Limpets

I like that we incorporate qualities of the animal kingdom into everyday human existence.

Strong as an ox, lumbering like a bear, patient as a spider, and the like, are great ways to describe people. How else would you do it? He’s as strong as that other really strong guy just simply has no ring or appeal to it, which is why it never gets said. How would one even lumber if it wasn’t like a bear? Eye of the Tiger? Come on, nothing beats that for a fierce and determined aspect. ‘Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee’, there’s no other way to describe Muhammed Ali. I don’t know if Mike Tyson had any fancy phrases, I’m thinking no, but if had to ascribe totems to him, I’d have to blend like...a wild boar and a wolverine, and also maybe a baboon. Not the flashiest, but those creatures definitely get the job done.

The martial arts have a long and illustrious tradition of stylized bestial representation; eagle style with it’s overhead and talon strikes, maybe some flapping, crane style which is very dancy and....pecky, tiger style which is characterized by ferocious, lunging multi-attacks, with claws, and monkey style, with it’s extreme agility and nit-picking. I love watching old martial arts movies where two great Asian masters come together to defend the honour of their school and then proceed to beat the crap out of each other with their chosen animal style, all while talking like Texans. “I see you have become quite proficient in Crane of the Southern Marshes. Lets see how you do against my Lo Slung Tiger!” *Evil laugh.* “Indeed, your Lo Slung Tiger is very impressive, but it is nothing compared to my Rock Baboon of the Northern Wastes!” *Shocked face close-up, possibly 3 or 4* “Rock Baboon of the Northern Wastes! No! It cannot be! That style was banned a hundred years ago by the Cloud Counsel of the Lost Valley of Whispering Mist!” *another evil laugh, way too long, then a snap back to serious face* “You fools!” Then Jackie Chan wanders though, drunk, and beats them both with his Drunken Garbage Monkey of the Temple Steps style, drinking all the while. You just can’t beat drunken style, no matter what animal you are.

Run like a deer. I don’t think anyone can actually do that. We can goose-step, though, but it tends to lend one an austere authoritarian vibe when done in large groups like say, Nazis, or red Communists, even though it’s basically the Can-Can for state sponsored saps who can actually get talked into parading like that, poor buggers. Goose-stepping is really hard. Great for the hip flexors, though, so if you get caught goose-stepping by yourself, you can explain it away as exercise. They’re mean, too, gooses, mean as turkeys, and with few social graces, which probably why there is is no year of the goose, or the turkey.

All that being said, though, the goose or the turkey could be runners-up for the creature of the 21st century if it wasn’t for the Black Oystercatcher.

I love Oystercatchers. They’re a bird, lets get that straight first, and smaller than a common crow, and not as black. Their little wading-bird legs are more robust than a sandpiper’s, and pink, their eyes are yellow, and rimmed with orange that nearly matches their almost red beak that’s almost a bill. Those are the facts, now imagine, if you will(if you won’t you can just leave now) the semi-formed primordial clay of animals lined up before some unnamed and as yet ungendered entity who gives them a choice as to how they want to look or what job they want to do. The Jaguar was obviously the first in line, and got to choose both, but the blob that was to become the Oystercatcher was a little way back in the line, behind the Oyster, and only got one choice, and chose the job of catching the creature in front of him who suddenly couldn’t move. I’m sure it seemed like a very clever plan that came with a cool name, but the unnamed and as yet ungendered entity still looked at the smug little blob and asked, “Are you sure you want to do that?”

So now the Oystercatcher can catch as many oysters as they like as long as the tide is down, just like anything else in creation. I can catch oysters, after all, but I don’t brag about it. I can also open them because I have thumbs, and I don’t look like a comic-con kid stuck with the unwelcome consequences of poor decisions that seemed like a good idea at the time, and now is picking limpets off rocks in the snow. I breathe air like everything else, but I don’t call myself Airbreather, I call myself human, and, sadly, animals don’t come out looking so good in the exchange of traits. Isn’t that a shame?

I love Oystercatchers. They can easily have a 100% success rate at their oyster-catching job, and, that done, if they even ever do that, they spend the rest of their time cruising around on the beach and eating the easy stuff, like limpets. Unlike herons and eagles and other extraordinary animals, no one really wants to look at Oystercatchers that much, so they get left alone to be their weird little selves.

Maybe the turkey, or maybe a feral goose would be a better ‘creature of the century’ after all. Not that they’d give a damn.