Oh, Dear...

OH, DEAR…

Jesus Fucking Christ, this shit again?  Chris thought to himself as he warily eyed the four large birds staked out in the front right of his back lawn, separated from the clearly agitated foxes by their ever complacent permanent deer guard.  He cast a weary halfhearted glare back at the bed, where she still lay sprawled out, only partially wrapped in a sheet and already squirming trying to find the heat of his body in her slumber.  He raised an eyebrow and smiled, then remembered that he was clearly irritated with her and scowled down at her sleeping form.  He cast his gaze back outside, sighed, and slid open the patio door, cigarette in hand, ready to face the fucking multitudes.  The stench hit his nose instantly, and he had to stop himself from physically reeling away from the pile of dead animals next to him on the porch. Of. Fucking. Course.

Chris reached down towards the pile, tempted to just throw them to the foxes.  One of the vultures tilted its head at him.  Just this once he wished fervently let one of these fucking assholes attack me.  To his dismay, but total lack of surprise, the vulture dipped into a thoroughly awkward and rather wobbly bow, and backed away from the pile of offal deferentially.  Chris frowned at it.  The predator tried to go for an even deeper bow, barely saving itself from toppling over.

At least there are the foxes he thought as he gestured to the small, agile red-furred vermin eaters to come and eat the pile of death the vultures had deposited on his doorstep.  Six of them quickly ran up and snatched up the food, running it back to their portion of the lawn.  The deer looked on, nonplussed.  Chris glared at the vulture and pointed at the leftover blood and bits of fur still sitting on the wood patio.  “We don’t eat dead animals.” he enunciated each word as clearly and slowly as possible. He knew the little shits could understand him when he talked, but he liked to think they were somehow insulted if he acted like they were idiots.  His tiny act of rebellion.  Seeing the gleam in the eyes of a few of the miniature flock now growing in number on the lawn, he realized his mistake moments before it became critical and yelled “NO! We don’t want ANY animals! Not live ones either!”.  The carrion eaters settled back down, clearly disappointed, and he heaved a sigh of relief.  He did NOT want to find out what would happen if several wounded, injured, and frightened small animals wound up awaiting them the next morning...especially if Liz got outside first.  They did not need yet another group of fucking animal wonders following them around. Speaking of which…

Chris slid back inside, tossing out his cigarette in disgust-he’d barely even managed to remember to take a single drag.  He looked back to the bed, where Liz, his Lizzard, currently the bane of his fucking existence, was slowly blinking her eyes open.  She smiled up at him and gave him a come-hither glance through half open, utterly crazy blue eyes.  He scowled at her, and she blinked herself to more awareness, pushing herself to a half sitting position.  Not one to forget tradition, he gave her a once over, causing her to blush and cover up as he laughed at her, then abruptly stopped to give her a stern glare once again.

“What.  Did.  You.  Do.” He directed his statement and the full force of his displeasure at her.  She visibly wilted under the pressure, but her expression was one of bemusement.  “I didn’t do anything! Why...what happened this time…” she asked, eyes filling with dread.

Chris drew the blinds aside with gusto, gesturing grandly into the backyard from the shadows of the room-he knew better than to get spotted again. “Fucking vultures. I hate vultures!” He said.  “For fuck sakes, how did you manage to get the VULTURES? Why aren’t the deer scaring them away?  The crows only lasted for a couple of hours, and I know that herd of Bambi wannabes can be vicious as hell.”  Liz stood up and walked up next to him, careful to stay mostly out of sight of the creatures in the yard as she peered out.

“Oh, well, I’d guess the vultures are too big-they aren’t usually aggressive, but they could probably give the deer a run for their money.  So the deer probably opted to make space for them-though I’m amazed they put themselves BETWEEN the foxes and vultures.  Maybe because they know you like the foxes?” he could hear the gears in her head start to turn,and he gestured towards the vultures again to remind her of their current problem.  “Oh, right. I have no idea! Really, I didn’t do anything this time.  I know with the crows and that one caiman and the squirrel I did something to provoke it, but this time, really, I have no freaking idea…” her voice trailed off, and he knew she was remembering whatever the hell had led to their current predicament.  “Well…” she said dubiously “...I did throw some meat in the dumpster the other day, but there is NO WAY that could be interpreted as me doing something nice for them or accepting them…” her voice trailed off again, and she looked half ready to cry.  He knew how terrified she got when she thought that he was genuinely was upset with her, so after a moment of her looking genuinely lost he relented and wrapped an arm around her. She spoke into his shoulder “Really, I didn’t do anything this time…” her voice trailed off and she buried herself further into his arm and sniffled.

“Well, nothing for it but to get rid of them” Chris said, trying to think of best opportunities to do so.  Liz squared her shoulders, nodded, and walked up to the glass. The cacophony was instantaneous, and every animal outside inclined its head, and dropped to a full bow when Chris also came into view.  Liz raised both arms towards the yard, causing a hush to fall.

“Dear creatures” Chris scoffed from behind her, “Thank you so much for accepting us-it means so much to us that we are your King and Queen.”  Chris tried to convey as much disagreement as possible with the way he folded his arms.  “Your presence is a blessing in our lives” a snort clearly declared his utter disgust for this display of platitude. “We are so grateful, but we know this is not your place. Please, go back from whence you came, know that we will call you when we need you, and be at peace!  You are my subjects and I love you all...especially in your natural habitats” she finished.  With happy shrieks and small quantities of excited pooping which rained down on the other yard denizens, several of the vultures left, leaving only the original four which unfortunately seemed very much glued in place.

The foxes and deer showed no signs of leaving either-though at this point that was to be expected.  To be fair, Chris was pretty happy about the foxes.  Plus, at first, when she’d wandered out of the woods and told him in a dazed trance that she’d been crowned ruler of the deer, it had seemed a harmless novelty- so they maybe hadn’t been as stern as they should have been.  Besides, having a deer honor guard follow them around when they went on walks had been kind of badass.  Most of the other critters that had in one way or another been convinced to crown Liz their queen-and by extension, himself as king-had left the yard without much fuss, though he knew some rabbits, squirrels, and robins did hang out on occasion, and he supposed the cicadas-he shuddered involuntarily with that rasping, buzzing memory-had dug themselves deep into the ground below to emerge in a few years time.  He also unfortunately was rather sure the geese would be stopping in on every migration in the future, though hopefully only to drop off some grass and then take flight again, headed south.

As the remaining vultures hunkered down, clearly nonverbally declaring their intent to stay put for the foreseeable, Chris heaved a deep sigh.  Well, I never thought I’d get used to the deer, and here we are..he thought to himself as he slid the door shut again.  Hey, I bet I could use them to scare the shit out of Eric!  New mission decided, he wandered towards the kitchen, where he could smell Liz already cooking up an epic breakfast, intent on learning all he could about vultures and how amenable they would be to (relatively) harmless pranks against asshole ex roommates.