemed hesitant to tell me anything. I guess I don't blame him. You wouldn't tell a death row inmate that the fellow on the other side of the jail got free.
"It wasn't me, I take it?"
He shook his head, but wouldn't say more, except, "The situation is being handled."
"Not too well, by the sound of it."
"Hmph."
"Did this happen recently?"
"No."
It figures. Nobody told me anything.
Not much else happened that day, or the days following. Henry didn't tell me where Mr. Hammond went, or what he was doing. I spent a lot of time lying on the floor, staring out the window.
When the helicopter came flying back across the lagoon, I excitedly pounced the glass like a dog.
You can throw large heavy objects (like, say for example, an ottoman) at the glass and it won't shatter.
I tuned the radio dial to see if I could catch any information.
Not much. The chopper made a lot of noise. I heard something about landing clearance, some people talking in the background. Three men and a woman, I guessed. Only the pilots and Hammond I recognized. I couldn't understand a word they said over the engine and radio interference.
About ten or fifteen minutes later, a Jeep came rolling over the hill, bearing a group of strangers: A blonde lady in a tank top, a guy in a hat, a suited individual and a frowning man with slicked black hair and a leather jacket.
The Jeep stopped, the passengers rising from their seats and gawking at the large herbivores loping about the hillside.
By the way, since they go past my window so much, I've actually named these creatures. Geoffrey the speckly Brontosaurus, for example.
They loved Geoff.
The Jeep rolled up to the building.
Mr. Hammond called me on `The Batphone,' but he sounded distracted. "How have you been, Albert?"
"Bored."
"Mr. Wu wasn't enough company for you?"
"No." I hesitated to say more, he could have been listening in.
"Well that's too bad, really it is. Albert, this is going to be a very busy week, you see, my guests have arrived. I also have a lawyer investigating a few things. Raptors mauling people, he's come to look into it. I have to manage everything, so I'm going to be stretched rather thin. I don't think I'm going to be able to visit you as much as you like. I hope you don't mind..."
I rolled my eyes.
"I'm pleased to hear that you were well behaved. I hope you will continue to do so. This is a very important week for both of us."
"Yes, father."
The man fell silent, sounded like he were about to hang up.
"Father, I think I've become a Christian."
I got a long silence in reply. "That's...nice. At...least you'll have someone to talk to now, eh?"
I nodded.
"That's a good boy. I will talk to you again when I find more time."
I wished I were busy. When Hammond hung up, I had a lot of nothing to do, or see.
It would have been nice if I had access to the security cameras, just to observe the happenings downstairs, but that's another thing you don't give people in jail. I hadn't even been given a map of the building. I wouldn't know what to do in the event of a fire. Die, I suppose.
Another helicopter came in. A staff guy took off with the Jeep, returning a few minutes later with two children.
Vaguely familiar. I might have seen them once in my lifetime before.
I'd stared out the window for about a half hour before those Range Rovers on electric tracks drove around to the front of the building, and our visitors, including the children, climbed in.
The moment these vehicles moved down the track, my radio notified me of a tropical storm moving in.
A big storm.
To be continued