Baby T-Rex and the Two-Headed Cat-Tails

Once upon a time, a baby Tyrannosaur went walking through the Cretaceous jungle. Or the plains. Plains is better, it gives you a sense of the awe-inspiring size, dwarfing small trees, even as a baby. Crap, I think mostly sauropods hung around in marshes. What about theropods? Marshes, for the purposes of this story. Let's say a marsh, with great cat-tails sweeping up from the muck. There was one cat-tail, however, in this marsh, that was different. There were two tails on the same stalk. Each head could, surprisingly, without the benefit of a larynx or a mouth or even lungs, speak perfect English. This cat-tail was also a predator.

"What would a two-headed cat-tail talk about, though?" you might ask. Mostly the heads argued about when the end of their futile existence would come at the jaws of some Brachiosaur looking for roughage, or by freak lightning strike, or simply by starvation. Carnivorous though they were, even a whole stand of talking cat-tails would prove no match for a massive sauropod, an act of god, or privation. Mobility was a problem, for one thing, so hunting was out. And the mechanism used by the cat-tails to entice their prey was another: the conversations about the end of the world served to bore their prey to death, and given that autonomous motor function was not in the evolutionary cards for the cat-tails, they had simply to hope that a bird or small rodent would drop the prey into their cat-tail gullets. It was a bad system, and some of the conversations revolved around the impossibility of taking over the world, or even surviving the next evolutionary blitz.

"Adapt or die," one of the heads would gabble.

"But how is that possible? We haven't the power," the other replied. These conversations were almost reflex at this point. Each head played its part and knew what was coming from the other before it was spoken.

"But we must. Or we shall surely perish."

"Well, you tell me how to adapt, and I'm all for it."

"Point taken. We're not long for this world."

"Oh, agreed there, friend, agreed there."

"What do you think? I give us a year or two."

"Well could be any day now."

"Quite right, quite right."

It went on like this. And on. Some of the more intelligent hamsterish capybara-like mammals were lulled into a sort of hypnotic trance by the cat-tails' speech. These hamsterish capybara-like mammals (the ones who were not bored to death by the cat-tails) would prove to be predecessors to the modern-day fans of the Blackfriars soccer team in England. Strange but entirely true. These pre-football football fans were the primary source of food for the carnivorous cat-tail, that is, when a kind or careless bird dropped the meat into the cat-tail's mouths. The cat-tail was exceedingly skilled at boring the little creatures to death, and consequently was surrounded by quite a pile of rotting carcasses. For this reason, and out of a sheer lack of interest in the subject of end-times for the cat-tail, most of the other marsh creatures avoided this end of the marsh. Scavengers occasioned the carcass pile, but even they were loath to steal from the cat-tails, lest they fall under the droning spell, or simply become irritated at the total self-absorption of the heads' conversation. A starving scavenger would think long and hard before coming to the carnivorous cat-tail's quadrant. The baby T. Rex did not know this, and being that he was a partial scavenger, he was particularly excited to come across a steaming heap of seemingly unguarded, partially maggot-ridden meat.

And a baby he was. Still covered from head to toe with soft down like a pillow of clouds, fully seven feet tall and eight-hundred pounds, he still sucked the vestigial thumb on the end of one of his tiny, nearly useless arms. Consequent to this habit and his species' characteristically razor-sharp teeth, the thumb was always raw and ragged. His mother tried to rub aloe on it to upset his stomach, but it was no use: he simply got used to the taste of aloe. "Keep it up," she would growl. "Keep doing that to it and it will fall off."

The fledgling T. Rex stumbled into a brack of reedy cat-tails, reedier than usual. Walking along, sucking his thumb he walked deeper and deeper into the water, and came upon the load of carrion heretofore aforementioned. From the center of this pile sprouted a peculiar-looking sort of cat-tail with two raceme, each one speaking perfect English. The baby Rex also spoke English, and gnawed intently on his thumb and stared. He knew it was rude to eavesdrop, but he wanted very much to eat the flesh around the cat-tail. The cat-tail seemed to be engaged in a serious dialogue with itself. The Tyrannosaur had never heard a conversation like this, much less heard a cat-tail speak at all.

"So, any time now, eh?"

"Hm."

"Maybe it will drag out for generations. Eons even."

"Dear and bother, I couldn't bear it. Awful."

"Certainly. Let's hope for the short version, eh?"

"Right you are. Unless we evolve."

"Of course. Or adapt."

"A lovely mess this is. No way to steer our own evolutionary course, no telling what's around the corner."

"We'll be gone, extinct in weeks."

"I say, what's that?" The cat-tail heads, having only the most primitive of sensory capacities, had not seen or heard the approach of the baby Tyrannosaurus, nor smelled or tasted, even though - the state of prehistoric oral hygiene being what it was and the strictly carnivorous diet of Tyrannosauri being what it was - every Tyrannosaurus ever in existence reeked distinctly of decaying flesh, except this one, who also smelled slightly of aloe. They didn't even feel the thudding gait of the creature's footsteps. No, they only sensed body warmth. Their having utterly limited perception did not keep them from speaking, obviously, but this is not so surprising: it has never deterred certain heads of state.

"The end? The blessed end?"

"Shush; Say, chap." One head of the cat-tail (the left one) addressed the T. Rex. "What's your name?"

The T. Rex was surprised at being spoken to. "Mm. My name....my name." He mumbled around his bloody thumb, awkwardly scratching his head with the arm which was not being used as a pacifier. "What's a name?"

"Good Lord, are you daft?"

"It's what you call yourself." The right raceme introduced itself, "My name is Lefty."

"And I am Bocephus. 'Bo' for short."

"Oh, I don't have a name, I guess." The T. Rex added helpfully, "I like to eat."

"No name. Tsk, tsk. Well, we'll have to give you one. Mmm...ahhh."

"Fabulous idea. How about Martin?"

"No, that won't do." Again Lefty addressed the visitor. "Say, what are you?"

"I'm a...a...what am I?"

"This again."

Bo mumbled, "Doesn't understand much, does he?"

"Not at all," replied Lefty. "What I mean is, are you a hamsterish capybara?"

"I don't think so. What's a capybara?"

"A small thing, hairy, runs around on four legs." The T. Rex tried to picture this, but his tiny brain was not built for abstraction. It was particularly keen at hunting and killing, though. "There's a pile of them around here."

"What's a pile?"

"Dear Lord."

"Okay, let's try another. You said you like to eat?"

"Yes, more than anything."

"What do you eat?"

"All sorts of things. I eat anything that moves." The T. Rex corrected himself. "Or used to move."

"Now we're getting somewhere." Lefty was pleased.

Bo mumbled again, "Leaves us out, doesn't it?"

"Quite so, unless the wind kicks up."

"Let's hope it does."

"Right, so," once again to the T. Rex, "you're a predator and a scavenger. A carnivore."

"Okay." The T. Rex was befuddled.

"How old are you?" The T. Rex could count as high as six (two fingers and one vestigial thumb on each hand). His mother had also taught him that it was rude and dangerous to eat any more than six things at once. It was a useful preventative for choking, and besides which, he only had six digits.

"Um, six?"

"You don't sound sure."

"I'm not."

"Well, then, six," chortled Bocephus.

"Judging by your body temperature, and age...hmm...early Cretaceous, I think; Bo, have you looked at a calendar? No matter....carry the one....I'd say you're a Tyrannosaurus Rex."

"Is that my name?" the young theropod tested this new word.

"It's a sort of name."

Bo suggested 'Torrance.'

"Not a regal name. Don't you know what 'Rex' means?"

Dejectedly, Bo spat back, "What it will mean, you mean."

"Oh, shut up. We're not calling him 'Torrance.'"

"You can call him whatever you want. I'm sticking with Torrance."

"How is the king of the dinosaurs supposed to inspire terror with a name like 'Torrance?'"

"All right. How about Wulff?"

"Wulff? Only if he's a homosexual. Or German."

The T. Rex wondered aloud, "What's a homosexual?"

Lefty ignored this quandary. "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" The baby T. Rex pooped a little. "See, I told you. No Wulff."

"How about Wulffrance?"

"Oh, well played. I like that."

"It's not alliterative, but at least it's originally aboriginated by, wha?...you know, I made it up."

"We did." Lefty continued. "Now, Wulffrance, are you small enough for us to eat?"

Bocephus was horrified. "You'll scare him off."

"Bo, I don't think he'd be aware if he was being picked apart by hamsterish capybara-like rodents."

As if to signal that this was the case, the baby T. Rex pooped again. "I like to eat."

"Well put, Lefty. Continue."

"Yes, Wulffrance, and we like to eat, too. But we have this problem."

"Quite a problem, indeed."

"We can't seem to get our own food into our mouths."

"I believe you might help us."

"Would you help us?"

Wulffrance wondered when his next meal would come. It had been at least thirteen or fourteen minutes since he'd last eaten. "Sure. Will I get to eat?"

"I think so, sure."

Bocephus chimed in, "To be sure. If you help us, you'll travel to a place where there is enough to eat." He added, with a dark tone, "Forever."

"Wow." Wulffrance was in awe; his jaw dropped open, and out fell his arm, thumb ground down to hamburger and bone. "Six."

"'Six,' indeed." Lefty gaped now, at the sheer stupidity of the T. Rex.

"What do I do?"

"All you have to do is to feed yourself to us."

"Oh." It did not occur to Wulffrance that this course of action was logically unsound; he hadn't the processing skill to determine cause and effect. He thought for a moment, somber, and brightened again when he thought of food. "Okay."

"I've got a plan," whispered Bocephus.

"Why are you whispering? This twit is going to feed himself to us."

"Very well." Bo went on, "Now. The higher-order mammals, some of them have this new thing called an apposable thumb."

"Oh, I think I follow."

"The other day I was thinking, 'If we had apposable thumbs, we'd be evolved.' Right?" Bo held forth his master scheme.

"One would think."

"It might lead to bigger developments. Perhaps sensory organs. Or genitalia."

"That might be nice."

"Right. We'd have a purpose in life."

"Procreation."

"Even masturbation would be better than this."

"Agreed."

"So an apposable thumb could be a huge leap for our species."

"But where to get one?"

"That's where this little bugger comes in." Wulffrance, entranced by the fluttering shapes of a dazzling multi-colored butterfly the size of a vulture, squealed with hungry delight. "Yes, yes, you ponce." If Bo had had hands, he would have rubbed them together evilly, but as such, he hadn't even thumbs to illustrate his malice. He continued, "According to my studies, Tyrannosauruses have thumbs. And they have at times been known to eat things with thumbs."

"Yes, go on."

"Don't you see? Just ten or fifteen million years ago, they hadn't any thumbs at all, and now they've got thumbs." Bo's theory (which he described in detail, that revolved around a complex study of the basic proteins in DNA and the re-combination inherent over time on an evolutionary scale of digested food matter) was that eating thumbs was likely to have given the Tyrannosauri their thumbs. He further posited that the Tyrannosaur's thumb was only useless because the entire species was "dumb as a sack of wet hammers." He concluded, "They wouldn't know what to do with a thumb if they found one planted in their anal cavities. We will start with the thumb."

"At the very least, it will be a tasty apertif before the main course. "

"Exactly."

"Wulffrance, are you ready?"

"Six?"

"Wulffrance. Put your thumb in my mouth."

Wulffrance was dismayed. He liked the idea far better that his thumb would be in his mouth. After some food, of course. "What?"

"My mouth, Wulffrance, my mouth. That thing there, you've got it. Okay, wait a moment."

Bocephus bit down, managing to sever the thumb due to its badly mangled and maligned condition. Wulffrance screamed in pain and fled, his tiny arm spouting blood, the bone poking through the wound, wiggling like a grub-worm.

"Damn. I think he's gotten away."

Lefty interrupted. "It's impolite to speak with your mouth full. But do give me some of that."

"Help yourself." Moments later, an ultrasaurus with a powerful digestive back-up ate the two-headed cat-tail in a single bite, along with about thirty other non-carnivorous, more typically silent cat-tails. Lefty and Bocephus were gnawed and digested slowly, and had a while to chew the fat.

"This is the end, then? Ouch."

"Ow. Yeah. Ow. Not much, is it?"

"Pretty - ow, ow, that hurt - disappointing, if you ask me."

Copyright Andrew Kottwitz, 2007.