Don't Ask Ralph

 

“Wake up Ralph, I need to talk to you,” she says. Her whiskers bristle! She is a little frightened, but she stands her ground, maybe stepping back a couple of notches. 

Ralph has been sleeping. He looks a lot like nothing is there where he is sleeping. A hillock? Something indeterminate. There even seems to be a sort of green cast to him. Is that grass? A person might walk right past or even sit on him! This has happened before!

Then those big old yellowish eyes open up and everything is different. We see his beastly self yawn and look around in dawning disbelief. A stench rises up when he moves. He makes Durian smell like violets in comparison.

“Who are you,” he rumbles, like rocks moving in the earth.

The otter rises up on her hind feet, takes a deep breath and says, “I am Stoge, I write for the Underbrush Review.” She has a small pad of paper and a well-chewed pencil, yellow no.2.

“They sent a cub reporter, literally, to wake me up…………why?” Yellow eyes blink.

“We want to know how you feel about modern conveniences,” she squeaks weakly.

“And what makes you feel content…” She looks hopeful. She knows he has been snooping into the haunts of Mankind. Contentment being something Mankind only thinks about rather than merely experiencing it.

Ralph rotates around to face her, assuming what used to be called an Indian style sitting position. He is emitting a kind of birdlike chirping sound while he considers whether he will dignify this conversation with his participation.

“Look, lady or kid, why ask me?” His voice is so low as to be almost inaudible. Birds hanging around decide to fly away.

“I can’t very well ask people Ralph. Can you imagine how well that would go? You’ve been around… I'd be in a zoo doing demonstrations on the hour!"

“You know Mona, kid? Of course you don't. She is more into conveniences. We have some stuff in the home nest. She found out about bowls and plates around the time she discovered cooking. Forks and knives and spoons! Next, we had to get salt and pepper. So now we have a few pans and a little grill to set over a fire. We have Bic lighters too. People leave them all over the woods. Then she had to figure out a way to wash that stuff.

“Yanno, Stoge, the thing I would like to try, and I bet I could live with is a hot shower! Sometimes on a rainy morning here in the county outback my bones tell me things I don’t wanna hear.

“These soft hairless rascals have no idea how easy they have it. Hot water.  They just turn on a faucet. Anytime!

“Way, way back, when they left us and started making things they changed. They have more comfort and less enjoyment, if the words I hear spoken in houses are any indication.

“Many of them couldn’t live out here anymore without dying, even for a week. When they lost their fur, it was game over! You have to be able to shed water and hold in heat!

(“Hey, don’t write that I have a phone…nobody needs to know that. Millicent Price gave it to me, to get me to talk. She also wants me to call her, not you, if I hear anything interesting in the woods. It’s a drag keeping it charged. I have to sneak around to some external outlets. Those farmers. One of these days one of them is going to be a better shot!”)

“I have all that, Ralph. “Now say a couple of words about contentment,” asks Stoge. 

Ralph stands up. 8’1” tall and 5’ wide at the shoulder. His dark fur rises up and then lays back down. He stretches his great arms up toward the sky, does a little earthshaking stompy dance and begins to talk or chant in Saslingua. He’s going way too fast for poor Stoge. She just looks at him silently. 

He roars, gives her a big wink and fades into the twilight. Laughing like a mountain he says, “go on kid, ya bug me!”