WDL 20 How Otter Learned to Dance Part II

Part 2 of a convention paper presented in the late 90s.

 Jackie turned the screen of his PC toward Otter.  She saw a rolling blur of small print.

“What, what . . .”  she stuttered.

“The usual.  Look.  Don’t worry about it.  It’s Microsoft’s Quest program with typical quest requirements.  Basically, the program can only be terminated with completion of the tasks, yadda, yadda, yadda.  Get it.  Geez.  I mean, what else?   It’s a motivational tool comes free with the software.  Kind of a guarantee.  So, you ready for the quest?”

Otter thought.  It seemed like the only option she had, so she agreed by saying, “Then tell me, oh Spirit Guide, what is my quest?”

“He turned the screen back.  “Your quest . . .”

“Oh, please, could you do it more dramatically?”

“Sure, sure.  Anything to please.”  The vision billowed with heavy smoke and the voice grew deeper.  “Your quest, should you decide to accept it, is to capture Cougar’s ears.  What?  Yeah.  that what it says, capture cougar’s ears.  Do you accept?”

Otter sat, thinking.

“Look, bubalah.  Tempus fugits, know what I’m sayin’?  I got folks to see.  You in or out?”

Otter decided to accept.  “I’m in.  I mean, yes, I shall accept the quest.”

“Great.  I’m outa here.”  And spirit Guide Jackie disappeared leaving the smell of a Cuban cigar hanging in the air.

When Otter woke the next morning she felt a pull in the back of her mind.  She knew that she had to get Cougar’s ears.  She visualized the pair of stiff triangles of gray fur which stood on either side of threat fierce head and saw herself pouncing on them.

So Otter devised a plan.  That day she joined Cougar in his daily exercises.  She began to meet with him regularly.  At first she was a bit nervous.  while they were both predators, she knew who was more likely to feast on crayfish and who was more likely to bring down an antelope.  Yet, even so, the two mammals, from the cat and weasel families, developed an odd friendship.  Finally, one day in early spring, as the wild flowers were beginning to fill the mountain meadows, Otter made her move.  As she and Cougar galloped through the scented air, she jumped at her friend’s head and sank her sharp little teeth into his left ear, using all of her thirty five pounds to try and yank it from his body.

Cougar felt the bite and swung his great head.  Otter held on for a few seconds.  Then she was flung into a tree and knocked senseless.  Cougar walked over to her and put two toes of his heavy right paw on her neck.  When Otter woke, she looked into his eyes and knew she was breakfast.  Then he laughed – that wild roaring bark of the big cat.  Starlings and jays flew up from the trees.

“What were you trying to do?” he asked as tears of mirth dripped from his golden eyes. 

Otter figured that she might as well tell the truth since who knew how long she had left to live.  “A quest, Oh Great Pumatic One.  My Spirit Guide told me that I had to get your ears to finish my quest.  but I can see that you have need of your ears so, if you’ll let me get up again I promise I’ll never bother you about this again.”

Cougar laughed.  “All right.  I do need my ears, for now.  You never know.  Maybe I’ll get new ears. Maybe an eagle will tear one off and drop it in front of you.  Vertegrate behavior cannot be predicted.  After all, relationships are not in a state of being but in a state of becoming.  who knows what’s going to happen?”

With that, they got back on the path.  For a while Otter neglected her quest.  Perhaps, since she wasn’t a bird, she didn’t want to risk the flight that another attack on Cougar would bring.  But Cougar had other ideas.  After some time, he began lowering his head when he talked with Otter.  It seemed that one of his ears was always waving in her dark eyes.  so, finally, thinking that Cougar no longer had need for his ear, she leapt again.  And again she wound up in a sugar pine.

And so it went, as long as she stayed in Utah.  She would try to forget her quest.  Then her friend Cougar, through some twist or turn, would remind her.  She would forget.  She would leap.  then she would fly.   Somehow, this game helped her ignore her weaselesque alienation.  She completed her studies and survived her committee meetings with Bear, Eagle, bison, Bobcat, and Toad (who was later replaced by Wolf.)  She was finally brought into the community of scholarly animals and received the special ancient skin which marked her maturation.

Continued with final episode Sunday night . . .