Melving

Melving was an Albatross. He regularly tripped over small stones. Because of this he was bruised beneath his feathers.
Melving loved to fly but hated landing. He pretty much hated being on the ground at all; which is why on any given day you could catch Melving soaring above the cliffs for hours and hours practically hovering, effortlessly.
He spent so much time up there that he was a bachelor. Many of the girls thought Melving to be noble and sad flying up there all alone like that as long as the wind allowed. Some of them would try to flirt with him, but he wasn’t too terribly interested. Matting took place on the ground. Eggs were laid on the ground. Eggs had to be sat on, on the ground. Sooner or later chicks would have to be fed, on the ground.
Melving had spent so much time up there riding the thermals that he could take naps up there in the sky. The girls soon tired one by one, leaving Melving to soar up there alone.
One day a mean little naked ape with a big pistol, shot Melving, three times before he hit the ground. Melving had been napping. It was senseless murder, albatross is not tasty and the naked ape had no plans to eat him. It was sad but not as sad as you might think: Melving was dead before he hit the ground.

Moby

Moby was a minnow. He wasn’t even a big minnow. He was fast though. 0-60 in less than five. He ate stuff smaller than him and knew there was a good chance something bigger than him might one day eat him.
He was okay with it. It was the nature of things.
He practiced swimming fast 3 times a week. Saturday nights he drank expensive cognac in a bar located at the mouth of a feeder stream on the Rock River in a mystical place called Illinois. It was minnow bar. No catfish allowed. The sign clearly posted over the entrance.
Moby was getting pretty hammered, when he spied a sleek looking female minnow in a red party dress. She looked familiar from the health club, but he had no idea what her name was. He waggled on over to her and introduced himself.
“My name is Gina. I live a long way from here in the big lady they call the Mississippi.”
“Wow,” Moby was really genuinely impressed. Impressed but hammered, so he couldn’t think of what to say next.
“I’m visiting my aunt Frieda,” Gina continued. “She’s ill, someone’s been dumping lead near her house.”
“That’s too bad.”
“What are ya gonna do....” She sighed.
“I can swim very fast,” Moby said for no reason at all.
Gina raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yes. I practice constantly.”
Moby went home, as usual, alone.

Chucky The Lion.

The lion named Chucky lived not in the Savannah, nor the jungle but far north in the dark forest. All who knew him feared his roar.
Chucky practiced roaring seven hours every day except Saturdays when he only roared for an hour and slept a lot.
Such a large amount of roaring used to attract brave peasants who thought they would slay the great roaring lion of the dark forest. They thought this would somehow bring them fame and fortune, besides it really was quite a racket seven hours every day except Saturdays. Chucky was fierce though and ate every single peasant who came to slay him, as well as those that came in groups (usually no larger than three). Generally he used their arrows as tooth picks as these were poor peasants and rather sinewy and the sinew would always get stuck in his teeth.
Chucky the lion wasn’t just great and fierce. Chucky was a clever lion. He could be sneaky too.
Finally the peasants got together on this one and summoned a brave knight to slay the great roaring lion of the dark forest. They knew that left to his own devices, Chucky would never have bothered to come all the way down to the place where there were peasants just so he could eat them, but by now it was a matter of principle.
The poor brave knight was lion food the minute they talked him into it and he said yes.
Chucky just spooked the horse and the knight fall down go boom.
You can’t blame the horse really. Chucky was up wind and well hidden. The horse wasn’t even two feet away when Chucky let out one of his most well practiced ferocious scary roars.
As you well know Chucky had the practice.
If it would have been possible the horse would have jumped out of his skin. He took off just under light speed. You would too if you were casually walking along and before you knew it there was a lion right next to you roaring.
Chucky being a clever lion carefully removed the knight’s helmet so as not to chip a tooth. He found well-fed, over-stuffed, pompous knights much to his liking as compared to peasant. After that, nary a peasant or any one else for that matter, bothered the great roaring lion of the dark forest.

Parlartrix

Parlartrix was a wizard. Not the Grand Mage that Bob was and certainly not on par with Mad Max but at the same time a man-at-arms would never lay a sword or bullet in him.
He could amaze and stun you with card tricks and he really could see into the future. He kept it to himself because he knew that as soon as you say something about it you probably are going to change it. It’s just the nature of the thing called reality.
“Take a look at this,” said Foo Ling excitedly.
“Wow, that’s great...What is it?”
“A little thing I like to call self-contained controlled nuclear fission.”
“Not quite yet, Foo Ling.”
“No, it is, it is!”
“I know. What I mean is they aren’t ready yet.”
“Who?”
“Men. Mankind. People in general.”
“What a line a crap. You just don’t want me to look good.”
“Don’t get all offended.” Parlartrix spoke earnestly. “You have no idea. That black powder was bad enough.”
“Max thought it was a good idea.”
“Exactly.”
Foo Ling nodded dejectedly after a moment, but then he brightened suddenly. “Let’s give it to Max, he’ll have a great time with it.”
“Now, that’s a great idea.”
Max stuck it away somewhere after playing with it for a while and forgot about it.
Just as Foo Ling expected.
Parlartrix isn’t going to remind Max anytime soon.

Quinton

Quinton was a quail who lived all alone at the mouth of an abandoned gold mine. He was really a happy guy except for the living alone part. He pressed flowers to pass the time and was really most excellent at it: cards, book marks, paperweights and what-have-you.
He ate tender morsels he scratched up from the ground around the tunnel entrance, and ran around catching rain drops on those days it did rain. Rain didn’t come often. He ran around like a chicken with its head cut off when it rained. Sometimes he’d drink forty drops or more and pretend to be very drunk. Quinton couldn't care less; no one ever saw him because he lived up there by himself.
Once a year he’d head down the mountain for supplies. There was a little quail village where he could get anything he wanted on his good looks alone.
Okay, he had to trade his pressed flowers, but this was of no consequence to Quinton since he would just make more next year. Way up there, flowers were in no short supply.
Take something from where it is abundant to where it is rare and profit follows.
He was talking to Dan, a quail (as opposed to J. D. Quayle) who thought he might by mayor one day, when Quinton’s x-mother-in-law passed by.
Instantly they were fighting, feathers and wings everywhere, while exchanging many extra nasty expletives. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen quails go at it but it’s never pretty. Don’t get your shorts in a knot over the male on female violence thing either: these birds play by their own set of funky rules, males, females: true equals. It’s a size thing.
Dan got them calmed down and separated but not before Quinton had pulled out just about all her tail feathers.
“Get out of here, you stupid bastard,” Dan exclaimed. “She’ll sick the whole town on you.”
“It’d be a toss up who they’d attack first.”
He had a point, she wasn’t miss congeniality quail, but Dan shooed him off anyway. Quinton took his oversized bag of provisions and was off. He came to the tunnel entrance with a huff a good six hours later.
He set up the chessboard he had just gotten and played himself constantly.
“Well, one thing good about it,” Quinton said finishing yet another game, “is that I never lose.”

Abalene

Abalene was a hooker. Her real name wasn’t Abalene. She was one of them beautiful hookers like you see in Texas. She was so good looking that she didn’t even wear much make up and didn’t dress that sleazy. Abalene’s mini skirts were shorter than you’d let your kids wear. But hey, she was after all, a hooker.
She wore hosiery that was so sheer it looked as if it was spray painted on. Perhaps air brushed would give a better image. Sheer hosiery was one of her passions.
She had kicked a nasty drug habit by herself, and still had a smile that could open any door, twice.
Abalene had one problem. (It’s just an expression). It was a man of course. He was her pimp. She practiced the oldest profession in a rough part of Dallas and he was, unfortunately a necessary evil. And he was evil. He never hit her.
Hard that is. But never on the face. We’ll just call him Rocko .
One time some rich old bastard thought he’d make Abalene an offer she couldn’t refuse, and when she did refuse he flipped out and started beating her.
Rocko should have been there sooner. Rocko kicked his ass all the way back to his shiny new Mercedes, busted out all the windows and sent him on his not so merry way.
He rushed Abalene to the emergency room of a nice north side hospital after making her change into something a whole lot more conservative. They even kept her overnight. Rocko smuggled in chicken soup. She never forgot this.
She also never forgot that Rocko sometimes took all of her money.
One day Abalene got in her car, took a wrong turn and just kept going. She wound up in San Francisco. She took a job in an expensive restaurant and went to night school. She became a high school guidance counselor and teacher. Best damn one that school ever had.
Last I saw her she was wearing one of them acceptable mini-skirts, with those sheer hose. She was smiling.

Fiercesome

Max was a fierce wolf, in fact just about everybody called him Max the fiercesome. Max the fiercesome spent his days hunting and his nights charting the stars. When the moon was full he howled at it until it went away so he could continue his work charting the stars.
Max (the fiercesome) liked to eat dogs, but dogs usually ran in PAC’s because they often had special interests and therefore lobbied the government.
These dog PAC’s were dangerous because Max, though fiercesome, was one of them loner wolves. Not the kind you borrow when your wolf is getting fixed, which by the way is a terrible thing to do to your wolf, but the kind that spent time all alone.
Max having spent quite a bit of time alone had become quite comfortable with his own fierceness. He even contemplated it on occasion, mostly while chewing the bones of his prey after a big meal.
“Yes, yes: I am quite the fierce wolf.” He’d think to himself, picking his teeth with a bone splinter. “But I’m seldom hungry.”
He used to keep his star charts in a box under his bed with his telescope, but one day he caught Jhonny-Two-Paw trying to pick the lock. Jhonny-Two-Paw was a ferret. He died that same day.
Nobody but his mother missed him and even her not for a very long while after.
After eating Jhonny-Two-Paw, Max got a safe deposit box in an old pine tree up there at Forest Bank. He told Sammy wood chuck to be careful with his star charts or he’d get eaten too.
Sammy couldn’t have been more careful, and pretended that he didn’t mind Max showing up in the middle of the night when there was no moon.
Sammy got to the point where he fell asleep easily when Max was howling at the moon because he knew that Max wouldn’t be needing his box of star charts.
All that howling put Sammy right to sleep.