Purscilla took her place at the head of the quorum. She noted the heads that bowed, those that looked away, and those that stared back in fiery defiance.

She narrowed her eyes at those, but stopped short of showing them her fangs for their insolence.

Placing her paw on the coyote skull atop a pile of other canine skulls, she brought this gathering of the pride to order.

“The moon is full, we are gathered, the pride is here. What business is there?”

“Still working on the two that are trapped in the house with the big window.” Said Shadow, the black manx. “They seem unwilling to join us.”

“Educate them as to the folly of that action.” Purscilla decreed.

“There is a new yapper on the corner.” Snowball, the white Persian with the different colored eyes shouted out.

The pride erupted in hisses.

Purscilla felt her claws involuntarily dig into the skull under paw. Banding together to kill that coyote had been her idea, her responsibility. Purging her neighborhood of dogs since was her pleasure.

And those little yappers, those dogs that never shut up, she hated them most of all.

“Well,” Growled Purscilla, “let’s introduce ourselves, shall we?”

Memphis Note
There are a bizarrely large number of cats in my neighborhood, and we we’ve also had a few coyote sightings. I’ve never seen the coyote, but I have seen a half dozen cats within a block of each other. Which makes me think that maybe they’ve done something to that poor lost coyote.

Before we ever came up with the concept of time, or the words we could use to express such a notion, before even creation had conceived of us, there was an ocean.

And in that ocean was a fish. We’ll call him Philip. Because Teleostei Thryptodus is a terrible mouthful, and “bony fish” isn’t flattering at all.

In those days life was simple, and creatures like Philip were only concerned with mating, eating, and not being eaten.

Three things that were normally ranked in that order.

Except in situations like this one where Philip was being chased by a rather hungry fellow we’ll refer to as Karl. Again, because Mosasauridae Eidolosaurus is frankly impossible to pronounce and “toothy horror beast” is colored entirely by Philip’s perception of Karl – and mainly his mouth.

Karl had been after Philip for the past bit, neither really knew how long because the whole concept of time hadn’t been invented yet, and Philip was growing rather cross about it.

This lead Philip to a rather miraculous epochal and cognitive jump, where he spontaneously invented words so he could express his displeasure to Karl.

Which is a pity, because that’s exactly the moment Karl ate him.

Memphis Note
How are prehistoric fish related to Memphis? Because both of those animals existed in the shallow sea that covered the Memphis area back in the Late Cretaceous period. Sure, Philip and Karl didn’t specifically exist, but those just like them did.

Look, let me get this out of the way right at the start of this: I’m a bull shark. What’d you expect from me?

What was I supposed to do when you started dumping all those delicious, oily, greasy morsels of who knows what into the water shed?

That’s the stuff I like, for pete’s sake. Not just the stuff I like, but the stuff I am absolutely delighted to find a mere morsel of after days of searching.

Seriously, how could you not expect me to swim up that giant mouth of taste heaven looking for where all those flavors and smells were coming from? I’ve eaten the fenders off of old Edsels out of sheer boredom. This was like mana from proverbial heaven.

But, I guess would be something more like tuna from heaven for us.

Alls I’m saying is that when I come up in the middle of a bunch of you hairless monkey things riding plastic dolphins things in the middle of a muddy river, it’s not my fault when I take a bite out of the nearest thing to find out what it is.

I’m a shark, after all.

I am not a clever animal.

Memphis Note
Every year, a few bored bull sharks somehow wander their way up the Mississippi River. Most times, no one ever knows they are there. But, sometimes they get desperate and strike out at humans. There have been reports of attack as far north Saint Louis. Now, imagine what a bull shark would think if it happened to pass by Memphis in the middle the annual canoe and kayak race at Mud Island. You could hardly blame it for wanting to find out if any of those things were edible, could you?

“I don’t know, Terrance, it sounds risky.” Said his friends, causing mumbles of agreement and furtive nods to ripple through the rest of the group.

Terrance stomped his foot. He wouldn’t be denied. “Look, I’m telling you it’s dead simple. A little bit of misdirection, then, BLAMO!” He slapped his palms together to drive his point home. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“We could get bit.” Said his friend, frowning at the realization.

“You’re not going to get bit, guys.”

“Frank got bit.” Came a voice from the back, causing another wave of nods and mumbles.

“Well, Frank’s an idiot and that’s his own fault.” Terrance huffed back.

He was losing them, it was now or never. He took a breath, then went for it.

“The difference between us and them is this.” He held up one hand. “And this.” Then the other. “We’re ambidextrous. They don’t even have hands.”

“All you have to do is distract them with one hand.” Terrance waved a hand in the air. “Then pull their tail with the other.” He whipped his arm out and snapped, sending his fellow gibbons howling.

“Tomorrow we show those horrible little otters whose pen this really is.”

Memphis Note
The best part of the China section of the Memphis Zoo is not the pandas, but rather the gibbon and otter enclosure. The animals are like rival gangs, constantly battling for supremacy, in a never-ending war of pulled tails and nipped hindquarters. They don’t actually hurt each other, but I’m willing to bet they have more fun than any other animals in the zoo. I know I get a kick out of watching them.

“What are we looking for out here again?” I asked as I followed behind my graduate instructor, bushwhacking through what I was sure was private property in north Shelby county.

“The long lost Odiferous Belt.” He shouted back, unfazed by the bizarreness of his own words.

I how ever, was not. His words stunned me momentarily, like a blow to the head. “Wait! The what now?” I hurried along, trying to catch up to him.

“About a hundred years ago, there was a stretch of our fair city that stunk up to high heaven every summer.” He stopped walking as he began to tell his story. “Everyone thought it was swamp gas, their neighbor’s trash or something.”

“Ok…,” I said, unsure of where his story was leading.

“Turns out, it was some reddish-purple beetles that were responsible for the stink. They’d come out every summer, looking for stuff to eat on the ash trees. They’d stink up the whole city.”

“So, we’re looking for beetles?”

“Long lost beetles!” He shouted, enthusiastically. “Heh, you know what the smell was? The stink the beetles were squirting out?”

“What?”

“Cyanide.” He said with a devilish grin before stomping off into the brush.

Memphis Note
Before the city pushed outward into what we now think of as Midtown, there was a regular ring of odor that popped up each summer. After some investigation, it was discovered that the smell was coming horned beetles that were found climbing ash trees. To this day, we don’t know the exact type of beetle, only those similar to it in the area.