“Come on kids. Don’t lag behind or you’ll get lost in the crowd.”
“Dad, why is everyone speaking Chinese,” asks the little boy.
“Papa, I wanna see the Animal Boy exhibit. Please, pretty please,” says the little girl.
The family of three, walking hand in hand, passes under the arch of Kyiv’s World Fair Grounds with no little ease, being bumped and scrunched and sometimes literally lifted off their feet by the crowd of tumultuous but generally good-natured fairgoers.
Once inside, they step onto the moving walkway, which takes them on an accelerated tour of the grounds. There’s an electrical show going on overhead, with real thunder and lightning being controlled from a glass tower below. The pavilions feature mostly Asian-manufactured robots: some walking and talking historical figures, others life-size dinosaurs or recently extinct large mammals.
A magnetic crane can just be seen on the other side of the fair lifting a huge monumental figure into place.
“Dad, look! There’s a Boss Lard fast-food joint. Can we get something to eat? I’m starving.”
“Papa, remember how you told us how you used to go to Boss Lard’s when you were a teenager?”
“Yes, I took your mother to one on our first date. She got sick, and I rushed her home on my air board.”
All laugh.
Once inside, the father and daughter take a seat at a booth and begin ordering from the computerized menu. The boy, wild with excitement, soon joins them with a disposable Internet screen displaying a brief history of Boss Lard’s Fast Food Family Restaurant.
“Dad, it says here that Boss Lard was a ‘PR supremo’ in Kyiv in the old days…”
“Yeah son, that means he got paid to lie for corporate clients, making them look better than they really were.”
“Cool!”
“Actually not, son: He sowed a lot of confusion in the minds of the public, making a handsome profit for his troubles. Ukrainian historians largely hold him responsible for the death of the English-language weekly.”
“But he sure makes a tasty cloned cow burger,” pipes in the daughter.
“You’re right there, honey. Toward the end of his career, Lard went into the fast-food business, but unfortunately didn’t live long enough to see it really blossom.”
“Dad, you know everything!”
“Well, I like to read.”
“Papa, you promised that we would check out the Animal Boy exhibit. Please, pretty please.”
“Sure, I haven’t forgotten.”
After waiting in line for more than half an hour, the family of three comes into view of the strange glass encasement known as Animal Boy’s Lair. This is the first time that the exhibit has been on public display in Kyiv in almost a decade, due to continuous scholarly research into what’s known as the Animal Boy phenomenon.
“Now ladies and gentlemen, please note the loincloth crudely fashioned from what was then known as a ‘newspaper.’
“Why is his hair all stiff, and his skin covered in mud? Is he a punk rocker?”
“No, no, no. Punk rockers pre-date Animal Boy by at least twenty years, although there are plenty of extant visual records of Ukrainian and other youth dressing up like their parents did as a sort of fashion statement.”
“So why does he look like that?”
“Well, we’re not sure. But recent research has suggested that he might have been a survivor of a lost tribe pushed into the city during the great environmental disaster at the beginning of this century.”
“Wow, did you hear that, Papa?”
“Yes, an interesting theory.”
“It’s more than just a theory, citizen. Linguists believe that he – that is, Animal Boy – may have even spoken a rare and now totally extinct language, or at least a highly isolated dialect.”
“Is it true that he ate waxed paper and attacked people who ventured into the trees, where he lived?”
“It’s possible – certainly some of the Internet literature that has survived seems to suggest this.”
“Cool.”
The kids exit the exhibit building, which is almost completely dark – either for effect or to preserve the rare specimen – rubbing their eyes still full of wonder and disbelief.
“Dad, what’s that big thing in the distance sticking out over the electronic curtain?”
“I don’t know. Shall we go take a look?”
As the familial trio near what turns out to be a huge square filled with countless onlookers, including municipal officials and international dignitaries seated near the front, a colossus – more than fifty feet high – stands freshly unveiled while a robot marching band plays spirited music, and security men with zip guns scan the crowd for terrorists.
“Papa, lift me onto your shoulders. I can’t see anything.”
An Asian man in a spacesuit is addressing the crowd from a stage set up at the foot of the statue.
“Ladies and Gentlemen. We are gatered here today to pay homage to da fater of creative self-identity, to da servant of situational success, to an entrepreneur, an executive and a writer – Welsh Losser!”
The microwave sound system blasts the roar of a cheering crowd across the square, forcing many to plug their ears with their fingers.
An ancient figure among the municipal officials folds over to vomit on the spot, only to be taken out by a zip gun and dragged by the feet to the sidelines of the square.
The colossus, made of 100% reinforced plastic, is illuminated from within by a powerful battery that simultaneously sets its prominently displayed wristwatch a-ticking, while a powerful gust of hot air is emitted from the mouth.
“My grandfather told me that he was just a lapdog,” says a curly redheaded kid from atop one of the pavilion roofs well beyond the perimeter of the heavily guarded square.
“His surname actually means ‘loser’ or someone who’s accomplished nothing of merit,” says his tow-headed companion. “I read it in a book I found in our basement.”
At this point, what appears to be bird droppings – although virtually all the planet’s birds are now extinct – begin to pelt the pavilion roof, sending the two tikes scurrying down to ground level in playful disgust.
“Heh, heh.”
Filed by Dirk Dickerson, June 22, 2013