Female Troubles

© KJ Hannah Greenberg

Emanuel P. Williby snorted twice. In his hibernaculum, it was understood that studs got first dibs on springtime daisies.

Thereafter, dames who carried, followed by gals who nursed, the latter of who numbered so many as to essentially constitute the rest of the adult population, were entitled to leave-takings. Excess males were simply booted out sans ceremony. Outside the marked domain, those fellows herded round the discarded brooders. Thereafter, pups were sent to scavenge among plant corpses and stems.

However, Hortence C. Meister, an upstart since his entry into adolescence, a whelp notorious for discarding rules faster than for throwing stones, had insisted, from his maw, to the base of his barely visible tail, that might made right, and that the best of the tribe's umbrellic flowers were designated for his lunch. That thug flouted the hegemony.

Given Hortence's theatrics, a scuffle ensued which wasted much of the aster and cornflower field. In fact, that fight laid claim to next year's entire batch of sires, excepting Emanuel and Hortence. Only those gents remained to face down an unsated community of breeders. A coterie had already formed of lascivious women.

Hortence, though, seemed obdurate, being otherwise busied with biting buds; he seemed disinterested in rubbing tails. So fat had he become, in fact, that Emanuel feared his friend as feminine. If Hortence slimmed in record time, "his" girth would prove gestation, leaving Emanuel with the lingering difficulty of a female who railed against male dominance, i.e. against established norms.