Please enjoy the next post in Murdertrout, Chapter 8 of Attack of the Lesbian Activist Squirrels. Comments are welcome. Tips via the PayPal link to the right are also welcome but always optional.
Merry Christmas and happy reading.
Ignoring Brett and Cindy’s argument, The Curmudgeon snatched up Brett’s iPad. He read quickly, swiping through several pages of text. Brett didn’t notice because he was too busy cringing at Cindy’s shouting. Cindy was too pissed to care.
“You’re wrong.” The Curmudgeon pronounced, as if his word was law. This brought Brett and Cindy to a halt. They’d been unaware the scruffy fisherman intended to insert himself in their debate.
The raptor you’re looking for isn’t gay. It’s trans-species. You’ve conflated gender with species. Also,” The Curmudgeon continued, “it’s probably wicked stupid.”
“What!??” The university students exclaimed in unison. In four sentences The Curmudgeon had violated at least a dozen hate speech codes. Cindy looked around in case someone had overheard (unlikely in a forested parking spot near a river but you can never be sure). Brett started with the counter arguments that sprang, Pavlovian style, into his head. (It never occurred to him to question how certain “facts” sprang directly to mind given the appropriate cue.)
“First of all… we never say “gay”.” Bret was ticking off talking points on his fingers. “Second, if a creature wishes to identify as…”
“Relax Poindexter.” The Curmudgeon interrupted. “Spare me the logic behind your rooster egg omelet.” He beamed expansively. “I’m here for the same reason you are.”
“What?” Cindy repeated for a second time.
“This habitat, the water conditions; something about it leads to the dumbest fish for two hundred miles.”
Brett and Cindy stood there dumbstruck. What the hell was the man saying?
“I’m unsure about the actual environmental processes involved,” The Curmudgeon was sounding something like an old school professor, or an idiot, “but this particular drainage produces trout of exceptionally low intelligence.”
He paused. Brett and Cindy stayed silent so he expanded further.
“Fly fishing for trout is a pain in the ass. Tying up bits of fluff to make a floating likeness of a mayfly? That sucks. So I explored a bit and came here. These trout are the gullible idiots of the trout world.” He smiled happily at his own innovation. “I fish here to improve my self esteem by interacting with stupid exploitable retarded trout.”
Brett and Cindy were at a loss. They both sat down on the bank. Finally Brett prompted for more. “And?”
“I think it has to do with the University.” The Curmudgeon happily expounded. “We’re only a few miles downstream of the municipal water treatment plant. It serves mostly to process University effluent. I think the stupid gullibility of the University students is somehow passed on to the fish.”
“So the fish are somehow harmed by pollution?” asked Brett.
“More like, they lack individualized decision making.”
“Brain damaged?” Cindy suggested.
“Socialist.” The Curmudgeon corrected.
It was too much for Brett. “Are you implying political views are waterborne!?!”
“I think so. Or more like stupidity is infectious when concentrated.”
“So the trout go on strikes and protest?” Brett mocked.
“Not quite.” The Curmudgeon answered without defensiveness. He hadn’t detected Brett’s mockery. “You know how a baby bird in the nest just sits there demanding to be fed; for no other reason than it expects it? That seems to happen here. That’s why I catch fish with these.” He held up an M&M.
“That’s nuts!” Cindy exclaimed.
The Curmudgeon tossed a fun sized bag to Cindy, who gobbled it up before realizing the joke. Brett giggled.
“No proper trout should want a candy coated chocolate nugget. They should want a bug or worm. Right?” The Curmudgeon continued.
Brett and Cindy nodded.
“But when conditions are right, they’ll eat anything. How’s that for proof?”
“So they turn into baby birds?” Cindy grumbled.
“Almost, but less… um…” The Curmudgeon grasped for a descriptor, “…self-aware. Yes, that’s it. A baby bird demands it gets fed which implies some level of sentience. The stupid tuns them into something like a filter feeder that just assumes the food is there. An oyster, but dumber; a barnacle!” The Curmudgeon spoke it proudly, as if he’d communicated a deep truth of the Universe, across a vast gulf of unseen knowledge which the two students lacked. From his point of view, the University was an accretion of so much stupidity that it overflowed the natural order of things and turned trout from bug eating aquatic predators to pseudo-barnacles that eat chocolate.
“Bullshit.” Concluded Brett.
“Furthermore”, The Curmudgeon ignored him, “a raptor exposed to those fish will surly think itself highly skilled at fishing. Perhaps a kingfisher or a hawk would think themselves an osprey or an eagle.”
“Bullshit.” Cindy added.
“And this is why I only catch and release when fishing here. No knowing what harm would come from a diet of unnaturally stupid prey.”
The stupid tuns them-turns
No knowing-not
This story is my favorite prose online. Maybe ever. Merry Christmas.