The Big Kerfuffle

She closed the heavy front doors of the old library and sighed with relief.

It had been a busy day for the librarian, she was tired, a little cranky and ready to go home for some R&R.

Her day had been filled with noisy children, riff raff off the street using the library as their personal office space, people with lame excuses as to why they weren’t able to return a book and worst of all - a dreaded BOARDROOM MEETING that seemed to last for hours and hours. The most frustrating part of the meeting was that little had been resolved and she knew that the next day more than likely was to be a repeat of the one just done.

She was exhausted. Thankfully, the act of setting the alarm system, closing the doors and turning the key gave her the space to begin putting the day behind her. Her spa bath and a special bottle from her fridge called to her and as she headed to the bus stop, thoughts of the library quickly melted away.

Meanwhile, behind the closed library door, things were brewing - literally.

The civets and a small troop of monkeys were in the staff kitchen debating about the best coffee. The civets insisted it was Kopi Luwak. The monkeys, who liked to stir up trouble, began throwing their poop around - it started to get quite stinky in the room. The civets were not impressed, insisting that their ‘poop coffee’ was by far the most superior.

Up on the fourth floor a flock of sheep were becoming nervous. Perhaps the arguing in the coffee room was making them uneasy. It might also have been the stench of feces being flung about that room three floors below.

They decided to take the escalator down to the first floor to check out the situation but got quite agitated when a fluffle of rabbits from the third floor tried to sneak on beneath their feet. The situation became even more dangerous as a risk of lobsters began using their claws as a way to get to the front of the line.

All hell broke loose as the herons began to siege, and nests of locusts swarmed in dark clouds, circling the crowds doing their best to be first onto the escalator

 Darkness and chaos deepened. Likely the lemurs, sneakily spreading conspiracy stories, only made matters worse.

There were armies of frogs, quivers of cobras, clowders of ocelots, consortiums of octopus, passels of opossum and - bears. Their sleuthing about, investigating the situation became more than problematic, mostly because they were getting hungry.

So you can begin to imagine the situation in the library.

Not good.

Thankfully a congress of eagles, assisted by a committee of vultures decided to take charge and settled themselves into the staff boardroom next to the coffee room.

Some order began to prevail, though the vultures were acting more as a wake, due to their departure from perches in trees. They seemed to sense that a few corpses were about to appear and that a fine meal was in the near future.

“Order, order”, screeched the eagles, masterfully plotting the arrangement of this large, very diverse convocation.  

“ONE, only one of each of your kind can enter the boardroom.”

“Choose your representative and the rest will have to find other places to wait.”

The animals, most of them quite intelligent and all, extremely well read, knew the routine.

They quickly selected the pride of their packs, the best of the best, shoving pens, papers and other weapons into the hands, claws, hooves, wings, mouths etc. of those chosen to represent them in the meeting.

Pandemonium subsided, the boardroom table took on some degree of order and all the available perches about the room were filled.

“Call to order” cackled the hyena, as she began taking notes.

The cobra quivered. He resisted the urge to curl himself around the obnoxious secretary, taking her breath away.

“Tonight’s agenda includes:

1. How to deal with pesky humans - especially the nasty head librarian

2. How to deal with children who rip pages out of books.

3. Overdue books and more serious consequences for not returning them."

The dove sighed and the wombat with the experience of her wisdom took notes.

The zebra dazzled everyone with a solution to the stern librarian problem.

“Just leave her alone. She’s doing a hard job.”

All agreed.

Now for the children.

Many of the animals began to drool.

“NO, they cannot be eaten,” hissed the cobra, even as he dreamed of curling himself around lithe young bodies.

The whale came to the rescue with a brilliant suggestion: “Let's put them in a school.” Many of the other marine mammals and fishes concurred with this plan and the second item on the agenda was efficiently taken care of. 

“Last item. Overdue library books.”

Much consultation ensued, cackling, hissing, mooing and other exasperated sounds rising into the air.

After some time and several votes a solution was unanimously adopted.

“EAT THE CULPRITS”.

All the animals sighed with relief, agreeing that this was a perfect fix to an annoying problem. Many anticipated the meals that were lurking in the shadows.

With no further ado, the group decided to end the meeting, return to their troops and deliver the results of their consultation.

Everyone headed back to their respective floors, selected the shelf they called home and settled in for the night.

Peace reigned supreme in the library.

All was well.

The next morning the librarian returned, unlocked the door, turned off the alarm system and began to prepare for a busy day.

Her evening at home had been most peaceful. She felt a renewed energy, ready to tackle the chores that lay ahead of her.

As she proceeded to her desk, a lone feather drifted down in front of her. It was a beautiful, perfectly rounded feather from the tail of an eagle. 

“Hmmm,” she pondered. “I wonder how this got here?”

She failed to notice the one small rabbit turd on the marbled floor as she headed off to work.

She had more important matters to deal with as a group of noisy, rambunctious children burst through the doors. She mentally began planning programs that would keep them occupied and, she hoped, quiet.

As the cacophony of children’s voices filled the quiet void she knew her plans were a lost cause.

She sighed, thought of Kali Ma, the Hindu goddess of time, creation, preservation, and destruction. This mythological woman, consort to Shiva was usually most loving, kind and compassionate. She did however have a few vulnerable spots. One of these weak places was a quick descent into anger and when she lost her temper, would sometimes succumb to an old default pattern. She had the bad habit of eating her children.

Somehow, the librarian knew this was not a viable option and yet - she dreamed!

She settled for grabbing a book about baby bunnies and was surprised to learn that in some regions of the world, a group of rabbits was known as a ‘fluffle’.

“How appropriate,” she mused. 

It was a good thing she didn’t look at the bottom of her shoe and find the lone rabbit turd stuck to the heel.

REFERENCE LIST

SOME REGIONAL NAMES FOR GROUPS OF ANIMALS

Bears - sleuth

Cobras - quiver

Eagles - congress

Frogs - army

Herons - siege

Lemurs - conspiracy

Lobsters - risk

Locust - nest/swarms

Ocelots - clowder

Octopus - consortium

Opossum - passel

Rabbits - fluffle

Sheep - flock

Vultures - committee (when perched in trees/ wake when on the ground)

Wombat - wisdom

Zebra - dazzle