A sketch by Jean-Pierre Martinez
One – Ah, you’re there… I didn’t hear you arrive.
Two – And yet it took me quite a while to get to you. I was on the branch just above. I set off twenty minutes ago…
One – Did you have something urgent to tell me?
Two – No, but… I was starting to worry…
One – And why’s that?
Two – You haven’t moved for two hours. What are you thinking about?
One – I was wondering how we managed to survive for millions of years.
Two – Oh, yeah…?
One – And even today, how we manage to live past fifty.
Two – It’s true. I wonder about that too sometimes. Well, not very often…
One – We move incredibly slowly, you can’t say we’re very bright, it takes us nearly a month to digest what we eat…
Two – We only eat leaves, I don’t know why. When there are so many other things far more nourishing than leaves.
One – The world changes, but we always stay the same. We haven’t evolved at all to adapt to our environment…
Two – They say Man descends from the ape, and the ape descends from the tree… We only come down from the tree once a week, and that’s to defecate.
One – I can’t even remember why we do that, actually.
Two – Why do we only defecate once a week?
One – Why do we have to come down from the tree to do it?
Two – I don’t know.
One – Especially since that’s precisely when we’re most vulnerable.
Two – Yeah… On the other hand… our flesh is pretty much rotten, we’re covered in algae and parasites, we smell bad…
One – That’s true… We’re not exactly very appetising.
Two – That must be why we’ve survived all this time.
One – Humans say it’s better to arouse desire than pity… For us sloths, it would be rather the opposite.
Two – Yeah, when you can’t run fast and have nothing to defend yourself with, it’s definitely better to inspire disgust than desire.
One – Even tortoises move faster than we do.
Two – And at least they can always retreat into their shell.
One – Have you ever raced a tortoise?
Two – No… A snail, yes. The snail won. I wasn’t in very good shape that day…
Pause.
One – Right then, shall we go?
Two – Where to?
One – Down there, to defecate.
Two – Is that today?
One – It’s tomorrow, but since it takes us a whole day to come down from the tree…
Two – You’re right…
One – Good thing we don’t need to go, eh?
Two – No…
Blackout.
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A sketch from the collection Of Animals and Men
Link to the collection for free download (PDF)
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https://jeanpierremartinez.net