A Florida Fable for Our Time
When the Rainbow River began to speak, the remnant band of creatures eking out a living along its banks was dumbstruck. The waters they depended on to spawn fish and slate thirst had begun to gurgle and grumble in a quarrelsome, insistent pitch, as if complaining in a language no one could interpret. Divine Dominion being no competition for Manifest Destiny, the ranks of hangers-on were thinning by then, but the lone remaining panther, who was barely out of adolescence and a bit full of himself, summoned the hutzpah to organize a community forum. What is needed, he told the leader of the yellow-eared turtles, is an investigative committee. The old guy withdrew to his shell and considered, finally agreeing to send a representative. With the reptiles on board, the panther managed to assemble some shell-shocked deer and twitchy racoons, a patchy-feathered marsh hen among assorted wading birds, and the silver mullet king, who had suspicious spots on his fins and was not long for this world. Mama vixen promised to attend a meeting if she could bring her kits, humans having ruined her burrow by inserting mothballs and a blaring radio.
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