beaver tails & cats

The frail wooden door slammed open in the sudden gust of wind. It flapped helplessly on it's rickety hinges as tired as an old beggar worn threadbare by years of abuse and failure. 

It flapped again against the stone wall before I reached for it. I had to lift it up in order to close it so that it would not drag against the broken cement floor. 

Just before the latch snicked close, I noticed the large hole in the crumbling wall. It was not there before. No surprise really as this house was starting to decay, beaten down by endless rain, high humidity and neglect. I poked at the loose mortar curiously. A snake uncoiled silently. It had crawled into the hole to weather the encroaching storm. Black beady eyes and flickering tongue, we both shared an instance of shock and fear. I thought briefly for a moment of picking it up with a stick and tossing it out but decided against it. There were other pressing matters to attend to.

There was the parrot that the cat had tried to kill. It was only my high pitched yell that stopped him. The parrot was a riot of orange and yellow feathers with a tall plume that flopped from side to side each time it talked. It had a fascinating story to tell. Of mountains and forests and tribal warfare. It kept looking at the cat with disdain as it waxed ecstatic about it's exotic adventures in far away lands. Then there was the sullen garden gnome. The detailed features of it's face had all but washed away.

Later, after the rains had stopped, I walked around the side of the house. The grass was long and the blades soaked my jeans and shoes. Water had pooled in areas and I had to tread carefully so as to not sink into the mud. Cicadas make their sound deep inside their thorax where hollow cavities covered by a membrane act like vibrating drum heads. The sound buzzed like a crazed symphony that had lost it's tablature. And then I noticed the beavers. At first glance they appeared to be huddled together by the fence but as I got closer I realized that one of them was trying to pry loose the fence boards while the other two were giving it directions. They chittered away in high speed like a 33 LP on 78. They stopped as I approached and looked over at the fourth beaver as if searching for guidance. 

The fourth beaver was large. No. if he was huge. He looked more like a seal than a beaver. I estimated him to be about 8 feet long but I had missed seeing him against the house. He wore a coat of camouflage so deceiving that he blended into the shrubbery that lined the foundation of the house. I became frightened. The urge to urinate was strong. The three beavers by the fence had stood up and balancing smartly on their beaver tails, started walking towards me. They didn't look friendly. The fourth beaver rumbled something unintelligible. It sounded angry and sinister like distant thunder. As I stumbled backwards in fear I bumped into the scientist. He was carrying two steel briefcases. The kind that secret agents carry around high tech gadgetry for blowing things up with. I knew instantly that inside each briefcase contained something that was critically vital to the little garden gnome. He had commissioned the beavers to retrieve it. Maybe it was his face.

The beavers chittered and chirped in frenzy. Chittered and scraped. Chittered and scratched. And scraped. And scraped and scraped and scraped...

...and she moaned softly against my shoulder. I opened my eyes. Dawn was reaching through the crack in the blinds. The bloody cat was playing with the BZee Kitty in the basement and I had to pee.