*** BUGGED AND TAILED IN EDEN
At this exact second something fitsie flits aggressively about Ever’s halo head. It makes a swift three point landing on her shapely bare left shoulder. Without hands, she can only bat her flashing lashes (lashes?) and twitch her snub nose. (Ever has incredibly long sweeping lashes of infinitely fine copper wire that are often sparked with a quivering energy so bright she can use them like flashlights.)
“Scat! Scat!” Ever’s voice has a frantic edge to it as she spits out air through puckered lips toward the bug.
“BUZZZ. BUZZZZZIT.”
“Wouldn’t you know it, my first moment in Eden and I’m assaulted by a thirsty beastie bug!” snorts Ever.
“Beg pardon…Quito at your service. I’m a master mosquito,” buzzes Mr. Quito. “And, if you will permit me, I might mention that you are a bit on the puny side.” He makes a snitty production of spitting out a thin stream of something that looks like weak pink lemonade.
“I suggest some apple juice.” He cocks his triangular head at her and remains, his long curled tongue at the ready, on her moist shoulder.
Ever is scandalized at such an assumptive pronouncement and looks around in the moonless air for a mirror to affirm that she still possesses her usual inescapable allure, but there are only murky puddles splattered randomly here and there about the dense verdant scenery. The waning light beckons, but the moon beyond the clouds has a cold, cold heart and it casts too dim a glow to reflect on. Even so, she kneels at one of these puddles and it vaguely mirrors the mess of what might once have been hair. The time tunnel is evidently torture on tresses.
“Woohoo. I need a hat!” She bumps against a sapling and a loosely woven bird’s nest tumbles upside down onto her head and comes to rest at a rather rakish angle.
“Nice,” Quito spittles.
“TA DA!” Ever takes a shaky bow and rises in a slightly gawky twist. Balance is skill that begs practice. Her left copper eyebrow lifts in a quirk. She wonders if she has a tail. It is her first preponderosity in Eden.
AS TO TAILS:
Have you ever had a dream where you actually had a tail you could wag? It really is the most astounding experience. It is almost as delicious as a dream where you can easily levitate and fly without equipment.
But, excuse me, I dither.
A tail can be quite expressive, not to mention that it is a fabulous fashion accoutrement. Just the perfect thing to twitch into a decorative curl or drag behind you like an afterthought that says you have it all. They can be sleek, spiky or frizzy, striped, solid, spotted or tipped, and can appear in an infinite range of colors from subtle to outlandish.
There is ripe evidence that you can accomplish streamlined tree travel and even suspended animation with one. You can weave it around anything you wish to enthrall and you can surround yourself with it when you need a little hideaway. A tail is a must have marvel and a vital appendage in a savage world. You can slyly reveal so much about your mercurial mood with one.
Or, you can even give a tail a brief snap to show disgust. Cats do this splendidly. A slow swishing is also one of their supreme specialties. They can inflict a rather vicious swipe with a tail that sends snaky shivers down the spines of all observers. In fact, cats were possibly the first fashion mavens in the mammal realm. They started all this trash with trends and fads and preening and runway stalking. It surely wasn’t an orangutan. I’m holding cats ultimately responsible for bell bottoms, moo moos, minis and those irritatingly itchy thongs.
Dogs, of course, are more clunky thumpers and wild sweepers. Their abundant emotions and rabid enthusiasms are explicit in their irrepressible tails. Tucking a tail underneath says defeat like no other motion save bearing the throat to an alpha wolf. A tail would be a true and valuable wonderment to a human. How has our human vanity ever survived with out them?
