Metropolis - Chapter 15

Hello all,

This chapter is a quiet interlude from the 8 action packed pages that this comic usually is.  (Tongue placed firmly against cheek.)

Download the F.Y.O.C version here.








Have a good day.

The Owl and the Hippo

This song is based on my son's bib.  It has a picture of an owl sitting on a hippopotamus.  Underneath the picture is the word: "Friends".

This struck me as a very odd paring of animals.  So I started free-styling lyrics to a song which I sang to Max often.

Here is the final version of the lyrics.  Enjoy.

Chorus:
The Owl and the Hippo are natural friends
The Owl and the Hippo are natural friends
The Owl and the Hippo are natural friends
Just like me and you

The Owl and the Hippo hunt prey together
By means of a complicated ruse
Which involves a baseball bat
And a large hydrangea bush

Chorus

The Owl and the Hippo were natural enemies
Sixty-five million years ago
But they developed a symbiotic relationship
Over many thousands of years

Chorus

The Owl and the Hippo share accommodation
Made by the industrious Owl
He builds a nest in a sturdy tree
With very very thick branches

Chorus

Things to Come – Part 13 – Big Mother is Watching You

"For someone who has been banished, you sure do spend a lot of time around the herd."

At first, Loganoh thought the voice was a dream.  Except for the occasional Knoght with a gruff command, no one had spoken to him since he had been banished.   He looked up and realized that a female was actually talking to him.  Loganoh assumed the worst.

"I'm only on the herd rim.  I'm allowed to be here."

"I know you are." she smiled at Loganoh.  She was a very old female.

"I know you." he said.  "You were at my trial."

"Yes, I was.  Do you know my name?" she asked.  Loganoh shook his head.  "It's Dicrostonyxo."

"Dic... Dirco..."

"Yes.  It is a very old name.  Call me Nyxo.  Come walk with me, Loganoh."

Loganoh was shocked to see Nyxo saunter outward.  Mamas seldom strayed from the herd core let alone away from the herd.  Loganoh scampered after her. 

"Is this whelp troubling you, ma'am?" huffed a Knoght.  A trio was just returning from an outward patrol.

"No, I'm fine.  I'm just teaching this one the finer points of banishment.  You can carry on." she said.

"We encountered no predators out this way.  But I can't say that will remain the case, ma'am.  We will escort you."  The Knoght and his two counterparts took positions in front of the Mama.

Nyxo looked up into the air and then said, "There are no predators around.  I won't need your escort.  Continue your duties, Knoghts."

The Knoghts stopped and exchanged concerned glances.

"Are you deaf?" asked Nyxo, twitching her whiskers.

"No Ma'am."  And the three Knoghts were gone.

Loganoh was puzzled.  How could a lemming know whether there were predators or not?  He looked up and all he could see was a gull.  This Mama was powerful.  And she knew things; things that Loganoh didn't understand.  Could she possibly have the answers Loganoh sought?  This would have to be handled delicately.  Questioning Mamas was not polite.  He had hoped that she would begin a conversation, but Nyxo did not speak for some time. They were well out of sight of the herd now.  Loganoh was becoming discouraged.  He decided to throw caution to the wind.  He was already banished.  How could it get any worse?

"Please, ma'am.  Can you tell me what Herd Crime is?"

Nyxo hummed with amusement.  "It's a crime against the Herd."

Loganoh had heard this too often.  "I understand that part.  I just don't know what it is I've done.  I can't see my family or my herdlet anymore.  No one has spoken to me for I don't know how many moons.  And nobody can tell me what I did."

"That's not entirely true is it?  You know what you did.  You just don't know what you did wrong." She replied.

"The Great Run." gasped Loganoh.  "Miriao thought I was talking about the Great Run.  What is it?  Why is it bad to talk about it?"

Nyxo looked up at the gull again.  She looked disappointed and sighed.

"We don’t have enough time.  There’s a predator close by.  Let’s head back to the herd." she said as she turned herd-ward.

Loganoh's heart leapt and he looked up expecting to see an owl.  He only saw another gull.  Or was it the same gull?

"Do you like being alone, Loganoh?" Nyxo asked.

Loganoh did not know how to respond to the question.  Admitting it would be tantamount to admitting you were a deviant.  But lying to a Mama was always a bad choice.  Could she already know?  Was the question some kind of test? 

Loganoh looked at Nyxo and saw that she was smiling at him.

"Yes.  I like it too." she said.  "But the herd doesn't like to see such behavior in a Mama, so I don't get to enjoy it as often as I'd like."

Loganoh couldn't believe his ears.  Could it be that there were others like him?

"Maybe I should get banished too?" Nyxo laughed.

A Juicy Rationalization

I’m a big fan of “Watership Down” by Richard Adams.  I first saw it on TV when I was a kid.  Get it.  Watch it.  All the voices are done by these really great old UK actors.

Then I discovered it was actually a book.  I remember thinking: “How could a book about bunnies be that big?”  This was not a children's story.  At least, not entirely a children's story.

What I found most fascinating about the story was the society Adams created.  You get a totally compelling bunny society and culture that, for the most part, does not defy what the average person observes of bunnies.  Maybe bunnies really can’t count higher than five.  Maybe some bunnies have the gift of precognition.  How would we know different?  Pretty cool thought, at any rate.

I was also really fond of "Silverwing" by Kenneth Oppel.  The idea of echo chambers storing bat history was cool.  If bats developed a "technology" that would totally be it.  Wouldn't it?  I mean, really, that was so cool.  "Silverwing" takes Adams idea one step further; an animal society, culture and technology.

Since reading "Watership Down", I always wanted to write my own animal Sci-Fi story.  Then I discovered lemmings.  I don’t remember how or where.  What I found most striking about them was the phenomenon that lemmings, for some debatably unknown reason, committed mass suicide by jumping off a cliff into the sea.  Some thought it happened naturally because the lemming population reached critical mass.  Others thought it was part of some primordial urge to migrate to the sunken continent of Atlantis.  Atlantis!  Really!  I’m not foolin’.  It seemed the perfect fodder for a story because it also fed my desire for apocalypse science-fiction (Blood Music, Childhood’s End, A Canticle for Leibowitz, etc.).

Then disaster struck my young writer’s mind.  I learned that lemmings don’t actually commit mass suicide.  It was a wild and ill-conceived notion.  How could I write a story about lemmings based on a myth?  Adams would turn over in his grave.  So would Oppel if he was dead.  I shelved the idea for a very long time.

Then I started to toy with the idea of basing my story on lemming myth and not lemming fact.  I've read a lot of early pulp sci-fi.  Some of which was written based on some pretty dubious science.  Why not?  I decided to go for it.
                             
Recently I saw the movie "The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole" (I should mention that I only saw the movie and didn't read the book.)  In the story, owls were forging metal weapons and helmets.  It was a pretty neat story, but forging metal weapons?  It wasn’t like “Watership Down” or “Silverwing” at all.  It wasn't owl technology.  It was human technology used by owls.  In my mind, the story crossed some line.  Since then, I’ve felt less conflicted about writing a story based on lemming myths.

So that’s what my “Things to Come” is all about.  It is an apocalypse story based on lemming myths we once thought were reality.

That’s my juicy rationalization for the year. 

I hope you’re enjoying the story.

PS: I really love saying the word bunnies.

Joao