Mother Nature - The Story of A Serial Killer

This story contains sex and violence.

---

I don't think fuck, or any other derivative of that monumental word, should be changed to duck when I finger-bang my passion into a text. If I ask a man to come over, we're not going to duck anything. So.

Also: Do you know that ducks take part in forced copulation? Biologists and other smart-ass-types say that ducks waddle in a line because it makes them less suspectable to predators. They say the waddle also helps them forage for food. But I think they do it because back at the duck pond, the male ducks waddle their way into organized gang rapes of the female ducks. And ducks kill ducklings. All sorts of shameful, criminal acts happen at the duck pond. 

Yet some people don't want to eat ducks because of that cute, waddling line.

A duck is a lucky-fuck that way, at least until it gets raped by other ducks, murdered by its parents, or a human who fails to find the charm in waddling decides to eat it.

Predator. Prey. Another day.

My cat loathes ducks yet their rampages entertain her. We live in a gated community because I inherited a house here. This community created ponds throughout the neighborhood, filling them with ducks and, even worse, swans that patrol the streets like winged lunatics. Everywhere I look, there's a monster that wants to kill me. This cat I took in, she struggled to rip off my face seconds after we met. Then I fed her. Scratched her ears. Cleaned her wounds and slayed the fleas that tormented her. Put a heat lamp on the screened-in porch so she can watch the ducks and swans brutalize each other. She helps me, too, in ways that challenge basic concepts regarding help.

By the way: It's good to meet challenges head-on but not headfirst. My last hook-up learned that the hard way, so avoid following self-help ideas about how you control every challenge that crosses your path. You control as much as some other entity lets you.

Let me tell you how I got this cat. As I mentioned, she wanted to kill me. It began with her clawing my face, which led to the discovery of a dead man's hand.

*

Don't let anyone tell you that crashing into a wall to avoid hitting a cliché in an alley equates to doing the right thing. It equates to pain, especially if the four-legged fucker waits to attack you after you exit the car. The cat I took in waited for me to get the car door open, then let me know who owned the alley.

The pain of others engages the masses. They heard the surrender of steel followed by shrieking, so they scurried across the alley from business backdoors like rats scurrying across a dumpster. Several videoed me as I pulled each claw from my face and struggled to dodge fangs. As I fell to the ground, I saw one man rummaging through my glove compartment. The cat finally let go with a low growl and then ran under the car. That's when I noticed the hand hanging over the low wall of a parking garage. I wasn't the only one who noticed.

"Oh, my God, there's a hand over there!" someone shouted. I darted across the pavement on my hands and knees to avoid feet intent on trampling. My skin ripped and burned. I panted as the pain from the crash and the crawl began to clash. The click of heels against the ground offered a moment's reprieve from the sensation of being ripped apart. Curiosity commands the ability to subjugate fear. Victims learn this firsthand. Without this act, no one moves on.

I peeled my face off the ground. A woman in black leather pants and a tight white tank loomed over me, accessories dripping off her like groupies made of gemstones. She looked like Tom of Finland drew her if he had been into women.

"Your clothing is so beige, no one else can tell where your blouse ends and your trousers begin. But I see you," she said. "You're like those dangerous creatures that blend in with the leaves."

"Lady, I just crashed my car. I just shredded my hands and knees to avoid being trampled. Unless you're here to help, fuck off back to your dungeon."

"I said I see you. I didn't say anything about helping you. Well, not in the usual way."

I turned back to the car, and she loomed in front of me again though I never saw her move.

"I have more to say. You and that cat both play a vital role in the cull. My cull. You need to help each other which helps me. You two are going to come to a mutual understanding somehow, someway."

"We sure are," the cat said, and that is when I fainted.

*

When I regained consciousness, news stations were filming the parking garage, the alley way, and the soulless man who boasted to me that he lasted longer than other men, something he learned at an orgy for retirees. I went back to spend time with him because he was my first kill. I wanted more memories with him, like a mother saying goodbye to her child at college if the mother thrives on blood and guts. But all I saw was his hand, the one that struggled to get the knife away from me after the coke-fueled fucking and drug-laced wine. Someone had moved his body from where I left it, but I recognized the ring that signified his happy marriage to a wife who "understood his needs." I longed to roll in his innards again, but it wasn't meant to be. The leather-clad woman told the EMTs to let me go.

"It's like she was never here," she said, cradling the cat. "She knows nothing about a hand, or any job related to it." The EMTs smiled. I felt like a kitten, but at least I was not a duck waddling into a bad group hug. Not yet. 

*

"A cat's methods for slaughter command merit. She's one of many masters created to maintain balance. At least I didn't ask a rhino to handle your tutelage," Mother Nature said as she stretched her stiletto boots across my table. "That's a one-time lesson and quite an ugly one."

"You arranged the crash?"

"You made choices that led to this moment. The cull relies on your choice and my preference. The cull demands my attention around- the-clock. That same attention consumes you, yet you lack any real skill at killing. You're uninformed about death --- how to cause it or navigate it with a professional standard. You left the body in a place where a homeless man sleeps so he moved it. You have no real control. None of you do. You make choices while lacking control. That amuses me, like arms grasping for God through the foam of a typhoon amuses me."

"Well, at least we do something right."

"I want you to live for an extended period-of-time, but you need more skill when you kill. You choose to kill. Fine. That helps me. But give me something to look forward to besides banality. You gush over your achievement, but last night in this city alone, fifteen people killed a person they met online for sex. All obvious, sloppy efforts. Enough. The cat can give you some skill and flair. I mean, really, you two work well together. That alley battle was tremedous. Otherwise, look forward to death row. The cat can return to the alley."

"What's an extended period-of-time?"

"You can't live forever, so...until the cat dies. Keep in mind, that stuff about nine lives amuses me, too."

"Meow." 

Sabrina sat with one leg in the air, licking her ass. Master indeed. Yet masters die, too. What will happen after I die? Maybe I wanted the dead to reach out through the veil and tell me. After all, I wanted to solve a big mystery for them in a way that impressed Mother Nature more than a typhoon-drowning. I'm the one left salivating for knowledge in the dark, not them. 

Sabrina ceased licking and rubbed against my feet. We agreed to live together as predator and prey, though we both recognized the real predator in the room. 

*

Sabrina likes me to trap men like she traps mice, so she gave me a whole lesson on how to seduce prey with my walk. 

"You mesmerize them with slink," she said, purring. "Let them feel your kink vibration. Stop texting about ducks. Stop waddling like a duck before I actually place you in the pond with that second man."

"Mother Nature giving you a voice is the worst thing she's ever done."

"Where are the tuna treats? I want the whole bag this time."

We each depend on the other to create balance for her and for you.