Page 121 - Dark Matter Women Witnessing

where he encountered elephants in the wild, he was quickly put off by their size

and their strength; he figured it would take a diesel-powered bulldozer inside the

exoskeleton to even approximate the strength of an elephant. And then there

were other more existential problems. Elephants mourned their dead. A friend

told him what he needed was the services of a shaman who was familiar with

human/animal issues.

When he tells the Scandinavian shaman he consults that he wants to become an

elephant, she sets him back on his heels, or should I say hindlegs. An elephant?

She says “[that is] idiotic. . . . They are completely alien to the environment you’re

connected to.” You are not a bushman in Africa, she reminds him. She sizes

him up, then: “Actually, for you, the Goat.” This triggers a flashback to a very

early childhood memory where he tried to eat a leafy houseplant by nibbling at it

with his teeth. “Annette has gotten it absolutely right,” he thinks. She also gives

him an informative discourse on the history and practices of shamanism and

suggests he undertake a shamanic journey. Which he does.

Thwaites is not looking to become more conscious, to think more; he wants to

not think at all. He is willing to risk his brain to achieve it. As a goat, he does not

need language, he can eliminate the vexations of time—past, present, future—he

does not need hands with opposable thumbs, all those things that gets humans

higher up the species ladder. He charms high-level experts into conspiring with

him on the project; he consults a goat expert, a world-class veterinarian, a

neurologist, and a builder of prostheses. He learns everything he can about

Capra aegagrus hircus, even participating in an autopsy. For nourishment, he

learns to eat grass, something the human gut cannot process. He constructs an

artificial rumen he can spit into, and then later boils the grass mash down to

edible sugar components. Eating grass offends no one. He is willing to re-

purpose his body at great and possibly mortal risk to his present human

incarnation so he can become a goat and cross the Swiss Alps with a herd.