( 001: text/smartphone)

[handcuff]

Animals have far more sensitivity to their surroundings than humans do, they can sense changes in the environment that we can't. Canaries in coal mines. domesticated pets warning their owners of natural disasters to come. Survival of the fittest. "Natural selection conceived of as a struggle for life in which only those organisms best adapted to existing conditions are able to survive and reproduce." ... the point being that when things start going wrong, we're usually the last ones to notice.

... by the way, I heard that there were a lot of freak animal attacks last month. [ that, and he volunteers at an animal shelter. ] I can pretty much guess that's not unrelated to whatever all of this is about. [ although, to be sure, the details are still rather hazy for him. he can only make inferences and guesses at this point, though his are more or less in the right direction, at the very least.

and now for something completely different: ]

there's an animal following me around when I'm not in public places. a bird. I don't really know why ...

[ he won't directly come out and ask for it, but this is his way of soliciting advice on what to do about it. ]

Comments

[espigeonage]

They are! Takes some a while to tame, but in a way I kind of prefer semitame wild ones to pets. Pet birds are kind of sad, they only have their owners to be around.

[handcuff]

You might like this one, then. Sometimes it flies off by itself... but it always comes back eventually.

[espigeonage]

Ah, so it's not like it's stuck by your side by some invisible tether or something. That's good.

[handcuff]

I think it's usually only around for... maybe a third or fourth of each day.

It doesn't go places with a lot of people. and it feeds itself

[espigeonage]

lol well, that's good, I guess. Not putting its life completely on hold.

[handcuff]

that would be kind of depressing, to be honest

[espigeonage]

totally! Like that story about the knight cursed to be a falcon who guarded the maiden until his heart burst. It's like that's very romantic but uh could have been avoided.

[handcuff]

What

[ guess who's never heard that one before? no prizes, unfortunately. ]

why are all these stories so pointlessly morbid ...

[espigeonage]

Beats me! Some people just don't like stories without characters dying, I guess.

[handcuff]

Or humans turning into animals, or animals turning into humans.

Realistically speaking ... if a human turned into an animal, it probably would stop caring at that point ...

[espigeonage]

That too!

Why? You don't think animals can care about people?

[handcuff]

... Who knows? maybe domesticated animals. but what we perceive as "caring" could be something different, too. a relationship of convenience.

... I don't think that's a bad thing, though.

[espigeonage]

I don't think I can accept that. We're not really that different from other animals. Where does human love come from if not animal love?

Maybe they don't feel all the same emotions in all the same ways, but they have emotions, and they can get attached to each other or people even if it's not about survival.

[handcuff]

I agree. we're not that different from animals. the emotional spectrum we feel ... honestly, it probably isn't that different either.

But I'm not entirely convinced humans can form attachments completely based on something like "love" either.

[ that, in a nutshell, sums up probably the major thing that is Wrong with this guy. although there are plenty of other things that are wrong with him, too... ]

[espigeonage]

Oh? And why is that?