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The Fabulous Phanerozoic!*

"I need to get away," Charles announced the day mandatory overtime ended. "Now!"

They thought about the Jovian moons, but Charles didn't want to be "cooped up in a metal can."

"What about the past? Peace and quiet. No cans," Sylvie suggested.

--

The Watsons marveled at the primitive landscape. Plants grew only near the shore. No animal bigger than a cricket lived on land. In the sea, trilobites like spiny pill bugs grazed on azure and emerald algae, brachiopods clacked, brittle stars writhed, and "rocks" crawled across minute stone forests. Mr. Watson questioned the pretty young tour guide about everything from the short Ordovician nights to what it was like living in the past.

And of course, soon the children were bored. The arcade sucked them in. They tossed ping-pong balls to win pet trilobites. They rode Bumper Jellies and the Amazing Flingatron. And they got hungry. Jimmy and Timmy were as picky as any kids, but somehow the food vendor talked them into trying fried trilobite. Sylvie was astonished that her children liked the leggy things.

"And they're not sold now? I mean, in the future?"

"Not available after the Permian."

That conversation took place 450 million years and two weeks before Charles ran off with the exchange student from Ganymede.

--

"Should have seen this coming," Sylvie told herself, editing Charles out of the family albums. "Hope she gives him SAIDS."

A single mother of two, Sylvie had to supplement the meager alimony payments somehow. Surely anyone could write a cookbook. Combine that with a unique import business....

"How to eat trilobite

"Boil them like crabs. The ventral skeleton is scarcely mineralized. People peel shrimp. You don't have to peel a trilobite. Grasp the legs firmly between thumb and forefinger and yank them off. Spread flavored butter, paté, cocktail sauce, or any edible paste on the ventral surface. Scrape the meat out with your teeth. You can't eat the shells, but they're great for the garden. Lots of calcium.

"This is how you eat ptychoparioids, phacopids, or any average-size variety. The tiny agnostids, which spend their whole lives swimming in the plankton, are best tossed into soup. In the soft-shell phase they can be sprinkled on salads.

Some isotelids are 2 feet long. One of these babies will feed the whole family! They are best grilled, the dorsal shell providing a natural dish to keep sauces on the meat and prevent drips. The legs are large enough to crack and eat like crab legs."

I could name that recipe after Charles, Sylvie thought.

Publ. Daily Cabal, 2009

*Eon of visible life.