Adaptive Curmudgeon

[This post was originally presented to a smaller audience on September 23rd, 2016. A few days later squirrels hacked my blog and posted it to a wider audience. Squirrels understand that information, like bullshit, wants to be free.]

The analyst was terrified. This wasn’t going well.

He was addressing a hastily assembled audience of Government heavyweights and Military brass; generals, vaguely defined security officers, government operatives, and of course, a representative of Walmart’s Extreme Greeter Department. These were precisely who you called when the world was in danger but they were doing nothing!

He’d spent all morning with slides and handouts; explaining the situation. He’d included evidence to support his findings. There was no flaw in his logic. This thing was dangerous and it would get out of control. Immediate action was imperative!

The threat hadn’t so much tapped into a new technology as hack into an existing flaw in modern society. One that had been placed there, on purpose, long ago by people who should have known better.

During the post war era, the Government had a lot of clandestine scientists left over from the Manhattan Project. Since the research infrastructure was there, Truman left the eggheads to their own devices hoping they’d cure cancer or something. Instead they mastered knowledge that made theoretical physics seem harmless. They created and unleashed a self-replicating mental flaw that was nearly undetectable and infinitely adaptive. Never leave extremely smart people unsupervised!

How they performed this deed was classified. (These secrets were created during a time when the word “classified” was respected. As such they were not pasted on some fool’s private server in a shitter in Colorado. For that the analyst was thankful. He didn’t know how it was done and had no desire to know. He barely slept at night as it was.)

That first round of mad scientists had created the psychic fuse, the self-replicating ability to plant utter bullshit in the human mind. Once there it took root so deeply the subject couldn’t see their own irrationality. In this they were wildly successful. So much so that it was now endemic in the public. (There was an economy of bullshit producers working to fill opportunities created by this self-replicating flaw. They were called “marketers”.)

Fortunately, subsequent attempts to “light the fuse” failed. Getting a person to think bullshit was easy; getting them to act was hard. Mostly the bullshit corroded the subject’s mental circuits and caused them to sit on the couch watching “Ow My Balls”. Attempts to activate the flaw included the project MKUltra and strange manipulations of public schools. The former led to Timothy Leary and bad poetry. The latter led to an 18 trillion dollar deficit.

Unfortunately, in 1972, an obscure quartet from Sweden hit upon the secret. Abba realized that particular combinations of rhythm, meter, and “hook” could draw on that pre-installed infrastructure and break the strongest mind. The CIA was frightened by the massive amounts of bullshit generated and in 1973 officially halted all MKUltra research. The CIA felt it was safer to focus on less dangerous activities like overthrowing banana republics.  Meanwhile, Abba continued to unleash the bullshit within and created a monster. The form of their destroyer was a series of chart topping hits from 1974 through 1982. Eventually an MI6 agent, pining for better music, went rogue and forced them to stop. What that brave man did to accomplish this feat is unknown to history, but he (if it was a he) saved the world from a horrific oppressive disco-ocracy that might have lasted for generations and certainly was ruining culture.

Now, decades later, the squirrels had figured it out. The furry little pissants were sitting in an oak tree with Wi-Fi fine tuning the craft of destroying self-control. Far more frighteningly they were disseminating their techniques. Their Facebook page “Mary And Terry Hate Men” was generating thousands of hits an hour and their fanbase was expanding geometrically.

On Facebook, nobody knows you’re evil, or a squirrel. This was how Armageddon begins!

At this stage it all could be stopped. One sniper taking out two squirrels would do it. The NSA (which created, owns, and operates Facebook) could drop the site down the memory hole and hunt down most electronic traces. All that would remain would be a few disappointed fans sitting around sipping tea, bitching about men, and listening to Abba. Society could withstand a certain level of mayhem.

The problem was, nobody wanted to stop it because nobody wanted to believe they were already full of shit. The mind rejects such a notion. Thus he couldn’t convince anyone to take action!

One of the Extreme Greeters spoke up. “So you’re saying I’m already half brainwashed, and all it takes is Swedish disco to lock it in and give my mind’s control to an external actor?” He had a mocking lilt to his voice.

“Yes, and I can prove it. I’ll ask you a few very simple questions. You answer with the first thing that pops into your head. Since I know the right questions I’ll trigger the already pre-planted bullshit.”

“OK, shoot.”

“If Bob has two apples and Ralph has five apples; Ralph is what?”

“Racist!”

The analyst smiled, he’d proven his point. Yet the Greeter didn’t see it, nor did the audience.

“You don’t think it’s weird that you think Ralph is racist when I didn’t tell you anything about Bob and Ralph?” He prompted.

The Greeter had an angry grimace…. Cognitive dissonance was an unpleasant feeling. “Fuck you!” He shouted.

“So, you know nothing about Ralph’s thinking but you know he was a racist; and when I ask you for details you shout an obscenity? Doesn’t that seem odd?” The analyst coaxed.

“Let me try! I love games.” It was the head of the Department of Education, how she got in this room was beyond the analyst’s understanding but perhaps she was willing to see…

“OK, you have 32 students in a classroom, how do you determine which one is the smartest?”

“I don’t understand your question; all students are equal.” She wrinkled her nose.

“Here’s the second part of the question, there are 32 NFL football teams, which one was the best last season?”

She giggled, “You don’t think I know because I’m a woman but I do. The Denver Broncos won the Superbowl.”

“So you cannot differentiate between students in a classroom but you can for football teams?”

“You’re an asshole!” She grumbled.

He looked from the Greeter to the Department of Education bureaucrat. Neither one saw a flaw in their logic. Yet both agreed that the analyst was deplorable.

He gave it one more try. He pointed to a random man in the audience, a military fellow sporting an impressive array of awards and insignia.

“You sir, what do you do?”

“US Navy.” He responded proudly. “My actual rank and job duties are um… classified.”

“That’s fine, have you ever been on a boat?”

“The word you’re looking for is ‘ship’ and yes I was stationed on the USS Carl Vinson; an aircraft carrier. We were in the Adriatic Sea during the Bosnian war from ’92-’95.” He said this as if to imply he’d ‘seen things’ and this ‘wasn’t his first rodeo’.

This was just what the analyst was hoping for.

“So tell me, what was the greatest risk you faced during that tour of duty?”

“Global warming!”

“You were on a military craft, during war, and you think climate was your most immediate personal threat? I mean sure there’s long term issues but on any given Tuesday… while in a theater of war you were most at risk of…”

“Reduced polar bear populations.”

“Not the fact that you were on a floating nuclear reactor? Not the risk of rocket attack?”

“Certainly not. You’re wasting our time here!”

Exhausted, the analyst shuffled to a chair and sat down. The crowd began to murmur; the collective agreement was that they’d been brought here under false pretenses. That there was supposedly some sort of danger and this was just a fool wasting their time with PowerPoint slides. They were busy people after all.

The analyst began to weep. They were all going to die.

[This post was originally presented to a smaller audience on September 22nd, 2016. A few days later squirrels hacked my blog and posted it to a wider audience. Squirrels understand that information, like bullshit, wants to be free.]

Things were looking up for Edward. His “training regimen” was becoming more and more enjoyable. Gone now were the terrible early days when he had been a useless hawk. Edward shuddered at the thought; beatings, waterboarding, that thing they did with ice cubes (ugh!), and so on. Now things were much more pleasant.

He sat on his perch and eagerly answered questions:

What was the most pressing issue facing a squirrel these days? Edward chuckled to himself; this was so easy! The first few times he’d given completely ridiculous answers like “storing food for the winter” and “avoiding cats”. He was so much smarter now.

“Privileged misogynist male squirrels!” He shouted.

Terry asked a follow-up question. “Why?”

He opened his beak to continue but remembered his lessons and clamped it shut. He must resist malesplaining the situation to his betters. After all, he might be transspecies but he was still limited by his cisgender orientation.

Terry watched him slyly for a few minutes and when it became clear Edward wouldn’t utter a peep, she nodded. “Very good Edward. Would you like a reward?”

He nodded.

She pressed a button on an iPod and the earbuds Edward was wearing blared forth. The song filled his heart. Eagle by Abba. It was his song!

When he’d been brought here, his benefactors had stuffed earbuds in his ears. They played the song 24/7 for days. How many days? Edward couldn’t remember, but it was many. It was on a loop and they only stopped to swap rechargeable batteries.

“…now I’m under their spell
I love hearing the stories that they tell…”

Edward was in bliss.

“…I dream I’m an eagle
And I dream I can spread my wings
Flying high, high I’m a bird in the sky
I’m an eagle that flies on the breeze…”

Edward hummed happily.

“..As all good friends we talk all night, and we fly wing to wing
I have questions and they know everything
There is no limit to what I feel, we climb higher and higher
Am I dreaming or is it all real?
Is it true I’m an eagle?
Is it true I can spread my wings?”

Yes! Yes, it was true! Edward was an Eagle goddamnit! Not only was an Eagle but he had good friends and he had questions and they knew everything.

…

Ten feet away Mary watched in awe as Edward, eyes gleaming with joy, swayed to the music. She tapped Terry’s shoulder and the two left to consult in private. They climbed to a hollow in their oak some distance away.

“When I read about Stockholm syndrome I had no idea!” Mary enthused.

“Yep, the fool didn’t just move into town, he became the mayor!” Terry smiled.

They’d both expected taming a wild hawk to be hard but it turned out rather easy. For one thing a pretentious git with a large vocabulary is prone to manipulation and for another their timing had been perfect. The post skunksplosion transspecies raptor was ready for a new psyche to replace the battered original and they’d easily filled the void.

Abba had played a major role in the transformation too. A few days of abusive treatment followed by 63 consecutive hours of Abba was all it took. From then on Edward accepted anything they said as the word of God. Terry and Mary could have made him their slave but Abba made him their disciple.

“Watch this” Terry smiled.

She grabbed a microphone from a hook on the wall, clicked a button that interrupted Edwards music, and without giving the bird even a fraction of a second to adjust, she barked another question.

“What is our goal?” She barked.

“A gynocentric Utopia of complete peace and intersectionality!” Edward shouted.

Terry smiled and turned off the microphone. Edward immediately started humming again.

The squirrels looked at each other and nodded. He was ready.

[This post was originally presented to a smaller audience on September 21st, 2016. A few days later squirrels hacked my blog and posted it to a wider audience. Squirrels understand that information, like bullshit, wants to be free.]

Thousands of miles away a data analyst was on the verge of discovery. He knew it. He loved the delicious feeling of mastery that came at these times. He was about to reach into the tendrils of the great web encasing the world and come up with the truth.

He was so close he was quivering with excitement. These moments were intellectually addictive.

He’d discovered other truths over time, usually one or two year; and that made him the most valued employee of an agency which we will not name at this time. For inspiration, he glanced at the awards tacked to his wall. They were classified and he’d never be able to hang them anywhere else. There was a letter of thanks from [redacted] at the office of [redacted] commending him for uncovering the Amish plot of 2014. There was the certificate from [redacted] honoring him for decrypting the Presbyterian’s secret military code in 2015. There was even a picture of him and the cigarette smoking man from the X-Files. (Who is totally for real!) After that photo they’d had to strangle the cameraman. It had been a bonding experience.

He turned his mind back to the matter at hand. There was something there. These web traces were associated with a generic dipshit redneck but the key wasn’t him. It was someone else camping on his server. Oh sure, he’d thrown up flags with a “bear event” a few weeks back but that turned out to be nothing. (As required by protocol the file had been deleted. By “deleted” they meant “archived for further review”. Obviously nothing is ever truly deleted.)

Now the same traces had activated once again. A different device was using the same WiFi access point. It was performing “interesting” searches.

He gritted his teeth, being on the edge of understanding is almost more frustrating than total ignorance. He knew something was up; but what? The “bears” search had been questionable but not conclusive. Now, the searches were hinting at a pattern without truly defining one. He tapped his pencil and looked at the list:

• “mind control”
• “gaslighting”
• “Stockholm syndrome”

None of this meant anything except it was coupled with viewing habits that were oddly suggestive. Downloads of “1984” and “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” could mean anything. But a download of the full original series of “Twin Peaks” was terribly important. Then came this:

• “the owls are not what they seem”

That couldn’t be happenstance! He couldn’t put his finger on it but something was there.

One of his monitors blinked; indicating new data had come from the traces in question:

• “Abba”

Holy shit!

He sprang to his feet and jabbed at the special telephone he’d only used twice before. The connection was instant.

“What do you have to report?”

“This is analyst number 27B/6. There’s been a breach.”

“Explain.”

He paused. Even speaking it aloud worried him. It made the terrible menace go from conjecture to horrible reality. He steeled himself and spoke the words calmly.

“Lesbian activist squirrels have unleashed the power of Swedish disco!”

[This post was originally presented to a smaller audience on September 20th, 2016. A few days later squirrels hacked my blog and posted it to a wider audience. Squirrels understand that information, like bullshit, wants to be free.]

A few hours later, the sun was up and Mr. Curmudgeon was poking at the soil in his driveway. “The tracks are amazing!” Mr. Curmudgeon was lamesplaining to his long-suffering wife. “They confuse the hell out of me.” Mr. Curmudgeon loved a mystery. Mr. Curmudgeon wasn’t much of a tracker so virtually any track was mysterious to him.

“We know there was hawk here last night. So coyote footprints nearby seem rather self-explanatory. And I suspect these claw marks in the soil could be from talons dragging in the dirt. But there are no feathers.”

Mrs. Curmudgeon sighed, she had to get to work. How was that going to happen if her husband was pretending to be Marlin Perkins?

“So the hawk’s talons scratching the ground indicate it was still alive. If the coyote took away a live hawk, even if it couldn’t fly, there would be a struggle. Why are there no feathers?” He was crawling on his hands and knees now. “I suppose the squirrel tracks are completely random but where did the fishing line come from?”

Mary and Terry watched with glee. Nothing makes a squirrel happier than outwitting someone. In one night they’d chased a coyote, captured a hawk, and baffled a human.

They were watching from the top of an oak (an oak with Wi-Fi). Nestled in a crevice 10 feet below them, where the foliage completely obscured him, they had a hawk secured. It was upside down, bound, gagged, and depressed.

Discovering him had been a lucky stroke but securing him was all skill and they were proud of themselves. They’d leave him hanging a few more hours and by then he’d be ready for the next phase of their plan.

Mr. Curmudgeon scratched his head and got in the car. He spent the rest of the day formulating a theory involving camera flashes and squirrels.

It couldn’t be more obvious. This is photographic evidence of a hawk that got the shit scared out of it, was snared by fishing line, and then kidnapped by lesbian squirrels.

[This post was originally presented to a smaller audience on September 20th, 2016. A few days later squirrels hacked my blog and posted it to a wider audience. Squirrels understand that information, like bullshit, wants to be free.]

A few hours before dawn the rain ended. Edward was edging toward lucidity. At least enough to hear rustling in the brush. “Who’s there?” Edward asked. There was no answer.

An hour later Edward sensed, rather than heard, the approach of another creature. He stood upright and faced the threat. It was a coyote. It was 20 feet away. As a general rule, coyotes don’t prey on hawks. On the other hand, hawks don’t generally sit on the ground moping.

Edward glared at the coyote. The coyote looked at Edward. Edward’s stare had unnerved the human but had no effect on the coyote. Edward guessed he had a 50-50 chance of taking flight faster than the coyote could close the distance.

There was a reason the coyote hesitated. Coyotes, at least old coyotes, are cautious. That’s how they get to be old. It was unwilling to accept that a hawk would willingly sit on the ground like a lump of feathery stupid. Was it a trap?

“Okay, out with it. Are you suicidal or what?” The coyote finally asked.

Edward had shaken himself out of his earlier funk. He fluffed up his feathers, he flexed his talons, he glared at the coyote. “Nope, I just decided to see if I could kill a coyote. Step a little closer and we’ll find out.” In truth Edward was terrified. Yet “terrified” wasn’t the complete story. Edward was aware the odds were against him but he was more than willing to fight if need be. And, he thought proudly, he’d give it his all. For he was brave and strong. After all he was an eagle and as an eagle he was…

Edward had momentarily forgotten. He wasn’t an eagle at all. He was just a damn bird. He closed his eyes and flopped face burst face first into the mud again.

Coyotes are cautious but not too cautious. It stood up, padded toward the bird, and opened its mouth.

Unexpectedly, a little red dot appeared between the coyote and Edward. It burned bright, like a firefly. Mesmerized, the coyote watched it zigzag across the grass as it moved closer and closer until it was crossing his paw. Then the tiny bright bead of light centered on the coyote’s chest and steadied.

The coyote had memories of a particularly horrific night and with a skip in his heartbeat he recognized a laser sight! There was no hesitation in his motion. With a yelp, the coyote sprang back and nearly turned itself inside out trying to get away.

Meanwhile Edward regained consciousness. The coyote’s scrambling was his chance. He beat his wings, took to the air, gained about seven feet, and YANK… Something grabbed him by his left talon. He spiraled back towards the ground and landed with a thud. Meanwhile the coyote was streaking away as if hell itself was in pursuit.

Edward fluttered frantically but couldn’t get free. Something small but strong was wrapped around his talon. He tumbled, then spun, and soon it was wrapped around both talons.

“That was excellent” came a squeaky voice from a nearby bush.

“Right on baby, we scared the shit out of him!” Came the reply.

The first squeaky voice addressed Edward. “You should stop flailing about, it’s going to get you all beat up.”

Edward ceased his motions. In the predawn light Edward was astounded to see a squirrel. It was carrying a metallic, bullet shaped, object. The squirrel pressed a control on the object and the bright red light played along the grass in front of Edward. “Cat toy. Comes in pretty handy.”

Edward watched the red dot, uncertain of its menace, but tried to stay still and avoid further entanglement. Another squirrel emerged. It was dragging a small plastic box. Both squirrels stopped in front of Edward, positioned so he could see them but (bound as he was) he couldn’t harm them.

“You’re squirrels?” Edward squawked.

“Damn straight we are!” The first one exclaimed. “I’m Mary. And this is Terry.”

“You scared away the coyote with the red light?” Edward sputtered.

“Yes, we’re about to fix your little head too. Squirrels are clever you know!” Mary chuckled.

“You tied me up too?” Edward asked, though he already knew the answer.

“Yes we did.” The other squirrel nodded. “Were not dumb enough to get close to a hawk without precautions.”

At the word “hawk” Edward shuddered and the life drained out of him yet again.

“Aww, don’t let it get to you. We’re aware of the whole eagle/hawk thing. We can help you with that.” Edward was speechless. There was hope for him after all? The squirrel continued. “But first we need to get you to our reeducation facility.”

“You are squirrels, and you are going to take me somewhere?” So many things that happened lately that Edward could hardly focus.

“Were not just squirrels,” Mary exclaimed “were activist squirrels!”

“Down with the man!” Shouted Terry. Then she grabbed Mary and planted a smooch on her that would make a porn star blush.

“Lesbian activist squirrels?” Edward croaked.

“You have no idea!” Mary chittered.

Edward was sure he had no idea. He didn’t want any ideas.

“Now then, you’re about to take a nap.” Terry explained. She was setting up the small plastic box. One side was white while the other sides were black. The white side was facing Edward. The box made a high-pitched but not too loud whistling noise. Edward looked away from the box.

“Look over here. That’s right, look at the box. Look very carefully at me…”

Something warned Edward to look away.

Mary made a giggling sound and suddenly Mary and Terry were doing something on top of the box. Edward tried to look away. He knew he shouldn’t look. But just one glance…

POOF!

An eagle’s eyes are incredibly sensitive. A hawk’s eyes are equally sensitive. When a powerful camera flash goes off 5 feet away from a raptor that’s staring directly at it, the bird’s mind does a total reset. Edward’s world went white and he passed out.

Terry stood up, straightening her very tousled fur. “Well that’s one way to get a hawk to look at a flash.” She looked at the hawk that was sure to be comatose for hours. “After we’re done hauling this damn bird, we’re going continue what we were doing a few seconds ago.”

Mary smiled, it was good to be a lesbian activist squirrel.

[This post was originally presented to a smaller audience on September 19th, 2016. A few days later squirrels hacked my blog and posted it to a wider audience. Squirrels understand that information, like bullshit, wants to be free.]

After a rough legged hawk with species identity issues witnesses a skunksplosion and flies into a windmill it looks like this.

[This post was originally presented to a smaller audience on September 19th, 2016. A few days later squirrels hacked my blog and posted it to a wider audience. Squirrels understand that information, like bullshit, wants to be free.]

Most creatures, raptors included, have a righteous fight or flight reaction cooked into their DNA. Furthermore, raptors are inherently excellent at getting out of Dodge. So when Sammy’s skunkplosion rocked Edward’s mind he engaged in an involuntary flat out ballistic retreat.

There aren’t many creatures that move faster than a raptor and virtually nothing can harm one in high-speed flight so Edward felt comfortable just rocketing in a random direction. This plan, despite being statistically excellent, had a flaw. Edward had just gotten up the full head of steam for what he intended to be an epic linear flight of abject terror when he was taken out by the only thing that can take out a raptor; a windmill. In mid wingbeat Edward was slammed out of the sky and thrown towards Earth. He wound up addled but uninjured at the edge of the paved road. Edward was no stranger to roads, having eaten plenty of roadkill, so he knew he was safe so long as he didn’t hear any engines. This is why he was taken by surprise by the ghostlike silence of a Prius that blew by and corkscrewed him into the bushes at the edge of the road.

Cowed but not beaten, Edward took flight again on another random trajectory. Soon he realized he was heading back towards the site of Sammy’s demise. He braked hard, made an ungainly reach for a tree limb, missed, and pinwheeled into the dirt.

“Fuck it!” Edward pouted. “I’m staying right here!” Obviously the cascade of suck would end shortly and if he kept pinballing into things he wouldn’t last much longer. All he had to do was wait it out. It couldn’t get worse…

It began to rain.

…

Several hours later Mr. Curmudgeon was in the garage inadvertently breaking things while humming to himself. His phone alerted him to a text and he dropped a handful of delicate parts as he jabbed at the screen.

“There is a goddamn eagle in the driveway!” It was Mrs. curmudgeon.

Mr. Curmudgeon shrugged “okay”. He went back to tinkering with something sharp and jagged attached to a motor.

“A chivalrous man might come out in the rain to push this thing out of the way so that I can get down the driveway.” This text seemed to have a hidden meaning. Mr. Curmudgeon thought hard. Chivalry… medieval history… mead. Maybe he should drink some mead? Decades of training finally clicked in his brain. This wasn’t about history! Could it be a form of indirect communication? Yes! This was a hint! Like a very dim bulb lighting up slowly, Mr. Curmudgeon realized the full import of the text. He grabbed a rake, donned his rain jacket, and trudged out into the gloom.

Jauntily holding his rake over one shoulder, Mr. Curmudgeon stomped past the inert raptor and knocked on the window of Mrs. Curmudgeon’s car. She was busily composing a third text. This text would have obscenities and exclamation points. Fortunately for him, Mr. Curmudgeon had interrupted the process.

“Hang tight. I’ll just boot this bastard out of the way.” Mr. Curmudgeon boasted. Keeping in mind the whole “chivalrous” concept, he approached the bird with his rake extended lance-like. He was grinning. After all, it was just a dead bird (though it was sitting upright).

He touched the bird with his rake and was startled to see the birds eyes open! Edward swiveled and his eyes fixed, laser-like on Mr. Curmudgeon. Raptors eyes aren’t just vision; they’re God’s targeting array for a feathery missile system of death. For most creatures on earth, if a raptor stares at you like that, you are soon to be its dinner. Mr. Curmudgeon stepped back.

Back at the car he explained his predicament. “I can’t tangle with it, there’re a protected species. I can’t just wallop it with a rake.” He mumbled lamely. (Secretly Mr. Curmudgeon liked anything with a fighting spirit and hoped the bird would recover.) There was nothing for it. Mrs. Curmudgeon gingerly edged around the bird and drove on. Mr. Curmudgeon realized that he didn’t get a ride home and had to walk in the rain back to his workshop. This was definitely the raptor’s fault. He paused to take a grainy, low resolution, cell phone snapshot and wished he had his 35 mm camera. That was an elegant tool for a more civilized age.

…

The rain continued. It was heavy, cold, drenching rain. It matched Edward’s mood. He was hypothermic and sinking into a post skunkplosion catatonic state.

Around sunset Mr. Curmudgeon grabbed his trusty bird identification book, rake, and flashlight. Then he went back out the storm to check on the bird. He had visions of the bird stroking out and dying right there in his driveway. Then, at the least opportune moment, an entire busload of birdwatchers and EPA regulators would somehow “accidentally” arrive on the scene. His homestead would be turned into a raptor sanctuary and a Superfund site. In addition to liking them, Mr. Curmudgeon was paranoid about laws surrounding eagles. (That’s why he brought the book with him. If the creature really was a Bald Eagle he’d probably call someone and dump the issue on their officious regulatory lap.)

When he arrived at the scene of Edward’s silent vigil he poked the bird once more. Again Edward’s eyes opened. Again he targeted Mr. Curmudgeon.

It’s a true but undocumented fact that one-day God decided to build the most awesome creature ever. That was the day he made the raptor. It happened like this, God woke up and thought “I’m sick of fuzzy things. That last project with the koala right on the heels of the panda meeting. That was so damn boring.” Then God proceeded to produce a missile. He made it pointy; with a hooked beak and claws suitable for a Grizzly but scaled for flight. He gave it laser beam eyes. He’d created the raptor! It was so much fun that he immediately sketched out the DNA specs for cobras, badgers, manta rays, sharks, and wolverines. Then he celebrated with a Dr. Pepper and turned the dial to eleven with the orca. The only hint of this was that when the raptor stared at him, Mr. Curmudgeon inexplicably thought of cobras.

Unable, or unwilling, to shove the semi catatonic bird into the ditch, Mr. Curmudgeon hunkered down and peered at it. He opened up his bird book and started flipping pages. Knowledge is power. (Also he was so pissed off at Google after dropping the ball on the bear thing that he was actively resurrecting his neglected paper library.)

Edward glared at the human. “Go ahead and try it land ape!” Raged Edward. In fact, Edward had decided the skunksplosion was the end of time anyway so he might as  go out brave and proud. Like the Eagle that he was. He glared at the human, “That’s right mammal. After what I have seen, there is no more fear left in me. Go ahead and try it!”

Mr. Curmudgeon was entirely unaware of Edward’s mental state. Having flipped back and forth several times through the pages he nodded to himself. “You are,” he looked at the bird “a rough legged hawk.” Characteristically, for Mr. Curmudgeon is the sort of person who speaks to trees and dogs and tractors, he held up the page to the bird (from a respectful distance of course).

Mr. Curmudgeon was pleased with himself for identifying the bird at hand.

Not. An. Eagle?!? Something in Edward snapped. He opened his beak to scream but only a weak croak came out. He snapped his eyes shut, went stiff as a board, and fell face first into the mud.

“That was unexpected.” Mused Mr. Curmudgeon. He stood up, gently nudged the creature into the weeds, and walked away.