Arathi Menon's Blog: Nothing Beastly About It, page 4

I’ll Huff And Puff And Achooo You Away

The most overpowering smell on Rakovska Street was that of hair burning. The stench of a million singed dead cells from a hundred and twelve heads rose up in the air as mortals with defenseless noses whipped out their handkerchief and protected their olfactory senses.

In shop windows, people watched their beautiful hairdos scalded into uglinesss and cursed Zmey Gorynych. He was the most frustrating of creatures and they wished fervently his three heads would fall off and they would be left in peace once more.

Zmey Gorynych cackled loudly. His multiple heads flung themselves back on a single neck and his laughter boomed into the clouds. He didn’t want to kill people but to annoy them with minor inconveniences was the most entertaining thing to do. It was even better than kidnapping sniffling princesses.

When people were sitting in front of a gigantic cake he would breathe his fire and call it cake flambé. Nobody could eat it now. Or if a bride was walking up to church he would scorch her with precision. Her white dress would turn black and the pastor would wring his hands and ask god to forgive this spawn of Satan.

The populace was inflamed up but what do you with a dragon who is a pyromaniac? They were no dragon slayers around. Anyways these days they thought being wall street bankers was more lucrative. Also, the town didn’t want to kill him. He was quite sweet actually, only a pest when he began blazing things to the ground.

One day Zmey Gorynych was bored of torching people and their precious wares. He looked around and spotted a big, fat, puffy, billowing cloud. He flew up and tried to burn it. He thought like cotton it would disappear in seconds. The cloud held her own and got very, very angry.

She focused and became a dark, black cloud of concentrated water. Then she flew over him and let go of her contents. He was completely drenched, poor thing. He skulked back to his cave and the next morning woke-up with the most horrendous cold.

To cheer himself up he flew to the bakery and tried to set the new loaves on fire. He had even thought of a joke. He’d tell the baker he was making instant toast. Snigger. He huffed and puffed, nothing came out except for a week dribble of snot. He tried again with all his might and a gigantic blob of mucous hit the walls of the bakery, splashing the street light and leaking down to the ground like the sludge of a snail.

There was no hope, he would have to wait for the cold to run its course. Just then the baker came and eeeked. What was that disgusting grey, slimy, slippery thing on his walls and his front door? He quickly took a mop, dipped it in disinfect and cleaned it up.

Zmey Gorynych cheered up. Oh what fun! People hated mucous as much fire. He went around spreading his nose drippings on every single resident. 86.4% of the town got a cold and their achooos would reverberate for miles around making the neighbouring kingdoms a bit nervous wondering if they were preparing a new kind of nuclear weapon.

When finally after seven days Zmey Gorynych’s cold was cured and he got back to his pyromaniacal ways, the townsfolk breathed a sigh of relief through their blocked nose. They preferred his fire to his germs.

Moral: If you are healthy, don’t complain about anything.

Zmey Gorynych is drawn by the fabulous Bijoy Venugopal. You can find more of his wonderful stuff here bijoyvenugopal.com

The One Who Got Away Is The One You Wish You Had

Caniche was a performer. That’s hardly surprising, when you consider that her ancestors were used in circuses for centuries. However, she wasn’t just an actor, she was also a diva, a fashionista, a tantrum-thrower and a doggy-seducer.

Her mistress loved her more than her Birkin and would take her everywhere in the aforementioned unloved Birkin. Her dense, wiry hair (the dog’s not the mistress’) had strange uneven curls, which looked like a perm gone wrong. To set it right, every day, Caniche was taken to the parlour, where her hair was washed, blow dried and put into carefully thought out curlers of symmetrical sizes.

When she came out of the saloon, her fur would be a shiny white and the curls would bounce off her toy-poodle head, dancing in the perfection of a vain beauty. The mistress would then to go to her favourite roadside café, sit there with large sun glasses, a café au lait and an intellectual sounding book held upside down as she scanned the hot guys who walked-by.

Her pooch, picking-up from the mistress’ cues would scan the roads for some cute doggies. There were so many of them. Word had gotten around that a heartbreaker of a poodle was to be found outside La Caféothèque every day, between 12 and 6.

She had her pick of mutts. From stately Afghan Hounds, rowdy labradors, drippy St Bernard’s, trippy Basset Hounds, grumpy American Bull Pit Terriers to cheeky mongrels. they all queued-up waiting for her to acknowledge them. A lick here, a flying kiss there,a rump wiggle to the side, a paw slap on the go, she would drive them crazy.

She never got pregnant as a result of all theses peccadillos for her good mistress had her spayed for she (the mistress not the doggy) didn’t want ‘babies for her baby’. Life was good for a long time. Mistress and doggy would flirt till 6 and then go back home for a refreshing meal, a relaxing snooze and the sweetest dreams filled with the promise of someone to love.

One day, a magnificent Weimaraner, with its silver grey fur and blue eyes arrived on the scene. He coldly watched Caniche flirt with every other doggy in a radius of 2 km. He snorted out some disbelief, put his gigantic head down on his humungous paw and slept the sleep of the unconcerned.

She saw him dozing, this thunderously handsome dog and her heart hammered up to her pink toes (Yes, the mistress and doggy would wear matching nail polish). When he woke-up, Caniche was looking at him with large doggy eyes, wiggling her rump, tossing her ears and being flirty-flirty. He yawned, his jaws opened as wide as her face and he walked off without looking back.

She watched unsure about what had just happened. She had never, ever been rejected before. When the harsh truth finally sunk into her pee-wee brain, it exploded and shards of pride lodged in her protean heart.

Now, no matter who she dated or mated, a part of her would always remember the one who couldn’t be conquered.

Moral: The boyfriend you never had is the perfect lover.

Caniche is drawn by the fabulous Bijoy Venugopal. You can find more of his wonderful stuff here bijoyvenugopal.com

Turn Off The Spotlight

The flooded savannahs glittered with a million life forms. All of them were lying still as the midday sun wrecked its vengeance, except for a Common Rhea, who was feeding Tupi a leaf. With her beak, she most servilely held out that tasty tidbit for Tupi’s front two teeth to nibble. He lazily chewed, looked at her pleading eyes and grunted, ‘Okay’.

The Common Rhea flew off most excited. Now, her pardee was sure to be a success. Tupi, the capybara had been blessed with the brightest pair of teeth. His front two pearly whites rivalled the sun in its brilliance.

He was the most popular animal around the grasslands during those dismal summer-flooded months. After dark, the creatures would ask him to sit in a corner and flash his dentures as they grooved away, half in water, half dry.

In case a young one was lost he would head the search party, his strong beam of teeth leading the way. Occasionally, just for fun, the fish would invite him to the murky river bed and there, with his help, they would uncover lost treasures, boat wrecks and forgotten ghosts.

As long as Tupi was around life was never boring. One day, when Tupi was off looking for a baby deer, he suddenly noticed his light dimming a bit. He shook off a mushrooming fear and scurried deeper and deeper into the woods but with every step the darkness increased, overpowering the light. Finally, just as he was about to give up, he spotted the fawn trembling in a bat-filled cave. Reunited with its Mama, it licked her nose and vowed never to leave her again (Ah-ha!).

That was the last time Tupi was used as a flashlight. When morning came, with a dread familiar to those who have lost it all, he dragged his feet to the water and parted his lips, a simulation of a smile. His teeth looked dull yellow with not a trace of its illustrious white. Slowly, the animals stopped coming to him with a million requests.

In a month he was left all alone. He would just stay in water. Swim, summersault, try to break his own underwater record (four minutes, 49 seconds) He saw the leaves change colour, the baby animals shoot-up into adults. He could gaze at the sky the whole day without anyone disturbing him. Or hunt a particular kind of leaf, the one he loved (Before, because of the number of requests he would just gobble whatever was offered). It took him awhile to come to the conclusion but he finally did. Life was better after his teeth had lost their sheen.



Moral: Falling off the popularity charts means more ‘me time’.

Tupi is drawn by the fabulous Bijoy Venugopal. You can find more of his wonderful stuff here bijoyvenugopal.com

I Vs Eye

‘Look into my eyes and continue looking till I ask you to stop’. The eagle stared into the largest pair of eyes it had ever seen. 16mm in diameter it was as large as Haplorrhi’s brain. ‘When I count to three, you will follow my command, 1…2…3..’. Her third finger, as long as her upper arm, waved in front of the poor bird’s eyes as she counted.

At the end of the count, Haplorrhi instructed the dazed eagle to go bring her a juicy mouse. To the horror of the other animals, it docilely flew off, hunted down a plump rodent and instead of wolfing it down, placed it at Haplorrhi tarsals.

It was the worst of times in the forest. The midget, Haplorrhi had learnt to use her gigantic eyes to hypnotise the other animals. She got the elephant to stand on its head (poor thing, had a headache for weeks), the owl to fly at day time (it kept bumping into tree branches as Haplorrhi’s mean laughter rung in the air), the monkeys to tie their tails in knots (they had a dickens of a time untying it) and even the mighty lion was made to eat grass (after which he went on a killing rampage, he had to get that vile veggie taste off his tongue).

Everybody in the jungle began to fear Haplorrhi. The animals who didn’t have eyelids couldn’t shut her out. The ones who did, tried blocking her gaze with skin but were always out waited. She would sit for hours (at a safe distance) staring at an animal. At some point the animal would cautiously open an eye, peek to see if it was safe and that horrible tarsier had gone away when its eye would spot Haplorrhi’s magnetic gaze and all would be lost.

Naturally Haplorrhi wasn’t very popular but she had the power. All the other male tarsiers would queue up to sing a duet with her. For they knew if she choose one of them, they were sure to win any competition, for even the judges were turned into bewitched slaves by her devious skill.

Over time, Haplorrhi turned pompous, obnoxious and a complete believer in her own invincibility. She would arrogantly claim, ‘If death comes, I will command him to go back’. As the jungle racked their collective animal intelligence to find a solution, a small voice pipped up. ‘You haven’t tamed the creature in the lake’. It was a wee kingfisher (fishy-smelly riot of colours). Haplorrhi glared at the little thing and wondered whether she should get it to jump into the lake. ‘Which creature?’ she thundered with the mocking, lazy conceit of the powerful.

Haplorrhi jumped down. Being completely arboreal this was her first time on land. She couldn’t even walk on it. She hopped to the lake and peered into its calmness. There, she saw the creature who dared to question her powers. It had humungous eyes, a long tail and ears with no hair. She looked into its eyes and thought what an ugly face.

She commanded it go sit in a corner, quietly for the rest of its life. Haplorrhi obeyed her orders. Like an unruly ghost tiptoeing past a sorcerer, she hopped back to the tree, climbed on it and sat silently on her branch for the rest of her life, troubling nobody ever again.

Moral: Absolute power always hurts the person wielding it.

Haplorrhi is drawn by the fabulous Bijoy Venugopal. You can find more of his wonderful stuff here bijoyvenugopal.com

Hitchhiking On A Hitchhiker

His matted blond-brown hair fell like ropes amidst the lilliputian grass. He lay very still. Soon the sounds of nature crept upon his silence. The chirruping of crickets, the whirling of eagles, the whispers of the wind. The sky pushed away its clouds to reveal a deep blue of a banker’s shirt. Coocinell was a bit oblivious to nature’s delights as she was one of them.

She gulped down the aphid she was chewing and surely but slowly made her way to the tips of his matted hair. Her bright red body sparkled in his dirty dead cells, like a plastic hairclip on a child’s hair fountain.

With her feet Coocinell smelt his hair. It was wonderful, creamy with splashes of strawberry. Mmmmm. She hadn’t expected that at all. Somehow she always thought dregs were smelly and dirty.

She lay in his hair and began dreaming of travel. It would be so exciting to go where this man went. She would see unseen places, explore fun cuisines, look-up at strange skies, her world would become something more than her imagination. She wondered if bugs tasted different at different altitudes

Coocinell began humming a tune, when suddenly he got up. She held on for dear life. The dregs swayed, if she had let go, she would be the first ladybug to go bungee jumping. He stood-up straight and she saw the grass, her home, six feet two inches below. How small it looked and how far away.

The air seemed a bit colder. She gasped. It was her first sighting of the mountains. She never knew she was in a valley. Gargantuan, majestic walls of grey and white struck out of the ground and towered towards the enormity of the universe dwarfing it. If before she had thought of herself as small, now she considered herself minuscule. Like one of the bitty black dots on her body.

From his hair, she saw how a fruit hangs from a tree. She had only seen them on the ground. She realised they were secured to the branch with tendril-like things, an inversion of her structure. Would her head smash to the ground if it was attached to her body with feelers?

It was so tremendous to have all these thoughts. For newness to erupt in her, blowing away the ordinary. She was quivering with impatience to see where he would go next, when pale, stubby fingers with wrinkled skin, moved up to the dregs on which she was positioned and dusted her away. An instinctive reflex by the body when it sensed that some other creature wanted to claim its being as habitat.

Down she fell. It was the longest fall of all. Time slowed down. She watched the air shifting as space became a tunnel. She tumbled onto a leaf. He began walking away. She didn’t mind. Excitement was exploding in her. She knew there will be other backpackers.

Moral: Happiness is the promise of escape.



Coocinell is drawn by the fabulous Bijoy Venugopal. You can find more of his wonderful stuff here bijoyvenugopal.com

Copycatting Yourself

Phasmida hated being different. She was grateful she looked like a stick. 22.3 inches of her brown and black body would be sprawled out, lying in a tumble of branches looking like parts of a plant. She had even got some lichen-like markings to make her camouflage even more effective. In case a sudden raptor appeared, she would abruptly drop to the ground and lie very still. Thanatosis was truly the best way to keep alive.

Life was peaceful and Phasmida had no complaints about the universe when a disease took over her entire colony. It wasn’t a physical disease, one that would have exterminated their bodies but a mental one. Suddenly, all of Phasmida’s clan wanted to be different. They craved it so desparetaely. Her neighbours, friends, ex-lovers began seeking ways to look unlike themselves.

Some of them dyed their brown bodies in yellow pollen, others plucked flowers and tucked the petals into their joints, a few, very cunning ones found rocks that had iron and rolled in them, till their bodies took on a beautiful russet colour.

Phasmida watched her breed with boredom. She didn’t get their need to assert their individuality. The flip side of all this looking different was that the stick insects became easy targets of predators. Mice, birds and tiny reptiles suddenly began putting on weight. They didn’t have to look hard for food. Those stupid insects in their fabricated, colourful best would stick out like yummy lollipops. For some time, till they ate up all the walking sticks, life was a feast.

Now only Phasmida was left. Luckily for her she didn’t need a male to reproduce. She looked around, saw that she was alone, ho-hummed and dropped her eggs randomly on the floor. They looked like scattered seeds and a hungry animal would never think of gobbling them up. If you asked her whether she missed the romance, she would shrug her bony shoulders and say love is too much work.

Soon tiny nymphs were born. All of them female, all of them exactly like her. They in turn, dropped their eggs and created even more clones. Slowly but surely, the forest became populated with various versions of Phasmida. Every new batch of Phasmida replicas would be taken to the original Phasmida, the one who started it all. She would look at their bright, bored eyes that mirrored her own to the tiniest detail and know that these who came from her, will never want to be anything else.

Moral: To create a world of clones, kill off the different ones.

Phasmida is drawn by the fabulous Bijoy Venugopal. You can find more of his wonderful stuff here bijoyvenugopal.com

The Pleasure of Poison

Picidae was on her way to peck a tree bark, her sharp beak glowing in the anticipation of destruction. It acted as a chisel-cum-crowbar and helped her remove bark to find insects. Once the critters were spotted they were scooped into her tiny tummy with her four-inch glue-tip tongue.

Before she hit the tree, at the base of that russet upstanding mass she spotted the sweetest little plant. It was shaped like a tiny brown coloured umbrella. She had never seen anything like this before. She swooped down, took a nip. Oooo, yumsie.

She flew back to the tree trunk and began her drumming and hammering. After some time, she noticed something peculiar. The little bits of wood she chipped at suddenly turned into the most beautiful, colourful flowers, which tangoed with the breeze before bleeding its colours into the air. Steaming hot pinks, wishy-washy yellows, pernickety greens and somersaulting blues dazzled the sky. Wow. She had never pecked a tree like this.

A tiny little tree worm popped its head out. Picidae blinked twice. The worm was a bristling orange, its eyes two headlights staring at her and saying, ‘Come, lick my eyeball’. She extended her tongue to pick this very interesting creature but to her horror she saw her tongue had turned into a feather. A large, thick black, frilly plume that was for some reason dancing to Kendrick Lamar’s King Kunta. Seriously?

A bit puzzled Picidae rested against the bark, a pause to peer at a changing world. The tree had turned from a boring khaki to an Alizarin crimson and its leaves were octopus tentacles spitting out blue velvet cranberries. In some time the normal shades of the world limped back into the woodpecker’s eyes.

Phew. Picidae reeled. She had never, ever seen anything like that in her life. Her extremely intelligent mind chuck, chuck, chuckked the dots between her experience and the mini umbrellas. Naturally, she got addicted to them. She had to have a little bite of the plant before pecking wood. She would forget to eat but it wouldn’t matter. Her mind was having the most beautiful time of its life.

The other woodpeckers began gossiping about Picidae’s drug problem and tsk, tsked into the hollows of the trees they pecked, echoing the sounds of their disapproval far and wide. One night, a moralistic magpie came, dug up the magic mushrooms and threw them into a flowing stream.

The next morning Picidae flew down eagerly for her fix. There was nothing at the base of the tree, just some upturned mud. She searched the whole forest for the mushrooms but word had gotten around and not a single one was found.

Sadly, she pecked the bark again. The little beige, drab wood chips flew past her. Its colours a grim reminder of the monotony of her life. The next morning the animals found Picidae dead. They thought it was the drugs and blamed themselves for not destroying the shrooms earlier. Only dead Picidae knew it was the horror of facing a life of endless brown.

Moral: What’s bad for you can be the most beautiful thing you feel.

Picidae is drawn by the fabulous Bijoy Venugopal. You can find more of his wonderful stuff here bijoyvenugopal.com

Chopping Away The Extras

For some, not all days begin happy. For Ponginae, every day was a dark cloud her eyes would open to. She would wake-up and the first thing she would see were the things that caused her the most misery – her arms. Her long, stretchable arms with their beautiful opposable thumbs.

Now orangutans were known to have extra-long arms. Unfortunately for Ponginae her limbs were Xtra, Xtra long. They got in the way all the time. She would very often trip on her fingers and plummet 4921 feet down. For someone who particularly doesn’t like bungee jumping it was a nerve-shattering experience.

The final blow came when Ponginae fell in love. His hair was a sunset red and his longcall was the sweetest heard. To add to this vision of perfection he had the most impressive flanges of the pack. With those kind of of cheek pads he could have chosen anyone in the group but he had picked her. They were out on their first date, the topmost branch of the tree, when in a fit of romantic impulse, Ponginae plucked a flower, which was growing near-by and handed it to him. Well, that was the plan.

She had once again underestimated the length of her arm. While handing over the flower to lover-boy, her arm overreached, biffed him in the face with the flower causing him to topple and fall off the tree. He didn’t die but he did take some time to get back to dating.

Ponginae looked at her arms again. They were three times her body length. She could twist it around her and still have flesh to spare. Suddenly a thought struck. It was a horrible, nasty, evil one. Her lips took on a ghoulish grin.

She got down from the tree and marched to a nearby rock. There, with her right foot she picked-up the sharpest stone she could find and chipped away at her left arm. In some time it fell off. Then she switched the stone to the other foot and chopped her right arm. Voila! Done.

It did hurt and the blood did flow. Ponginae knew all this pain was temporary, it was just a matter of time before the blood clotted and the body healed. In a week she was fit again. She had gotten a bit thin because of the blood loss and lack of appetite but otherwise she seemed quite happy.

Since her hips had the same flexibility as her shoulder and arm joints, Ponginae was very easily able to invert herself and use her legs as her arms. Once her pack got used to her sans two limbs they stopped being grossed-out and continued with their fruit-chewing lives.

As for Ponginae she soon found another true love and had her first set of babies. When they got old enough to ask questions, the first thing one sparky fellow demanded to know was whether Mama missed her hands. Patting Junior’s curious head with her opposable toes, she smiled, shrugged her limbless shoulders and said ‘hands-free is better.’

Moral: To make a path, amputate what gets in the way.

Ponginae is drawn by the fabulous Bijoy Venugopal. You can find more of his wonderful stuff here bijoyvenugopal.com

Even When I Am Wrong, I Am Right.

Fitzinger was a grumpy, vinegary soul. He was a cantankerous, crotchety contrarian. Most animals didn’t mind differing opinions or sulky moods. The problem with Fitzinger was if you had a divergent view point or even disagreed with him slightly he would eat you. No argument, no listen-to-reason, just one big gulp, a few steel-like coils wrapped around the body which voiced dissent and goodbye life.

He would fight over the silliest things. A turtle once told a group of gathered animals that a tree had fallen on its back but its shell was so strong nothing happened. Now, most animals knew the turtle was exaggerating. In all probability a twig may have fallen on it.

Fitzinger took it personally. He claimed it was impossible for a tree to fall on turtle-back and not crack the shell. The turtle snapped ‘My back, I know’. Before it could get into the electrifying details, Fitzinger opened his mouth wide and his sharp backward curving teeth grasped half the turtle in a vice-like grip.

The animals watched a little stunned. The next day a beautiful antelope was telling her friend how she believed in monogamy. Before her friend burst out laughing, she quickly added, she had even found a buck who thought sticking to one partner was a great idea. Fitzinger raised his head from the sand and snorted ‘Antelopes are never monogamous’.

Naturally the elfin beauty protested. Even though a bit of the turtle was still in his stomach, he raised himself and bit the poor antelope’s lovesick head. Her friend ran for deer life vowing never to be monogamous. Soon word spread. All the animals began agreeing to everything Fitzinger said unless they were suicidal.

A couple of babies did try to tease him with the foolishness of the young. They never lived to tell their mommies about it. Fitzinger got used to his word being the law. Nobody crossed him, everybody yessed to even the stupidest things he said. He loved the sound of his own voice and would often go into long monologues. A few animals learnt to sleep with their heads nodding in agreement.

One day a magnificent Tuskar walked into one of Fitzinger’s long speeches on the feel of grass. The elephant harrumphed. He was bored and didn’t care about grass. He just trampled it. No grass was too tough to be destroyed by his 150kg foot.

He looked around and saw how listless the animals were. Poor things. He decided to cheer them up. In a booming voice he bellowed, ‘Did you creatures see the pink moon yesterday?’ The other animals perked up. Really? A pink moon? That sounded way more exciting than grass. Bah.

Fitzinger was annoyed at being interrupted. Forgetting who he was talking to he said, ‘Pink moons are seen only by fools whose eyes can’t be trusted.’ The Tuskar was slightly enraged but he kept his calm. ‘It was pink, I saw it.’ Fitzinger immediately hissed an angry, spiteful hiss, lifted his head up, opened his jaws wide and tried to engulf the elephant head. The animals watched spellbound. Fool!

The Tuskar immediately caught the arrogant python’s tail with his trunk and lashed him against a rock repeatedly. If you looked from a distance it seemed like the elephant had an extraordinarily long, dual-coloured trunk. As Fitzinger’s head got smashed again and again into a mangled, purple mess, the moon came out. It did seem to be a bit pink but that could just have been the blood flying around.

Moral: Sacrifice words. Not yourself.

Fitzinger is drawn by the fabulous Bijoy Venugopal. You can find more of his wonderful stuff here bijoyvenugopal.com

The Dependant

Phasco moved only twice in his life. The first time was when he was a joey. Natural instinct took over will and prodded him to take the journey all marsupial babies have to go on to survive. As per the laws of nature he climbed into his mother’s pouch and stayed there till he was a year old. At the end of 365 days, he stepped out with a lot of trepidation but very quickly spotted this friendly looking tree trunk.

A hundred shades of brown coated the trunk’s body exuding the warmth of a sunlit patch on a grey glacier. It had a coziness that spoke of fireplaces and safe caves, where kind eyes said ‘Come in, I won’t hurt you’. He hurried over, forgetting about his mother and hugged the trunk with his tiny, tubby, furry arms.

Immediately a branch with the most awesome smelling leaves tickled his nose. Food. He began slowly chewing one leaf at a time and decided this was the best place on earth. He would never ever move. The eucalyptus tree leaves were low on nutrition and calories (No good dietician would ever recommend it) so it was a blessing Phasco slept 20 hours a day or he would have been very, very tired.

The tree was marvellous. He didn’t even have to go out for a drink. The water in the eucalyptus was sufficient to keep him watered and alive. All night long he would eat leaves and during the day, the tree branch would produce more and more green yummies. A never ending supply of goodies. He didn’t even have to groom his fur. The strong eucalyptus odour added to his natural musky scent kept off every single flea and bug.

During summers he would hug the cool bark or flop on it horizontally, his arms and legs dangling towards the mud, loose, relaxed and swaying with the wind. When winter came, without moving from his spot he would curl into a tight ball conserving all the heat and energy he had. No matter what the season he stayed where he was chewing the leaves his generous tree gave.

One day, he heard the sound of a large, angry bee buzzing. It was deafeningly loud. The bee must have been a million feet tall to make such a racket. From the corner of his eye he observed all the other koalas, animals, bugs and birds leaping off the tree and running for dear life. He tightened his hold on his wonderful trunk. He knew it would take care of him as it had for the past nine years.

When the electric axe returned to silence the tree fell with nobody shouting timberrrr. Its body smashed on to the earth pinning poor Phasco to the ground. The trunk Phasco trusted so much smashed his nose, blocked his breathing and asphyxiated him. Even in death he held on to his beloved trunk, absolutely confident it would save him.

Moral: Your support system can suffocate you.

Phasco is drawn by the fabulous Bijoy Venugopal. You can find more of his wonderful stuff here bijoyvenugopal.com