— SciTechDaily, 29 November 2019

No one imagined it would be so easy. All we have to do is sing Come back! Come back! and they come. So we set up enormous woofers and tweeters at all the world’s emptied places and, in languages of bird, insect, worm, and mammal, we sing: Come back! Come back! 

In no time, every creature we’ve driven off the face of earth returns to us. Great auks nest off the Faroes, river dolphins swim the Yangtze, and passenger pigeon blacken North American skies. Trees and flowers lost for ages sprout from sidewalk cracks.

Why stop there? Why not call back the dead parents and the dead children? Come back! Come back! we sing. And they do, streaming into our cities, wandering in the night, confused, unfamiliar with the new buildings and street names. 

Some, mazed by the prodigal greenery, never come home, but for most there are happy, happy reunions. Then we count our empty rooms, and there are not enough. Aunts, great-grandparents, nephews and nieces—where will they sleep? And how do we keep them from harm? 

We rent rooms in economy motels. We clear-cut foliage that causes traffic-jams. To hungry prowling animals we invited back into the world— there are now millions—we shout Go Away! Go Away! And they go. 

Finally, again, it is just us and our houses, snug and silent. At bedtime we tell stories about the sabre-tooth cats who appeared out of nowhere, eating children who wandered, thoughtlessly, out of our houses and into the world. Never leave, we tell our children as we kiss them good-night. Never leave.

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