Saturday, December the 4th, 2004

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The Swiss Family Robinson

Have you ever met someone from Switzerland named Robinson? Someone named Robinson, from Switzerland, who has been shipwrecked? I have. I was sitting in a coffee bar in Old Grimy Town up north, and as I sipped my cocoa and leafed through yesterday's copy of The Old Grimy Town Gazette, in walked Fathead Robinson and Poopy Robinson and their children Ned, Gristle and Sawdust. They sat at my table.

“We are the Swiss Family Robinson,” said Fathead. “We are from Switzerland, and we were shipwrecked.”

I looked at them one by one, trying to see evidence of their ordeal.

“When was this?” I asked.

“Years ago,” said Poopy, “We were rescued by a big boat of birds.”

“A boat of birds?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Ned, “It was a big boat and there were no humans aboard it, only birds. Starlings and chaffinches and buntings and wagtails and corncrakes and linnets and sparrows and swans.”

“Was a swan the captain?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Ned, “How did you guess?”

I fixed him with my one working eye, sipped the dregs of my cocoa, and stood up. Saying nothing, I swept out of the coffee bar, and went straight home to write in my diary. Today I met the Swiss Family Robinson, I wrote, and then I put down my pencil and became lachrymose, thinking about swans imperilled on the high seas, and my parrot, Lascelles, who yearned for Colombia, where he was born, on a bright summer day so many years ago.