Natural Ways Festival and the Threating Call of the Wilds

Every autumn, animals held a festival in the meadow to celebrate the way things had always been.

There were fiddles, banjos, striped tents, flags, and a booth selling rabbit burgers beneath a banner that read LOCAL TRADITIONS MATTER. There was also a highly valued female headliner. Blonde. Big teeth. Young.

The rabbits, along with the nutria and other small animals, generally took the longer route home that weekend.

The predators found this satisfactory. It gave them status even if their hunting and mating records were poor.

The meadow bordered the village schools and the county college, which made parking convenient for the evening and weekend festivities.

Early one morning, before much was happening in the meadow, a cry went up that ALL the festival grounds were under serious threat.

Nobody could say precisely what the threat was—and many had ceased to care—but it was large-scale! A fox had heard something from a stoat, who understood that a weasel had received a very troubling message with life-and-death consequences!

!!!

“They mean to stop us being ourselves,” grumbled a silver fox.

Across the stream, several rabbits were digging a drainage ditch with the help of otters beside a school. They had been at it since breakfast and were hoping to finish before the rain. They especially wanted to finish before the weasels and minks arrived.

Nevertheless, the emergency bell rang.

The schools locked their doors. The college locked its doors. Teachers pulled down blinds and moved children away from windows.

A young rabbit asked whether her brother’s classroom had locked in time.

The classrooms did not contain only prey. There were lesser predators in there, too. Not that anyone noticed.

The rabbit’s teacher said yes, her brother’s classroom had of course locked down in time, although she had no way of knowing. Reassurance was instinct.

The rhinoceroses arrived first, wearing armor over their armor. Behind them came the buffalo in pressed uniforms and reflective glasses, carrying rifles between the craft stalls. Hippos were also part of it. Large and in charge.

Their glasses reflected the bunting beautifully. Red. White. Blue.

More animals arrived in large vehicles. Radios crackled. Engines idled. Roads closed. Animals who had been working elsewhere were called away from their work.

Woo woo woo! Lights lights lights! Speed speed speed! Attention! Attention! Attention!

!!!

There would be invoices for all of it. But those would arrive later.

Without the !!! attached.

The festival committee welcomed the reinforcements.

“We never thought we’d need this,” said the silver fox, adjusting a rhinoceros slightly so the rabbit-burger banner would show in the photograph.

Inside the schools, little hearts beat hard enough to hurt.

A dormouse held her bladder. A teacher counted the same eleven children over and over. At the college, a stand-in secretary—whose title was Business Office Something-or-Other, unimportant and easily cut—crouched beneath her desk with one hand pressed against her chest.

She had fled another country to escape this.

How unacceptable.

Even after the doors opened again, their bodies would take some time to believe it was over.

At the festival, the fiddles resumed.

“We can’t let a little unpleasantness frighten us,” said the silver fox, humming an anthem.

A lion then became trapped in a folding chair.

He had pushed his paw through the cup holder to retrieve a sausage, and when he stood, the chair stood with him.

“Look what it’s come to,” he roared. “This is ridiculous!”

Two buffalo secured the area while a mouse fetched a screwdriver and ran with scissors.

The lion declined the mouse’s assistance until someone found a larger animal to hold the screwdriver.

Near the refreshments, a lone wolf discovered grapes growing above a fence.

He jumped. He missed. He jumped again.

A hedgehog suggested using the gate.

The wolf sat down and wept.

“Once,” he said, “there would have been grapes within reach.”

The silver fox snickered. He had had the grapevines manicured. He had cut down the persimmon trees. He’d had the areas around the meadow bush-hogged so no raspberries, blueberries, or wild strawberries grew.

He’d done it to keep the area clean for the festival. No one needed to concern themselves with the loss of free food.

Vendors! For God’s sake! Free food? Are you kidding me?

Stop sounding like a vegetarian. Or prey.

A predator. A prey.

No one said “a prey.”

You just said “prey.”

Interesting human language. You can say “a predator,” but “a prey” sounds odd.

The prey. Prey. Plural.

A prey.

Nope. Doesn’t work.

Predatory, though.

Huh. Rings accurately.

Several animals gathered around the wolf who had jumped for the grapes. Someone brought a blanket. The hedgehog was asked to give him space.

Later, the wolf gave a short speech about self-reliance.

Meanwhile, a leopard overturned three bins while searching for the particular cut of meat he remembered throwing away.

“Disgusting,” he said, surveying the rubbish.

He demanded to know who was responsible for the meadow.

The rabbits’ name came up. So did the otters’.

By afternoon, the grass was covered with bones, greasy paper, and little flags bearing the words RESPECT OUR HOME.

A jackal complained that the festival no longer felt welcoming.

A vulture complained that nobody had asked how the emergency had affected him.

Someone mentioned the children.

“Children are resilient,” said the lion. “And those who aren’t, well, Darwinian law.”

Darwin was not a lawmaker.

But the lion found him useful in that capacity.

Someone mentioned the schoolteachers.

“They knew what the job involved,” said the wolf.

Did anyone ask whether the private schools had locked down? Were they, too, adjacent to the town?

They were safely outside the legal town limits. Just a few dashes over.

Of course they were not in danger.

That would be silly.

Someone mentioned the expense.

“What price would you put on our safety?” asked the silver fox. “You can’t monetize this!”

The vendors were doing their best.

The rabbit-burger stall sold out, and the young blonde headliner vocalized repeatedly to a crowd of silver foxes, wolves, and drunken weasels.

Toward evening, an owl examined a printed copy of the troubling message.

Had it been sent from the festival office?

No one could establish that.

The silver fox explained that this proved how close the danger had come.

The message included a signature that almost matched the festival chairman’s.

“He has been under tremendous strain,” said the silver fox, although no one had authenticated the signature.

Nobody wished to add to it.

By then, two accounts of the afternoon were circulating.

In the first, the predators were besieged creatures whose ancient ways could survive only with protection, public money, and the proper respect.

In the second, they were the stouthearted animals who had carried on enjoying themselves while weaker creatures hid indoors.

The committee approved both accounts.

They distributed them through the same system. Some animals received one version. Others received the other.

The rhinoceroses stayed until sunset. The buffalo escorted the frightened predators to their cars. The lion posed beside his rescued chair, one paw wrapped in a clean white bandage, although it was the chair that had been damaged.

The photographs were excellent. Lots of metadata attached. No hidden details.

Very open.

Next year’s poster would show the lion beneath the words WE STOOD TOGETHER.

For the decorative border, the committee would choose two golden vines twisting around one another. One bore delicate flowers that required constant tending. The other bore thorns and was said to need nothing from anyone.

Together they would climb all the way to the chairman’s window.

By then, everyone had found a useful part in the story. The predators had been threatened. The predators had been brave. The great herds had protected them. The committee had acted decisively. The vendor had enjoyed his best day in years.

The schools would receive a bill for additional security.

Across the stream, the rabbits finished their ditch.

When the rain came, it worked.

Later that evening, the amplifiers were turned up until the celebration could be heard far beyond the meadow.

“THEY THOUGHT THEY COULD KEEP US DOWN! BUT ALL WE DO IS GET UP, UP, UP!”

“WOOOOOOO!”

“PREDATORS! PREDATORS! PREDATORS! PREDATORS!”

Across the stream, a young rabbit who had finally fallen asleep woke with his heart racing.

At the festival, someone was serving alligator, roasted to perfection, to the boars.

Someone else was serving roasted boar to the alligators.

Both stalls had long lines.

As it happened, no one at the festival had called in the false threat.

Neither had anyone in the town.

The chairman’s signature was a very good imitation.

Far below the state line, where the swamp met the ocean, the Apex Predator sat aboard his yacht.

He didn’t look like any of the other animals. He was his own animal.

Beside him were an aged whiskey, a smoldering cigar, and a screen showing the celebration in the meadow. Other screens showed the locked schools, the arriving buffalo, and the lion with his bandaged paw.

His donkey steak arrived. He unfolded his napkin and picked up his silverware, each handle fitted with polished elephant tusk.

All the technology he needed to confuse the predators and the prey was at his command. He could borrow a voice, reproduce a signature, deliver a whisper to a thousand ears, and arrange for each listener to believe it had come from somewhere close by.

On one screen, the fox demanded protection.

On another, the wolf explained that nobody owed anybody anything.

The Apex Predator ate slowly and thoughtfully.

An attendant asked whether he wanted the sound turned down.

He raised one finger. From the little speakers came another roar.

“PREDATORS! PREDATORS! PREDATORS!”

He smiled.

And took another bite.

The name of his yacht?

The Call of the Wild.

His other ship was being detailed.

Its name was The Unsympathetic.

Of course.

He actually wasn’t an Apex anything. In fact, he didn’t exist, not as a conscious being.

His name was Impersonal.

Nemo Impersonal Processes.

He was the most prosperous.

His systems proliferated and grew exponentially in each age of distraction enabled by the natural and innate suppression of self awareness.

And if anyone complained, well, you merely point it out that it was their fault after all.

They should have made better choices.

Surely higher beings weren’t continually succumbing to mimicry and programing generation after generation.

Surely cycle breaking was inevitable.