Emily Protheroe walked out pushing a pram. She was dressed, as in the fashion then, in a long black skirt with a petticoat displaying 5 cm of lace below the skirt, with a brocade waistcoat and a gaily-coloured bonnet atop her head. She was short, dumpy and with a large bust, mousy hair hid below her bonnet. The pram held her baby son, Anthony, who was 9 months old, and gurgled and laughed. She was a devoted mother, supported by her relatively wealthy parents and substantial government handouts, a government racist and given to subsidising the falling birthrate among indigenous inhabitants, which was currently 0.9 for females.
The day was bright after a long, harsh winter, made worse by global warming. The warming had caused the North Atlantic Drift to stop and letting in the harsh Siberian winds.
Emily was very spiritual and attended a strict protestant chapel. She disliked anything physical, and her pregnancy had been rather testing. She hated the morning sickness and the 'bump', and caused backache and varicose veins in her legs. Moreover she hated getting pregnant.
The father was a man called Howard Rope, who was tall, athletic and had a crewcut dyed blond. He was part of her social group and was rumoured to be a graduate in nuclear physics, who'd been recruited to work on American nuclear weapons where he dropped out and worked for a Californian acid-sludge band called Lenticular Drop, whose most famous work was called Neon Nucleus and when played live, often lasted 3 hours (indeed they had a t-shirt which proudly stated 'I slept through Neon Nucleus'), he was also rumoured to be a British Olympics hurdler. Emily had had to get drunk to tolerate intercourse and it was at a party. It was in a dark bedroom that Howard penetrated her, it was very painful and Howard didn't care for her pleasure, he left shortly afterwards. She had been a virgin until then, most girls of her acquaintance having lost their virginity before secondary school. She desired a child above over al, no matter what her congregation thought. She lay there after Howard left, the wetness and pain between her legs, her mind swimming, full of misery and disappointment. He'd subsequently been conscripted into the army to fight in the perennial war in Turkey.
Anthony was the light of her life and worth all she'd been through in terms of intercourse and pregnancy.
She walked out through the Inner Wall where the watchman, Charlie Palmer, stood guard in his sentry box, and across the cobbles. Charlie was elderly with thinning, silver hair and no more than half a dozen yellow teeth. Charlie she knew well, being a friend of her parents. He was forced to work, the government having abolished old age pensions, deciding they were 'unaffordable'. He lived with his wife, called Lucy, in an Elizabethan hovel, which they rented for an extravagant amount. She also said hello to the Man In The Wall, whose name was long forgotten. He had been bricked up in the wall, his legs and genitals amputated for some offence, his arms and head left free. He'd been expected to starve to death but Charlie Palmer fed him, Emily Palmer cooked for him despite their abject poverty. Charlie also cleared his shit trough into the gutter, which led into the river.
Emily Protheroe was blissfully unaware she was being watched by a pterodactyl. She continued to push the pram across the cobbles when the pterodactyl swooped, gliding from a steeple near the Inner Wall, and grabbed Anthony in its finely-toothed beak, its streamlined head containing a brain smaller than a pigeon's egg.
It had a wingspan of about 2 metres. It was light brown in colour and had no fur or feathers, surviving the winter by hibernating in a crevice in the steeple. Pterodactyls had been created by bio-engineering from DNA from a chicken, an owl and an iguana; they'd been created to eliminate a rat population explosion in several declining cities like Detroit, San Francisco and Denver. How they'd got to Britain was unknown. The pterodactyls were so successful they not only countered the rat population explosion but were experiencing a vast population so far. To remedy this scientists had created a new animal called katzen. They were like sloths in body plan but were more ugly, resembling mediaeval gargoyles. They were called katzen because the lead scientist had been overheard experiencing a hangover at the time and hiccupped when he mentioned this. Katzen were found clinging to vertical buildings and even gave birth on high places, their pups clinging to the vertical surface. The bioengineers didn't even try to install instinct in their progeny. It being unnecessary as the animals in the first generation learned by experience and by the second had instinct installed.
Emily screamed and chased the pterodactyl or about a hundred metres, then she fell, grazing her knees despite her heavy skirt, her petticoat and thick tights. She sobbed. There was no way she could catch the $P, already having achieved the height of ten metres.
Charlie Palmer fetched his single-shot, bolt action rifle from his sentry box and unleashed a shot from his rifle. He missed. The pterodactyl was a long way away, little more than a dot on the horizon. Charlie was short-sighted but he couldn't afford spectacles. He was also a little drunk, having drunk a bottle of wine that morning.He reloaded and shot again despite the pterodactyl being out of sight.
Emily returned to her bedsit, depressed, after all she'd lost Anthony. After a few days she complained to the council about pterodactyls. The council sacked Charlie for being frequently drunk. Charlie and Lucy disappeared from their Elizabethan house. The Man In The Wall starved to death without Charlie's support.
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