LIKE THEY USED TO DO IN THE MOVIES

By

Adam Maxwell

“Colin, those bloody meerkats are smoking my ciggies again!” Sheila screamed.

Colin rounded the corner, conscious of the fact that the zoo would be opening in forty minutes.

“Are you sure?” he said, sputtering to a halt in front of her.

“Of course I’m sure.” Sheila spat out the words with sniper-like precision. “Look, there...”

She gestured towards the meerkat enclosure and sure enough, a meerkat tottered towards the perspex wall that separated the public from the animals, a Marlboro Light hanging lazily from its point snout.

“Where did they get the bloody matches from?” asked Colin.

“What do you mean ‘where did they get the matches from’? They’re bloody meerkats – they shouldn’t know what matches are.”

“True.”

“They shouldn’t! And they shouldn’t know what cigarettes are.”

“Um.”

“And they shouldn’t know how to light them and they shouldn’t know how to smoke them either.” She trailed off, dropping to a sitting position on the ground, hugging her knees and rocking slightly backwards and forwards.

Colin moved forward. He had been waiting for an opportunity just like this; he would comfort her, she would thank him, they would have dinner, a relationship would blossom and eventually this would be a story they told their friends. He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder.

“It’s ever since the smoking ban came into force.” Sheila’s voice had taken on a whimpering quality.

Colin sat down on the ground beside her, put his arm around her.

“It’s alright,” he said. “They’re wily little buggers but they’re not clever. If the monkeys had got hold of them or, god forbid, the emus, then we might have a problem. But the meerkats are just pissing about.”

“Really?” She looked up at him, tears welling in her eyes. “No. No – they’re doing it because the no-smoking signs are up – look.”

Colin looked over and the smoking meerkat sat coughing as close to the no-smoking sign as the enclosure would allow.

“We’ve been friends a long time, haven’t we Colin?”

Colin could feel it. This was his chance, his moment.

“Yes,” he said, holding her a little tighter.

“And I’ve always felt that we see things the same way.”

The butterflies in Colin’s stomach were on steroids, pounding around, shaking up his emotions.

“Yes…”

Sheila snuggled into Colin’s embrace. He thought he might have to go and bum a smoke from the meerkat to calm his nerves.

“Help me kill them.” Sheila stared deep into his eyes. “Wipe them all out. Now, before everyone comes in. We can lace their cigarettes with arsenic like they used to do in the movies.”

Colin was wavering.

“Erm, I’ll have to think about it.”

Sheila kissed him like they used to do in the movies.