SPEAKING IN THE THIRD CREATURE

Mister Badger sipped his warm mixture of coffee and tea, and smiled to himself. It was fortunate that there was no one else around, as, naturally, this displayed his sharp teeth. Rabbits had wet themselves when he did so in public. It had been a good day. He had wandered around the Wild Wood, animal watching after enjoying a nice hot bowl of porridge and a bit of fried dough. Two pipes! The tin of Escudo that he had opened recently was over three years old, and the combination of flue-cured leaf and perique spun in disc form had aged superlatively!

The animal watching was not as delightful as it had been yesterday. Then he had observed with secret delight the lissome angulations of weasels and ferrets, and their bright bright eyes darting curiously everywhere as their little snouts twitched. Most appealing!

Today, it had been older beasts. Many stores were closed because of the holiday, and most creatures on the main drag were mutton-faced baboons from out of town. Plus several lumbering suburban moose, who didn't know the neighborhood, and by their pie-eyed milling around in front of stores selling trinkets showed that neither common sense nor good taste were significant elements in their world. After finishing his second smoke, mister Badger caught the bus across the hill.

It was already twilight.

A few stops later, a dignified elderly stoat got on at the same time as two unbalanced groundhogs. One of the hogs kept insanely gibbering about how happy he was with his coffee, just enough money left for a nice cup how lucky, hello my little friend how are you, oh so happy happy coffee coffee coffee! The other groundhog belched. The elderly stoat avoided their eyes, not wanting to be roped into a crazy public transit conversation.

Mister Badger, being quite clearly a bad-tempered old cooze -- at least, that was the image he desperately tried to project under these circumstances -- was in no danger. The two female ferrets with the infant on the other side also tried to stay out of the conversation.

The child had not responded to the greeting from the happy coffee creep, and he returned his attention to his belching acquaintance.

The odd blathering opposite him stilled when the caffeinated groundhog left the conveyance. Mister Badger hoped that the belcher would not get off at the same stop as he himself, but wasn't too worried. He knew which copse of trees that particular seedy individual inhabited. For the last three blocks he listened in on the two lady ferrets and the tyke instead.
Occasionally the groundhog in the corner belched.
And grunted in a satisfied way.

When he got home, he discovered that the savage kitten who lived on the other side of the den had not yet returned. She was probably out gaily gallivanting with her young wolverine. Good. He started up the computer, and read a bit of news while polishing the stems of two pipes. A lovely smooth Barling, and a Stanwell sandblast. Both were medium-large billiard shapes with tapered stems. The carbon rubber had oxidized slightly, not enough to be really noticeable, except to an anal-retentive Badger.
Who, in a way, was neurotic and a perfectionist.
Albeit in other ways somewhat messy.
Clean plates and cutlery.
But no dusting.



Both days had been exceptionally good. He wondered if he would ever see the lovely ferret with the glasses again, who had engaged him in conversation at the snackeria the previous day.
She had been quite charming.

The world would be a better place if there were more like her.
Her eyes, it seemed, twinkled with good humour.
But maybe that had been the glasses.
Still. Nice to remember.


The articles on the Beaver Broadcasting Corporation website were substantially the same as they had been in the morning.
The first day of the year, clearly, had been quiet.
Which was just as it should be.

No new news is good news.



By the time he had nearly finished his hot beverage, he ran spellcheck on a little essay he had written.

The program did not like the following words: Perique. Angulations. Cooze. Caffeinated. Belcher. Barling. Stanwell. Snackeria.
STET. Spellcheck wasn't perfect.
Hit publish.




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