Larry the mountain lion was on the prowl again, heading into hippie heaven to score a little dope. The valley of Boulder, Colorado lay before him like an unsecured mountain trash bin offering illicit refuse. Perched on his favorite rock cliff, he waited till the city slept before descending. Down, down, down the mountain path toward the shining city lights. The action called him! His man Sanchez was on the Division of Wildlife animal control squad, and would be ready to supply an evening of fun … for a fee. The arrangement was simple: Sanchez provided the tranquilizer, and Larry made the man look good.
He chuckled as he thought of the last excursion. He’d been prowling around the sorority, baring his fangs at drunken college girls and waiting for Sanchez to appear. When the Division of Wildlife van rolled into campus, Sanchez leaped out with his unnecessarily large dart gun. He let it fly, and Larry felt the sting of the tranquilizer. Ah, sweet, sweet tranq! He reveled in ecstasy, giggling as the girls flocked to Sanchez while squealing things like, “Ohmigod you’re so brave!” and “Thank you so much, Mister Animal Control Guy!” Sanchez twirled his handlebar mustache and lectured the girls about leaving food in their beer coolers.
Now he played the game again. He darted around parked cars, his shadow barely visible in the twilight. He slunk past houses and swing-sets, making his way to a fancy neighborhood on Mapleton Hill. “There’s a girl there I want to impress,” Sanchez had said. “Do your thing and menace, and I’ll bring the latest formula you want.”
“Menace?” Larry had said skeptically. He communicated telepathically with Sanchez, who was something of a Dr. Doolittle. He had tried learning human language for awhile, but the lack of a human larynx was no paltry handicap.
“Yeah, menace,” Sanchez replied. “Growl, show a little tooth, twitch the tail, eat the family dog, you know. That kind of thing.”
“Dog?” complained Larry. “Is that the best you can do? The domesticated ones taste like cardboard.”
“Ok, don’t eat the dog,” said Sanchez thoughtfully, rubbing his belly. “That freaks them out and then they shoot bullets. We need you alive.”
So he carefully avoided the houses with dogs. Most of them were too fat and slow to detect his presence, anyway. He waltzed under windows and leaped over gardens. He drooled in anticipation for the tranqs! He embraced this dark, dangerous lifestyle - he didn’t care what the other forest animals thought. They were all so comfortable in their little burrows, content to eat and crap all day. Well, he had more to explore and ecstasy to experience! And there was Sanchez now, springing into action before a screaming girl. It was time!
He unleashed a roar and felt the sweet sting of the tranq …
Eight hours later, he awoke with a splitting headache, fuzzy memories of shrieking human females, and poodle fur in his teeth. The new formula’s come-down was harsh and he felt queasy. He was caged and muzzled, bouncing around in the back of a Division of Wildlife truck. Sanchez was a rotten chauffeur.
Maybe it was the agonizing headache that had grown worse with each tranquilizer. Maybe it was Sanchez’s off-key yodeling of Abba songs. Maybe it was the muzzle pinching his nose and his churning gut. But suddenly Larry saw how far his sordid life had spun out of control. Instead of proudly stalking elk, he was selling himself for drugs! His lust for the fast life had grown into dependence, and now he was on parade for the humans and eating poodles, for gods’ sake! He knew what poodle fur did to his eczema! As he blearily looked around the truck, he winced at the bleak truth: Sanchez was not aDivision of Wildlife employee as he claimed. What DOW employee would encourage this dangerous behavior, risking an animal’s life to get attention from females? There was no equipment in the truck, no radio, and Sanchez’s uniform was a thrift-store parody of a park ranger’s garb. He was a fraud and had been using Larry, egging him on with drugs and thrills.
The muzzle had been hastily buckled and it sagged, so he carefully worked his jaw free. Larry settled in, feigning sleep and waiting for his moment.
Should he eat this traitorous human? He’d heard humans were tasty enough, but his stomach was still upset. No, best to wait until he was free and munch on rabbits for a few days. That would calm his belly.
Should he chase the man off a ledge and watch him plummet to his death? While satisfying, it sounded like way too much work. His pounding head would make the sudden movement unpleasant.
Should he slink off into the woods when Sanchez opened the door, just as he’d done dozens of times before? He could migrate west to California and forget this had ever happened. But no, he refused to retreat in shame. It was time to put those telepathic powers to good use. He was strong with the power of telepathic influence! He had simply never allowed himself to fully experience his own abilities, hiding his powers because the coyotes thought it was “weird” and the bobcats had once called it a “power of the devil.”
Enough with hiding and pretending to be normal! He had to stop Sanchez from exploiting other wildlife. The man’s brain was weak, domesticated, and far too well-fed. It would be easy to manipulate. All he had to do was think really hard about squirrels …
And that is how, 8 days later, Division of Wildlife officials found a naked man in a tree, nibbling on nuts and chattering in a strange, rodent-like language. They tried to coax him down, but he only threw pinecones at them. Eventually, after much debate, they called the Fire Department, spread a net below the tree, and shot a tranquilizer into the man’s backside. The man fell from the tree and was shuttled quickly to the psych ward of the mental hospital.
Larry, now clean and tranq-free, perched on his favorite rock ledge once more and viewed the distant scene with his keen eyesight. Satisfied, he turned his back on the sordid lifestyle of his youth. It was time to regain his territory, find a mate or five. There was much to explore. His poodle-eating days behind him, he lived the rest of his life in pursuit of fine food and female company, just as a mountain lion should.
Don’t be Lion Snacks!
Tags: misc by splarks
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