The stories below are two from my typescript that contains sixteen stories under the two main titles of "Animalistic Fables" and "Rats and Snails and the Cooly Dog’s Tales" and is of a length of about 21200 words.
For some additional information, here is a list of the titles of all the stories, most of which, though quite separate in terms of plot, are loosely
connected through the main characters.
Laws of Nature
The Call of the Wild
Hunting White Spiderwaggas
Old Foxes at Sea
Old C20 Foxes
A Panda Crossing
Monkey Business
Lame Ducks
Decoy-Ducks
The Assembly of Animals
SAMPLE 1 PRACTICAL ETHOLOGY
The Lynx was resting in the shade of a tree. Every now and then he lifted his head only to give his surroundings a withering look. He enjoyed freedom. He enjoyed being a lynx.
He was outside his cage.
The visitors were running about panic-stricken, mothers heroically rescuing their children while men trying to protect the route of escape, with an eye kept on the lynx.
The Free Iguana, who saw everything from his cage nearby, was convulsed with laughter. A minute later there were no visitors in the vicinity of the tree.
The Director of the Gardens rushed to the scene in the company of a Keeper.
“Ah, the fox!” said the Director and stopped.
“The lynx”, the Keeper put it right and, with a leash in his hand, walked on towards the Lynx.
“No! Wait!” shouted the Director in despair.
The Keeper gave a start and turned on his heels.
“Are you out of your mind?!” the Director went on at the top of his voice. “First we’ve got to get a rifle, narcotic cartridges, a catch net, and a first aid box!”
“But, Sir, this animal is completely harmless.”
“Is it? So you say! You seem to know nothing of ethology! Can’t you see that this fox is not in its cage?”
“Lynx.” put in the Keeper softly.
“It’s got free somehow. It’s rebelled against captivity and broken off all relations with mankind. No, sonny, this animal is no longer tame, it has heard the call of the wild, tasted freedom, and will fight for it tooth and nail.”
The Lynx was sleepily blinking at them.
“Sir, if you’d allow me only to try to take that lynx…”
“No!” howled the Director. “I won’t! I am responsible for your good health, too, you fool!”
The Lynx yawned.
“Excuse me, Sir,” remarked the Keeper, “ but he just doesn’t appear to be about to risk his life for freedom.”
“Do you just pretend to be such an idiot or are you really one?! Have you never heard the simile ‘as cunning as a fox’? “
“Lynx, Sir.”
“Lynx or fox, they’re all the same! How do you know that its sham indolence is not part of some clever trap? I bet, sonny, it’s just expecting you to go nearer and then it’ll dash out your brains.”
“To my knowledge, Sir,” said the Keeper half-heartedly “a lynx will only charge at a human in the last resort, I mean, when protecting its young or when feeling cornered.”
“Of course, sonny. You believe that you know this particular specimen only because you’ve heard general things about lynxes. This sort of
presumption always leads to a disaster. I’ll have you know that every fox is a character!”
The Keeper did no longer dare to interrupt the Director.
“So you’d better be very careful when dealing with these creatures or else one day we’ll find your disembowelled body decaying in a retired nook of the Gardens. You must always expect the unexpected. For example, how should we know that this lynx hasn’t hidden its young near at hand?”
“Well, Sir, he hasn’t got young. It’s a male.”
“As if I, the director, were to know all the little details!” cried the Director furiously. “It’s also possible that if we went nearer it would feel
cornered because there’s that tree just behind it!”
He walked up and down, racking his brains.
“Tell you what!” he exclaimed then. “We’ll starve it to submission! Hunger will break it!”
“Er..., well…”
“Okay, okay, you’re right. It would die of thirst before getting hungry. We must find another way.”
Then the Lynx leisurely staggered to its feet and stretched itself. The Director was horrified.
“Look out!” he bawled. “It’s coming at us! It’s gonna shed our blood!”
“Sir, it’s just stretching itself.”
“Can’t you see it’s preparing for a leap?!” And he started to back away. “Try to hide and wait for me! I’ll go and get some reinforcement.” He turned and hurried off.
The Free Iguana doubled up with laughter.
The Keeper waited until the Director had got out of sight, then walked to the Lynx and leashed him. The Lynx followed the Keeper back into the cage where he wanted to return, anyway, for the very reason that he had already become thirsty.
The Free Iguana was somewhat annoyed that the show ended so soon, because it was actually he who had informed the Lynx that the Keeper had failed to lock the cage that morning.
Yes, the Free Iguana always knew how to provide some amusement for himself.
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SAMPLE 2 A NATURE OF FILMS
Entering the cutting-room, the Producer just nodded to the Editor, who had already prepared the uncut film for editing, and took a seat in front of the screen.
“Let me see,” he exclaimed “how the boring, unedited film becomes the nature feature of the century! Which is the first scene?” And he sat back.
“The hunting,” answered the Editor, “ I think.”
“Oh, yes, the hunting. It must be made rough, brutal. Play it.”
The Editor touched some buttons of the instrument board. On the screen a cheetah was seen carefully stalking a group of gazelles in the high grass. It started slowly jogging and then suddenly dashed off in pursuit of one of the gazelles. After a few seconds of zig-zagging it brought down the gazelle, biting through its neck. The gazelle died, desperately writhing. The Producer was staring at the screen in astonishment.
“Oh, no!” he moaned then. “It can’t be.” And he gave a sigh. “Go back to the point when it begins chasing the gazelle.”
The Editor rewound the film.
“Yes, this is it. Stop it here.” said the Producer. “And now seek out the scene in which a gazelle slackens its pace, stops, and looks back. You know, it was when a gazelle took fright of the shooting team and skipped away. “
The Editor suspiciously glanced at the Producer.
“Yes, I know which one you mean.”
“Okay, then. So we’ll add that to this scene. The commentary: this time the gazelle manages to escape, the bloodthirsty cheetah has come badly unstuck.”
“Excuse me, Sir,” the Editor remarked , “but I must say it wouldn’t be a very realistic interpretation of what happened.”
The Producer was outraged. “What?!” he shouted. “What do you mean, it wouldn’t be realistic? Was it I who told that gazelle to act that way?!”
“No! You see, everything is realistic in a nature film!”
“I mean, the cheetah killed the gazelle so …”
“Did it? Are you a sadist? Don’t you think of the children who are going to see this film?”
“Yes, I do. But I don’t think it would be a problem, if they saw what real life is like in nature.”
“Don’t you?” said the Producer in disdain. “Little wonder that the number of violent crimes committed every day is so high. You don’t realise it’s actually those nature films full of brute force and violence that made you have a mentality like that! What’s the next scene?”
The Editor sighed, joined the two scenes and wound the film to the next one.
Cheetah cubs playing with their mother.
Watching the screen, the Producer furrowed his brows and shook his head.
“No” he said. “This must be omitted. It doesn’t go well with the whole stuff.”
“But why? “
“The cheetah is an evil and aggressive creature. This scene might do damage to its image that has been established so perfectly in the hunting scene.”
“But…”
“Don’t tell me that scenes of this kind sell the film, I know it very well. Therefore this scene will be replaced with an episode of a gazelle’s family life. Let’s move on.”
On the screen a newborn gazelle was seen struggling to its feet for the first time in its life, the dam trying to help it up.
“Oh, how lovely!” the Producer cried out. “This must precede the hunting scene. The commentary: an innocent life born. And it should directly be followed by the scene with the cheetah devouring the body of a gazelle; I mean the one that includes a close shot on the cheetah’s chops covered in blood.”
Leaning over the editing machine, the Editor was cutting the film at a brisk pace. The Producer sat back contentedly. He felt that he had really done his best to discredit the cheetah and give it its comeuppance, which was his very purpose, actually. Meanwhile another scene was replayed on the screen: some people holding up aerials and watching the display of an instrument.
“Was it when they were searching for the cheetah with a radio transmitter attached to it?”
“Yes,” replied the Editor and decided to try to get his own way once again. “I propose that this scene should be omitted, since the search would be unsuccessful; you know, because in the immediate vicinity there were at least a hundred other animals with transmitters and reception was
impossible because of interference.”
The Producer nodded assent:
“Yes. I agree. However, a few shots of it could be used, as the presence of technical devices can excellently distinguish the naturalness of nature. Is there anything else?”
The Editor pushed some buttons. The Producer burst into an uproarious laugh with abandon:
“Oh, I’ve almost forgotten! Yes, yes! This has to be the closing scene!” and he leant forward to have a better view of the screen. “Monkeys! Look at that! How funny they are! Music! Have you got some music?”
The Editor started a piece of background music.
“No, not that one! It’s a funeral march!”
Happy, rhythmical music was heard.
“That’s it, that’s it!” The Producer was beating time with his hand. “I want quick-motion picture here.”
“But, Sir, …”
“Make the monkeys jump about in time to the music. Yes! Now slower! That’s it! The old monkey that’s just sitting there should be cut out. Come on, cut it out! Look at that! Great! Isn’t it funny?”
He threw himself back in the chair to get his breath back.
“It’ll certainly be a success, that’s for sure. Find a few more frames that show the cheetah to a disadvantage and it’ll be as good as done.”
He stood up.
“See you at the first run. Oh, nature films! I love this profession.”
And he walked out, crooning to himself.
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