IT'S A CALIFORNIA THING! RE-CALIBRATE YOUR AURA!

There is, of course, a mental ailment that afflicts people living beyond the cities. The silence late at night, and the shifting shadows at the edge of vision in the darkness, combine to create monsters in their minds. Add over-active imaginations, and insufficient medication, and you end up with anomalous beings roaming the backwoods of America.
Things with horns and tendrils.
And teeth. Sharp teeth.

They aren't American representations of the Black Beast of Ar (of Monty Python fame), or the inbred Cornish Pygmies still rumoured to exist in parts of rural England.

These are the Jersey Devil, the Sheepsquatch, the Enfield Horror, Mothman, Sarah Palin, the Chupa-Cabras (note: singular despite the pluralist termination; 'goatS-sucker'), and the Petaluma Rabitode.


That last mentioned might actually exist. It's described by witnesses as a longish rat-like beast, like a bowling pin heading sideways, the size of a recumbent human, which slithers (or scuttles; accounts vary) into the barns of the poultry capitol to feast upon the chickens within. It either calms the birds by hypnotizing them or by emmitting a scent that dulls their senses.
Apparently business is good; the creature has been spotted as far south as Novato, as far west as Estero Road between Tomales and Bodega.


"IT WAS, LIKE HUUUUGE, YOU KNOW?"


Last week, two locals were bicycling in the hills near the coast when they spotted something. Their accounts are different enough that one may assume that they did not invent and coordinate, but actually saw something.

One of them, Sunkarma (29 years old), described it as covered in sleek fur, except for the plated head and beak-like snout.
The feet looked claw-like.

[NOTE: That probably ties in to Miwok legends about an oyster-eating animal which used its hard bony beak to crack shells. Obviously, battery chickens are softer and easier to hunt.]

The other witness (Persephone-Shawnee), on a different trail, reported a "big blob, kinda greasy gray, with a long pointed head like a possum; it was, like, huge, you know?" She also mentioned that it smelled like rotten eggs, and glared angrily at her before fleeing into the forest. Its paws resembled human hands, but were black, misshapen, and shiny.

"It was, um, kinda radiating sadness, and like, negativity!
Like, it thought I was invasive and gonna harm it?"

A key detail, which strikes me as extremely Northern Californian, was that she was returning from a native American smoke medicine ceremony, which was "very spiritual", and "re-calibrates your aura".
I don't know whether ganja or sage was offered.
Probably both. Along with etcetera.

All of which may have influenced Persephone-Shawnee's perceptions.

Sunkarma, who saw different feet, was collecting forest greens, because "veganism is in tune with mother nature". The lack of protein in her diet may have weakened her little hippie brain.
Marin is filled with refugees from flowerpower.
Unlike Petaluma, which has.....
Chickens.


Now, if you ask me, both ladies were probably stoned out of their minds and batshit crazy. From a variety of causes. The entire Bay Area is filled with male and female hysterics of their type. Heck, we're so holy and "spurtule" that we think tofu and karma didn't exist until we invented them back in the eighties.

I'm looking forward to eventually seeing the beast on Polk Street in my neighborhood. Drunken twenty-somethings are even easier to hunt than chickens.

And probably juicier, too.



By the way, Petaluma is the only municipality in the United States which has laws against congress with chickens. There is a good reason for this.



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