Attack of the Were-Panda

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Attack of the Were-Panda

I was going through my “Short Stories” folder on my hard drive and came across this beautiful little snippet of prose. It’s in the style of a newspaper clipping, and amuses me far more than it should. Read and enjoy!

TORONTO—In what the police are terming a “methamphetamine-induced psychotic break”, local gas station attendant Barry Yates terrorized Anime North convention-goers last night when he dressed up in a panda suit and ran around knocking over merchandise and screaming, “Flee, puny mortals! I am the were-panda!” There were no serious injuries, but several agitated parties have already filed lawsuits against Yates for aggravated assault, battery, and destruction of property.

Yates’s delusion of being a “were-panda” is likely a bastardization of the lycanthrope myth, in which a human transforms into a wolf during the full moon – known colloquially as a “were-wolf”. The reason behind Yates’s choice of panda over wolf has yet to be determined, although a police officer at the scene was overheard saying, “We think he chose panda over wolf because he just so happened to be near a panda suit when he flipped all the f***ing way out of his God damn mind.”

Yates’s life partner, a Japanese body pillow named Mitsuke, could not be reached for comment.

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