You Wouldn’t Know Danger if it Was Staring You in The Face

“Would you?” But she had her ears closed off to the world and had no way of realizing she was walking right into a trap. As she continued trampling along the tall, wilted summer grass, oblivious to her surroundings, each of her calloused pads vibrated as the earth rumbled beneath her. Instinctually silencing the distraction to hear her own senses, alarm bells were sounding in her mind as she scurried low to the ground, toward the wind, through the tall grass for cover. I said, “you wouldn’t know danger if it was staring you in the face, would you?”

Not him again, she thought, “there’s no way this is happening! Not again!! No, no, no, no how did I get myself back here!?” You know the drill, the lion told her, “you raccoons always repeat the same mistakes—now get over here!” He patted the ground beside him, clearing her a spot, “and don’t make me get up or all deals are off and you know the alternative—I shouldn’t have to explain it to you again.” He asked her “what are you doing back over here on this side anyway, what didn’t you learn last time?”

“I’m sorry Mr. Lion,” she said, “I’m so sorry, I’ll never come back again, ever, just let me go again, please??” “Shut up!” He roared as saliva began pooling around the base of his canines, “relax! Calm down, I’m not going to eat you unless you let me get up—I’m comfortable,” he told her. “Now get over here and make me understand why you’d return to the exact same place you should’ve died at already.”

_Pixabay

Once situated in his grasp, she pretended to be calm as she explained how their #new leader made a line along the whole southern plain denying all of the raccoons access, “now we can’t go there and they can’t come here,” she said. “What do you mean a line? What’s a line,” he asked, “how did the leader make it and with what material?” She explained how the richest leaf on the highest tree gets pulled. They use the outer edge of the leaf’s natural shape as a defining edge and the sharp end gets dipped in oil for accountability, then they used it to draw a line between us and them.

He laughed. “You’re making this up, right? You’ve got quite the imagination, raccoon, I’ll give you that much—now say it again only this time make it sound believable!!” “I’m not lying, Mister Lion, sir, that’s how they do it!” The threat of the lion having to stand to his feet has all but dissipated—she’s made him completely comfortable and he doesn’t have to move a muscle, “go ahead,” he told her, “keep me comfortable and, I don’t like to lift a finger, now tell me more about this line.” He stretched out his legs, exhaled an echoing roar of a yawn and explained “just when you think you’ve heard it all—trust me when I say I’ve heard it all!” He said he’s heard everything from leaders paying prostitutes to be quiet about performing sexual favors to a leader who marketed consumer products prior to receiving completed test results and now they’re known to cause brain tumors but are still available for public consumption and, now this, “a line made with a leaf dipped in oil?” Go on.

“You know the big oak tree that’s tipped over on the western river bank, right?” She asked him. “Of course,” he told her it’s been there since the beginning of time. “Yeah, that’s the one,” she said, “now we have to sacrifice wages to cross that tree.” “What happens if you don’t have wages to sacrifice?” She told him she has a lot of friends who can’t afford the sacrifice, “hardly anyone can,” she said, “all of the dens acquire debt to satisfy the sacrifice.” Now he’s even more confused, he’s never heard of this thing called debt, either. He asked if she could explain it to him, “please, tell me about this thing they go into, I want to know how it’s spelled, is it like a hole?” He asked. “What does it do? Where does it go?”

Debt, d.e.b.t, it’s short for debited, which is what a trip over the old oak tree counts as, a debit, if you can’t immediately afford the sacrifice. “That seems too complicated,” he growled, “are you trying to confuse me?! Are you lying to me, raccoon??”

“I promise Mister Lion,” she cried. “Please don’t get up, please don’t lift a finger, I’m telling the truth” she pleaded. “You mean you expect me to believe a leaf on a tree makes a line that makes an old dead oak tree which, by the way, has been there longer than both of us combined, suddenly cost sacrifices to cross?! What world do you come from, can you hear yourself?” He asked “who all sees this line, is it visible to everyone?”

She asked “you remember the last time, right? Remember how I told you we’re all taught the same #story out of the same text book from sea to sea, remember that thing I showed you called a book?” His mane motioned in the wind—yes. “Ok, well the things inside the book are called pages, they’re made from dead trees. They used a similar type of page to draw the line on with the leaf.”

The imagination and its limitations you raccoons continue to defy never cease to amaze me—as a whole, your species has undoubtedly got the wildest, most vivid and perverse imaginations in the entire kingdom. He told her “maybe you’ve heard this one,” just the other day, he said, a raccoon he later killed told him about every den for as far as they can see has given up their claws—they can’t use their own claws anymore, only peace keepers, that’s what he called them, ‘peace keepers’ who, come to find out are also raccoons, are the only raccoons allowed to have their claws. “Yes,” she continued, “that’s true, they’re taking away our claws across all of the lands, much farther than the eye can see. In some territories, the only claws you can possess are a minimum of five years old, none older than seven years, they can’t be a complete set, either, and they can only be used in a controlled environment, under directed authority, paid for by the slaves.” She said anyone charged and convicted of carrying their own claws in public can be fined, sentenced to slavery or both and, in some cases, depending on your geographic location, beheaded.

Now he was curious to know more about the peace keepers, he wanted to know how they’re chosen, “who decides?” He asked. “How are these keepers selected?” She told him they go through vigorous physical and psychological conditioning, together with other raccoons and, not every raccoon who’s interested in joining will be accepted, leaving rejected raccoons infuriated. “I remember when I was younger, the peace keepers were friendly—they were welcoming and inviting, they didn’t wear armor and spikes like they do today, and maintained positive dialogue across all of the dens.” “And now,” he asked, “how are they now?”

Now they don’t maintain any dialogue at all. They’ve evolved into a special type of specie, they don’t even dress the same anymore, not only must you avoid conversation with them, all you have to do these days is make eye contact with one and you’re automatically subjected to a full body cavity search and interrogation. They use a special set of assault claws only available to them that are capable of slaughtering up to 30 raccoons per second. They wear spiked fur, face shields with vision enhancement, diamond-plated elbow and knee pads, titanium razor wire around their whiskers—they don’t even look like raccoons anymore. They’ve gone as far as having each of their fur coats maintained by the same set of shears and they all draw payment from the same source. “It sounds like a system that’s spiralling out of control,” he said. “It is!” He asked her if that’s the only line they draw.

“No.” She told him there’s tens of thousands of lines drawn across all of the plains that span rivers, mountain ranges, everywhere is accounted for, even the great seas, every square inch of free range planet has been conquered and divided into territories. “What’s used as the divider?” She described a four-cornered piece of lightweight fabric, each with identifying colors that claim stake to a specific region of land. “That’s it?!” He asked, “colored fabric?” His roar could be heard for miles as his laughter echoed across the valley, “your entire population is divided by the colors on a four cornered piece of a fabric?” It didn’t make any sense to him at all. “Well, not just that,” she said, it gets worse. Each colony vows to protect the colors to the point of even killing their own kind if you don’t believe the same values as the colors on the fabric. “They’ve also divided us up according to body odor, whisker lengths, religious beliefs....” he interrupted her, “re-what did you call it, relinquishes?” He asked “have you ever considered how powerful your colony would be if it wasn’t for divisions—if all of the lines simply worked together?” But he misunderstood the last part about beliefs, “what kind did you say they are?”

“Religious,” she told him, as she begged and pleaded with the lion for her life “I beg you, please let me go, I don’t have the knowledge or understanding to explain them to you and I’ve made it this far without you getting up—there’s over 4,000 of them, Mister Lion, that’s all I know but please don’t get up.” He said “your species has more than 4,000 belief systems in place to keep all of you divided from each other and you can’t even explain them to me??” He considered asking her how many of them she could explain and stopped himself, “never mind,” he thought, “you probably don’t know more than one.” He shook his head in disbelief as he pushed her aside “get out of here, raccoon, you’re good at believing everything you’re told—some things never change.”

As she hurried out of his reach and back to safety, he left her with a final observation that, prior to that moment, had never been considered. He told her next time she’s out there with her ears closed off to the world and, oblivious of her surroundings, she should ask herself why an entire colony of raccoons, collectively, would believe in something so passionately they’re willing to lay down their own #life for it if they can’t even explain how it works to one sleeping lion.

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