Ellen Lindquist // Fiction

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The 200-Channel Panda

It started when they put the TV in Ling Ling's cage. They had put one in the gorilla's indoor habitat when he seemed bored. In fact, several of the animals responded well to nature shows. Cats, the zookeepers knew, enjoyed videos of chirping birds. They would stare at the screen and paw at the ephemeral songsters, their hunting instincts whetted and sharpened.

Why shouldn't Ling Ling have been allowed to watch her share of nature shows? Somehow the channel was changed to the shopping channel, and that's when Ling Ling changed. Once, she would dip her bamboo into the algae-strewn water like a breadstick into the most delectable cocktail sauce before chewing on it. Isn't it adorable how she gnaws at her bamboo? the public asked. After the shopping channel was on all day, Ling Ling abandoned her hammock and sat immobilized, dazzled by the display of rotating spaghetti forks and beerbrellas.

Ling Ling sat for hours staring at the musical toothbrush and combination piano, couch and bureau. Was it an evolutionary moment? A lust for the material trappings of human life came over her. No one was able to say how it was Ling Ling got the Visa card or the cell phone. When the shipments began to arrive, everyone assumed someone else had ordered them; they delivered the boxes to her cage. They weren't that surprised when she chased them away so she could open them herself, dragging her long, ragged nails along the taped edges of the boxes.

When the nighttime zookeeper came by to check on her he figured the daytime keeper knew about the chintz clocks and the Anne of Green Gables dolls. He thought some university professor preparing to study her helped her put on the checked Martha Stewart apron and matching oven mitts.

Atlanta resident Ellen Lindquist was a winner in the following contests: E2K’s Net Author Flash Fiction Contest (2003); Fiction Inferno’s Very Short Fiction Contest (2002); Lotus Bloom Journal’s Anniversary Contest (2004); the DeKalb Art Council’s Fiction Contest (1998). She was a semifinalist in Mid-American Review’s Fineline Competition (2001) and a finalist in the Shy Librarian Fiction Contest (2002). Her prose poem “The Erstwhile Wire-Woman” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Purdue Calumet’s Skylark magazine. In 2004, she was invited to submit poetic texts to the London Art Biennial.

Date of Publication: 13 Oct 2006