作者： 瑞秋·史威斯基 翻译：瓦力 （2015年雨果奖获奖短篇）
亲爱的，如果你是一头恐龙，你一定会是一头霸王龙。你应该不大，只有1米78，和人类的你一样高。款款而行的步伐，似乎想要证明你脆弱的骨骼能够支撑起巨大的脚爪。突起眉骨下的双眼，总是温柔地凝视着远方。
如果你是一头霸王龙，我就是你的饲养员，我愿用我的一生伴你左右。我会用生的鸡肉，活的山羊喂养你。我会注视着你齿间的血渍。我会把我的床安放在你潮湿泥泞、铺满枯叶的笼子里。当你睡眼蒙胧，我会为你吟唱《摇篮曲》。
当我为你吟唱《摇篮曲》，你会很快跟着应和。你狂野不羁的声音，让我们的旋律变得如此的奇异。当你以为我已睡去，你会唱着无尽的情歌直至夜深。
当你唱着无尽的情歌直至夜深，我会带你远行。我们会来到百老汇的剧院。当你站在舞台之上，你的巨爪深深陷入舞台的地板。观众们被你忧郁的歌声深深打动，潸然泪下。
当观众们被你忧郁的歌声深深打动，潸然泪下，他们会毫不犹豫地为复活灭绝物种的研究倾囊相助。资金会像洪水般涌入科研机构。生物学家会在鸡的身上实施逆向工程，直到他们发现赋予它尖牙利齿的方法。古生物学家将挖掘各种古生物化石以寻找胶原蛋白的线索。基因学家们将深入研究基因序列编码对生物的影响，从瞳孔的大小到大脑如何构建日暮的印象，直到他们从无到有，创造出一头恐龙，成为你的伴侣。
如果他们为你创造了一个伴侣，我会在婚礼上和它一争高下。当你们在婚礼上互诉誓言，我会身着绿色的雪纺裙（伴娘裙）呆呆地看着你们。我会充满嫉妒，还有悲伤。我是多么想嫁给你。然而，我知道，那个分享着你的血肉和基因模板的同类也许更加适合你。我会紧紧盯着站在教堂圣坛前的你们，我深深知道，此时的我比任何时候都更加深深爱着你。我知道我们的爱如此不同，却又如此的古老。你给我带来了无比的幸福，我也要给予你我所有的爱。我们需要的仅仅是一个爱的证明。
如果我们需要的仅仅是一个爱的证明，我会飞奔着穿过教堂，让鞋跟击打着大理石的路面，来到教堂前排的花瓶前。我会拔出瓶中的绣球，驱散所有心头的阴云。再一次，我把它们插入自己的心中，我的心便会像花儿一般绽放。我的快乐幻化成花瓣，我的裙子变成绿叶，我的双腿缠绕成花茎，我的头发凝结成花蕊，蜜蜂将从我的喉咙采撷异域的甘露。我要让所有在场的人惊得目瞪口呆，我要让那些自以为生活在科学世界里的古生物学家、生物学家、基因学家和记者从双螺旋-化石的陷阱中清醒过来，我们生活在一个一切都会发生的魔法世界。
如果我们生活的是一个一切都会发生的魔法世界，亲爱的，你将是一头恐龙，充满勇气和力量，但也温情脉脉。你的利爪尖牙会轻易吓退你所有的敌人。然而…………你只是一个可爱、脆弱的人类。你能仰仗的也仅仅只是你的智慧和魅力。
一头霸王龙，哪怕是小小的一头，都不必畏惧五个喝得烂醉的暴徒。一头霸王龙，只要微微露出它的利齿，那些恶徒便会逃之夭夭。他们必然不敢掀翻桌子，而是躲在桌底瑟瑟发抖。他们必然不敢抄起桌球杆砸向你，而是先走为上。他们必然不敢口出秽言辱骂你，嘶吼着看着你慢慢倒在血泊之中。
亲爱的，如果你是一头恐龙，我将教你如何辨识他们的气味。我将悄悄地把你带到他们身边，哦，静悄悄的。他们仍然会看到你，他们会逃跑。你的鼻孔会喷出火焰，就像曾吸入了整个黑夜。你会像猎手一般突然袭击，把他们的生命，那些闪着光的红色液体从他们的身体中倒出。我则会站在你的身边，哈哈地狂笑。
如果我哈哈地狂笑，我最终会感到内疚。我会发誓不再这么做。我会从刊登那些失去丈夫的寡妇和失去父亲的孩子的悲惨报道中移开我的视线。就像他们也会在刊登我照片的报道中移开他们的视线一样。无论那些记者如何喜爱我的这张脸，这都是一张计划了一半婚礼、订好了绣球和绿色的雪纺伴娘裙的古生物学家未婚妻的脸。一个陪伴着也许永远无法醒来的古生物学家的未婚妻。
亲爱的，如果你是一头恐龙，那一定没有人能够打败你，如果没有人能够打败你，就一定没有人能够打败我。我将绽放成一朵最美的鲜花，向着太阳恣意地伸展。你的利爪尖齿将会保护着你/我/我们，直至永远。不再有桌球杆留下的伤痕，不再有护士经过走廊的踢踏声，和一颗破碎了的心。
完
If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love
by Rachel Swirsky on Mar 5, 2013 in Short Fiction
If you were a dinosaur, my love, then you would be a T-Rex. You’d be a small one, only five feet, ten inches, the same height as human-you. You’d be fragile-boned and you’d walk with as delicate and polite a gait as you could manage on massive talons. Your eyes would gaze gently from beneath your bony brow-ridge.
If you were a T-Rex, then I would become a zookeeper so that I could spend all my time with you. I’d bring you raw chickens and live goats. I’d watch the gore shining on your teeth. I’d make my bed on the floor of your cage, in the moist dirt, cushioned by leaves. When you couldn’t sleep, I’d sing you lullabies.
If I sang you lullabies, I’d soon notice how quickly you picked up music. You’d harmonize with me, your rough, vibrating voice a strange counterpoint to mine. When you thought I was asleep, you’d cry unrequited love songs into the night.
If you sang unrequited love songs, I’d take you on tour. We’d go to Broadway. You’d stand onstage, talons digging into the floorboards. Audiences would weep at the melancholic beauty of your singing.
If audiences wept at the melancholic beauty of your singing, they’d rally to fund new research into reviving extinct species. Money would flood into scientific institutions. Biologists would reverse engineer chickens until they could discover how to give them jaws with teeth. Paleontologists would mine ancient fossils for traces of collagen. Geneticists would figure out how to build a dinosaur from nothing by discovering exactly what DNA sequences code everything about a creature, from the size of its pupils to what enables a brain to contemplate a sunset. They’d work until they’d built you a mate.
If they built you a mate, I’d stand as the best woman at your wedding. I’d watch awkwardly in green chiffon that made me look sallow, as I listened to your vows. I’d be jealous, of course, and also sad, because I want to marry you. Still, I’d know that it was for the best that you marry another creature like yourself, one that shares your body and bone and genetic template. I’d stare at the two of you standing together by the altar and I’d love you even more than I do now. My soul would feel light because I’d know that you and I had made something new in the world and at the same time revived something very old. I would be borrowed, too, because I’d be borrowing your happiness. All I’d need would be something blue.
If all I needed was something blue, I’d run across the church, heels clicking on the marble, until I reached a vase by the front pew. I’d pull out a hydrangea the shade of the sky and press it against my heart and my heart would beat like a flower. I’d bloom. My happiness would become petals. Green chiffon would turn into leaves. My legs would be pale stems, my hair delicate pistils. From my throat, bees would drink exotic nectars. I would astonish everyone assembled, the biologists and the paleontologists and the geneticists, the reporters and the rubberneckers and the music aficionados, all those people who—deceived by the helix-and-fossil trappings of cloned dinosaurs– believed that they lived in a science fictional world when really they lived in a world of magic where anything was possible.
If we lived in a world of magic where anything was possible, then you would be a dinosaur, my love. You’d be a creature of courage and strength but also gentleness. Your claws and fangs would intimidate your foes effortlessly. Whereas you—fragile, lovely, human you—must rely on wits and charm.
A T-Rex, even a small one, would never have to stand against five blustering men soaked in gin and malice. A T-Rex would bare its fangs and they would cower. They’d hide beneath the tables instead of knocking them over. They’d grasp each other for comfort instead of seizing the pool cues with which they beat you, calling you a fag, a towel-head, a shemale, a sissy, a spic, every epithet they could think of, regardless of whether it had anything to do with you or not, shouting and shouting as you slid to the floor in the slick of your own blood.
If you were a dinosaur, my love, I’d teach you the scents of those men. I’d lead you to them quietly, oh so quietly. Still, they would see you. They’d run. Your nostrils would flare as you inhaled the night and then, with the suddenness of a predator, you’d strike. I’d watch as you decanted their lives—the flood of red; the spill of glistening, coiled things—and I’d laugh, laugh, laugh.
If I laughed, laughed, laughed, I’d eventually feel guilty. I’d promise never to do something like that again. I’d avert my eyes from the newspapers when they showed photographs of the men’s tearful widows and fatherless children, just as they must avert their eyes from the newspapers that show my face. How reporters adore my face, the face of the paleontologist’s fiancée with her half-planned wedding, bouquets of hydrangeas already ordered, green chiffon bridesmaid dresses already picked out. The paleontologist’s fiancée who waits by the bedside of a man who will probably never wake.
If you were a dinosaur, my love, then nothing could break you, and if nothing could break you, then nothing could break me. I would bloom into the most beautiful flower. I would stretch joyfully toward the sun. I’d trust in your teeth and talons to keep you/me/us safe now and forever from the scratch of chalk on pool cues, and the scuff of the nurses’ shoes in the hospital corridor, and the stuttering of my broken heart.
End
