by Brent Farwick
Glenda shivered at the pain. Her belly was torn, her face a bloodied mess. Her tail throbbed, her thigh was on fire, and a thousand smaller pains vied for her attention. But none of these made her shiver. Joey was dead. Her beautiful calf… torn to pieces by the lions. She stood trembling at the finality, the hopelessness of it.
Glenda could still feel Joey’s softness, those soft silky little hairs on the side of his face. How she had loved to groom him. His sweet scent was still in her nostrils. She remembered him gently, insistently butting her udder, urging her to let down her milk. To know she would never feel the impatient nudging of his soft little nose again was simply too much, and she shivered. Joey, beautiful little Joey, was dead.
I’m Sam. I’m a lion. You know, large animal, sharp claws, great big teeth in an enormous mouth, and a habit of eating just about anything I want. My life recently changed in a big way. But first a bit of background about our lives and our ways — in case you, dear reader, are not a lion yourself. We have, for the most part, a great life, not much work really, a lot of laying around in the shade in the summer, and under the sun in the cooler months. If you have a pride like me, or share a pride with another male, life is even better. If you don’t have a pride, well life is still usually pretty good, for some it’s not, but that’s life. One doesn’t expect the King of Beasts to go about whining about how rough he’s got it.
We kill to live. I’ve always thought the animals understood our right to cull the weak, the old and the young. Hasn’t it always been so? Of course the Wildebeest, the Hartebeest, and the Zebras fight back sometimes . Do we complain? Of course not, we’re lions. Look, we get it — if a Zebra or several of them try ward off the inevitable taking of one of their young, it’s to be expected. No problem. They even win a round now and then. But no one, not us, not the Zebras, expects it to change the game tomorrow or next week or next year. It’s not like we don’t know that life is unkind. But it’s not our fault we’re lions. It’s simply the way things are, the way things are supposed to be, the way things have always been. But since the trouble I’ve begun to think it may not be the way things will always be.
Now about that big change — the trouble. In my pride I had a delightful young thing, Sara, who only recently given birth to her first babies. She was a wonderfully loving, sensitive mother, and she could hunt. Oh could she hunt! Her skill, which none of the older more experienced girls could match, came from an unusual place. You see, she was to put it coarsely, a bleeding heart lib. That is not the most desirable trait in a lioness. But she was so great a hunter, so charming in her manner, that I hadn’t the heart to correct her as severely as some thought I should. This very trait, considered a defect by all, was the very thing that made her a great hunter.
When she crept silently through the grass, stalking the herd, she thought not only as a lion would think, but also as her prey would think. One of my girls said in grudging admiration, “Sara knows what the grass is thinking!” Before Sara, the others practiced the ancient hunting techniques which worked about as well, or poorly as they had always worked. Sara made us quite possibly the most successful pride in the history of liondom.
This success cost Sara. It was hard for the rest of us to understand. Who ever heard of a lion who moped over what she had just killed and eaten? Sara knew she must hunt to live, but she often got the blues, I mean she really got the blues! The gift that made her such a hunter also allowed her to share in the broken heart of the mother who had just lost her darling baby antelope. She felt the hopeless dismay of the old herd member, who stood gazing in unbelief as his herd, his life, sprinted away in a cloud of dust as we ripped his flesh, his very life from him. Sara absorbed the anguish of her victims’ souls. While the rest of us, bellies full, lolled peacefully, dozing in a contentment so great we hardly minded the ever-present insects, Sara’s rest was fitful.
A few days before the big trouble we were lazing about on a small dusty rise, well fed and content. A nice stiff breeze was blowing hard enough to keep most of the bugs off. In other words, things were about as good as they get in liondom. Sara, my favorite, was grooming me playfully and I don’t remember being any happier since I was a cub trying to catch my mother’s tail as she flicked it lazily back and forth for our mutual amusement. And on that lazy, sunny day Sara tried to warn me, but I brushed her off.
Sara said, "I’ve been listening to the Wildebeest, to their words and their thoughts, and I think one of them, she calls herself ‘Glenda’, is trying to organize them against us.
I replied, “Yes, Sara, they try that once in a while. Even without planning it, two or three of them will help defend a calf, or an old one, but we handle it just fine. They’re no match for us. I’ve seen as many as five or six of them fight back on rare occasions, but it never works. I mean, once in a while we get stymied, but we make it a point to savage the resisters. They mind their own business the next time.”
Sara listened patiently, and then replied, “I don’t know Sam. Something feels different this time. Something about the way this Glenda gal is agitating is bugging me. I can’t quite put my paw on it, but something is not right.”
The concern of this beautiful creature warmed my heart yet again, but I had to remind her that I called the shots, and that I wasn’t going to let a bunch of Wildebeest muss my mane. Just saying. Not gonna happen. Maybe I was a little harsh, maybe I could have been just as effective without snapping at her, but hey, we’re the Kings and Queens of the Serengeti. We can’t go about wetting ourselves just because a bunch of female Wildebeest are getting their knickers in a knot. It just doesn’t look right. So I told Sara to put a sock in it, and though I didn’t like offending her, I’m the boss. Simple as that. Can’t go round looking like sensitive wusses.
Glenda the Wildebeest had no inkling of what the lions talked about, or even if they could talk. She assumed they could, after all, many types of animals could talk, indeed some could even read thoughts. Glenda had other things on her mind. A year ago she had lost her darling calf to this very pride and she hated them with an enduring hatred, especially the lioness with the torn ear. She remembered that awful day so well, and the dark days that followed.
She had stayed beside her Joey fighting when all the others ran. Her best friends! Running! The herd had stopped when they noticed Glenda stubbornly, insanely fighting off several lions in complete devotion to the thing that she loved. But that thing, the thing she loved lay dead before her, and eventually the blinding pain from the vicious bites to her rump and tail, her torn nostril, and the large painful flap of skin hanging bloodily from her belly, all inflicted by the devils who circled her trying to get at the thing she loved, forced her to retreat. In desperation and fatigue she made a desperate leap over one of the lionesses and made it back to the herd. For days after, despite a sadness that seemed as big as the night sky, she berated her closest friends for leaving her to fight alone.
“How could you leave me to fight alone?”, she asked.
“We didn’t!”, they replied.
“You may as well have!”, cried Glenda in sorrow, anguish, and rage. “That was token resistance if I ever there was token resistance. You! Ethel! Do you even have a scab on your body these five days later? We promised each other we would stand together, fight together, and here you stand before me without so much as scratch on you! Why? Why?” And here, Glenda began to sob, her great, scarred belly heaving in despair, tears streaking the fine, soft brown hair of her cheeks. “Oh Joey, Joey, my precious Joey!”, she sobbed. “I tried, Joey! I tried so hard!” And then she was silent, and all that remained visible of her grief were her tear stained cheeks, and the silent convulsions rippling through her grieving, aching body.
Ethel was moved by Glenda’s outburst just as she had been moved the day Glenda lost little Joey. But tragedy was a part of life and that’s the way it had always been. Why couldn’t Glenda just accept that this was the way things were. It was unseemly, still mourning like this after five days. Every mother who lost a little one could be expected to mourn, to not eat for a day or two, but to be sobbing in despair five days later was just plain overdoing it, and Ethel felt compelled to say something about it. “Why do you always have to try change things, Glenda? Don’t you think all of us know how you’ve suffered? You know as well as I that everyone in our herd, no exception, has a close friend who has lost a child. It’s sad, it’s awful. I get it! But come on, Glenda, it’s the way it is. It’s the way it’s always been. You can’t change it, and I just wish you would stop trying to convince us that it can be different. It can’t!”
“But we can change it!”, cried Glenda.
“No we can’t!”, replied Naomi with some fervor.
“Why not? I’ve explained it to all of you three times if I’ve explained it once.”, said Glenda, in exasperation. “We agreed we’d stand together!”
“Because”, said Mabel, “that’s just the way it’s always, been. The way it’s meant to be. I’m getting just a bit tired of you always thinking up new ways. There are no new ways. The lions eat some of our children, some of our old and weak, it’s that simple. Get a grip girl! We’re Wildebeest for Pete’s sake! Someday you’ll be lion lunch. We’re not philosophers. Leave that to the Elephants with their big brains.”
“You just don’t get it, Mabel!”, cried Glenda in an anger born of frustration with her friend’s stubborn ignorance. “We can defend ourselves, and you know it. All your head shaking, nay saying, and ridicule can’t change that. You’re just scared. I’m asking you to be brave.”, said Glenda. “It’s easy to go along with the way things have always been. Everyone will think you’re wise. You’ll have lots of friends, and we’ll continue losing our kids. Is that what you want?”, said Glenda, pleading with her friends.
Now, a year later, Glenda had a new calf, little Sally, and nearly all that had been sorrow in Glenda’s heart had been changed into joy by the arrival of Sally. Glenda had never, she was certain, seen a fairer healthier happier calf. To see little Sally bounding gleefully through the tall grass made Glenda feel like a yearling herself. And though she knew she looked ridiculous gamboling through grass swinging her big head about and kicking up her heels, there were times she couldn’t resist. She wasn’t the only one who couldn’t resist the charm of new grass, new life, new hope.
Glenda had not been idle, she had been haranguing, reasoning with, and generally pestering any among her herd mates who would listen to her idea that Wildebeest could aspire to a lion-free existence. Yes, the lions would still roam the Serengeti, but the Wildebeest did not have to accept their terrible attacks on the young ones. And though familiarity is said to breed contempt, it is not always so; sometimes the strange idea becomes familiar, and then slowly, that newly familiar idea begins to seem, bit by bit, plausible by virtue of its very familiarity. And so it was for Glenda’s idea.
Consider Glenda’s talk yesterday. There were about ninety members of the herd in attendance because Glenda, despite not considering herself a leader, had indeed become one. Her talk went like this:
“It’s been a long year for me, and for many of you. For me, my sorrow did not even begin to lessen until I was sure Big Jack had gotten me with calf again, and even then I found it hard to pass even an hour without a sudden wince of pain as Joey’s sweet face intruded on my thoughts. Sometimes I saw that evil bitch with the torn ear in my dreams at night, and I shivered in hate and fear. I’ll never forget her sneering face, her hissing growl, her muzzle covered in the blood of my little Joey’s lips and nose; she was the one who singled him out and with that bite, sealed his fate. If there’s even a little bit of order, of goodness, in this world we inhabit, I’ll live to see that bitch trampled into a dark bloody smear on the Serengeti.”
“I know I’ve been pestering many of you with my ideas whether you wanted to hear them or not. I’ve been called nuts by some of my best friends, an irrational heretic by others. But I believe some of you are beginning to think that maybe I’m not as nuts as most say I am. I think this is because my idea is simple, and because it’s simple, it’s not easy to refute with a mocking snort, or a dismissive roll of the eyes. Listen to my thoughts and tell me where I’m wrong.”
“We are Blue Wildebeest, we are magnificent creatures, and it is for us, more than any other animal, that the savannah was created. We, like all the higher animals know that our time is limited. We know that the lions must also eat. But what doesn’t make sense to us is that the lions should eat our young. When they take the old and the infirm we are saddened, but not as badly, for we know that we must all at some point become food for the hunter, and thereby become part of the great circle of renewal. But it doesn’t make sense that our newborn calves should be a part of the renewal.”
“It doesn’t make sense for the simple reason that it’s wrong. If it’s wrong, we should stop it. Would the lions put up with the vultures suddenly deciding they would eat first, leaving the remains for the lions to pick over? Of course not. The lions have ways to prevent such nonsense, and I would argue Sisters, that we have a way to prevent the lions from this evil practice of pursuing and eating our young.”
“We have all heard the legends of one of our brave ones fighting off the lions, or forcing the lions to pay a very high price. Such stories are almost always about one, two, or at the most three of our brave ones fighting back. A large male lion weighs about the same as one of our males. A large lioness weighs about the same as one of us girls. So far, so good. There are ten adult lions in the local pride. There are more than 500 of us in our herd! A typical lioness can run about 50-mph, as can most of us. But we can run much further at speed. Picture if you can, just sixty of us thundering after ten lions on the savannah. Imagine we get lucky and there are no trees nearby for the lions to climb up. What are the lions going to do? They can’t outdistance us!”
“Any one of the lionesses can try to intimidate or injure one of us, but in the split second that it takes her to decide on a victim, she will be run over by some of the rest of us barrelling along at nearly fifty miles per hour. Her fate is sealed. Imagine another lioness tries to run for it. Without some object to crawl to safety on, she will tire, we will not, she will be trampled. Imagine one of them, despite the surprise of seeing a large group of us rushing them, successfully launches an attack by seizing the nose and mouth of one of us, or by climbing onto one of us from behind and attacking us in that way. Ah! Our horns which are not curved in a way that makes it easy for us to gore an animal close to the ground, are curved just right for goring something a bit higher. We gore, then trample the lioness, or she runs and we trample her.”
“But consider, Sisters, that moment when it dawns on the remaining 400 plus in our herd that just 60 of us are putting the lions to flight, and likely to their death. Will they remain aloof spectators, or will they join in for some payback? In your heart you know the answer. So all that remains to you, my Sisters, is to see it in your mind. See it! See the dust cloud, see the hundreds of flying hooves. See the lions running for their very lives at edge of the dust cloud. See justice! Once you see it, we can make it real. I myself have seen in my mind the one with the torn ear, bleeding out her last as we avenge the death of Joey and so many other calves those heartless beasts have taken from us. Imagine the 500 chasing the 10. See it!”
Glenda paused, and then, gazing intently at her audience, said, “I tell you, if you can see it, we can do it! If you agree, come stand by me.”
There was a bit of murmuring, some approving nods, and then Mabel started towards Glenda, followed by Naomi and a few others. That trickle soon swelled, until by the time it stopped, 70 of Glenda’s friends stood beside her.
Glenda continued, “I want to be very sure that you understand what it means to stand by me. One or two, perhaps a few of us will die in the next day or two. We will win, but it won’t be without some cost. If you can’t accept that tomorrow you may be among the dead, you should walk away. There will be no hard feelings. It is a hard thing I’m asking of you.”
But no one walked back away. It was on.
This morning in the dusky minutes before dawn we went out for the hunt. The Wildebeest were moving slowly past in their hundreds — the grass was high and rich, and the Wildebeest were fat and healthy. Dinner was a sure thing, and lots of it. Wildebeest, especially the young, are very good eating. And so we sauntered out towards the herd, knowing we would spend the afternoon lazing about with full bellies.
I followed behind the girls a bit, as is our custom. The girls do the hard work of stalking, and if a tough situation develops, I am close enough that I can pitch in and help straighten out any difficulties. I watched as Sara led the hunt. Just before the hunt began she had once more voiced her fears to me within earshot of the other gals, and this was just a bit too much. You got to know I love her, but I can’t let the girls see her showing me that kind of disrespect, so I came down on her pretty hard and told her to, “Knock that crap off and go get me some Wildebeest!” She was a bit hurt, but I knew she wouldn’t hold a grudge — it just wasn’t in her nature. And I also knew she would not fail to lead a good hunt.
The girls had crept up pretty close, the wind was to us — it would not give us away. They sized up their marks, and decided on a nice fat young one. There was an adult male with a leg that looked like it might be a little gimped up, but the calf seemed like the least work, and it would certainly be a tastier meal. So the calf it was.
The girls were only half-crouched now and moving forward in well practised coordination. Sara was guiding their movements but Janice would make the first move, all the girls understood that. Not everyone liked Janice, and she wasn’t the prettiest of pictures, what with her left ear ripped right down the middle for three-quarters of its length. That was by no means Janice’s only blemish, the old girl had some serious wear and tear. Her many scars testified to her bravery and her drive to be the undisputed queen of the pride. Now and again one of the girls would forget her place and start the attack without waiting for Janice’s lead. The result was never pretty. The guilty party would be reminded of her fall from favor for several days, her comeuppance was always embarrassing, sometimes painful. Janice did not live to be loved, but to be respected. She earned her status the hard way, leading the attack in every hunt, and in every fight with hyenas. I admired and loved the tough old girl, ugly or not.
Janice had one eager eye on the calf and the other on Sara. Janice had tormented Sara mercilessly when Sara first reached maturity, but she had grown to grudgingly admire her even though Sara had come, over time, to be the director of all hunts. But Sara was good, and Janice respected good. Sara’s sensitivity annoyed the hell out of Janice — she didn’t understand it, or her moping, but then no one else did either. Good was good though, and when Janice was around Sara, she came as close to being warm and kind as it was possible for her to be.
And then it was time. Sara glanced respectfully at Janice, curled her upper lip back slightly, and Janice was off, streaking towards the fat young Wildebeest calf. In what seemed an instant, she was on it, seizing its tender mouth and nose with experienced precision. Soon, unable to breathe, the calf would falter and fall, only to be ripped apart as it struggled for its last breath. Of course the expected attempts to defend the calf were already taking form, but Janice would soon turn the fate of the now nearly helpless calf over to one or two of the other girls, while she lead the effort to drive off the would be protectors who were now rapidly approaching the girls. I say, ‘would be’, because it was a rare day when Janice was driven off the kill. She was nearly fearless, even around the powerful Water Buffaloes.
Glenda was about thirty yards away when she saw the dusty tan flash of Janice’s body hurtling towards the fringe of the herd. Glenda was instantly at a dead run, intentionally careening off any nearby herd mate she could, while loudly bellowing the alarm. Thus aroused by Glenda, twenty-five or more of the ladies were already running full speed at the attackers. Glenda took dead aim at the torn-eared lioness. The dread that initially filled her heart was driven out by her hatred of that scarred, ugly, evil creature. Glenda felt her pounding heart, and heard her own great snorting breaths, and wished she could run twice as fast. The torn-eared one was releasing the nose of the terrified calf, who was now alternately gasping and bleating for help, struggling in confusion to remain standing, not immediately realizing that two lionesses had already seized him from behind, taking over for the torn-eared one. Glenda saw the torn-eared one look up, with the fresh blood of the innocent calf on her ugly face, in anticipation of the usual frantic but ineffective counter attack.
Then Glenda saw something that no Wildebeest had ever seen. Fear, stark and cold, in the confused face of the torn-eared one. And Glenda heard another sound, in the same moment as the first of the lions did — a great thundering of hooves. She heard too a great chorus of snorts and bellows from her herd mates. She thrilled to the wild look in their eyes.
She saw the torn-eared one quickly regain her composure, no doubt thinking this time would be like the other times. The lioness put on her toughest most confident expression and advanced directly towards Glenda. Glenda knew the evil beast did not recognize her, but she wished it were otherwise. Before the torn-eared one could even put the finishing touches on her confident pose, Glenda and company were on her. Glenda reveled in the look of complete shock, confusion, and terror that the evil one now presented. And then it was over for the torn-eared one, the hearts of the Wildebeest singing in joy as they pounded her into the earth.
Glenda caught a glimpse of the alarmed faces of the two unlucky lionesses who had so confidently attacked the rump of the terrified calf. Already she could see Mabel, in concert with twenty or more of the herd bearing down, wild-eyed with hatred upon the unlucky duo. The two cats didn’t even pretend to fight, they knew that hope lay only in fleeing. They ran like the wind, but so did Mabel and many others. The truth of Glenda’s reasoning now became apparent. Very nearly the whole herd had joined in the counter attack, and any lion looking back at his or her pursuers would have seen a wall of Wildebeest 200-yards wide in hot pursuit at fifty miles per hour.
As Glenda joined the others in their attempt to run down remaining six or seven fleeing lions, she noted with pleasure that it was at least 300-yards to the nearest tree of any consequence … it would be a good day.
I watched with pride as Janice seized the face of the calf with her usual efficiency. Sara had read the conditions perfectly, the Wildebeest hadn’t a hint of our presence. Now two of our girls seized the rear quarters of the calf and its fate was sealed. Janice was a joy to behold, the instant the calf was secured by others she turned to scan the herd for the inevitable counterattack, and that’s when the things began to fall apart.
There was no doubt Janice was stunned, and a little confused by what she saw at the instant of her turning. There must have been twenty or thirty crazed Wildebeest within in a very few yards of her. I saw her quickly regain her composure and put on her fiercest expression in anticipation of driving off the expected feeble defense. But what Janices’s eyes saw in the split second before the Wildebeest were on her would have wiped that expression off of her face had there been time, but there was no time. In an instant, before Janice could even come to grips with the surreal scene presented to her, she was being trampled to death by a crazed group of twenty or thirty Wildebeest bearing down on her in wild-eyed anger. In seconds my most trusted friend and partner was gone.
Jenny, one of the two who had come to help Janice happened to glance up just as Janice was being so brutally trampled, and sounded a general alarm. She and Priscilla instantly knew their only hope was to flee and the remainder of the girls who were debating whether to head for the calf or seek an additional victim heard the alarm and began what they thought would be a temporary tactical retreat. It was not to be. The herd was on them and by the time they realized things were different, I think it was too late.
I say ‘think’ because as cowardly as it seems, I had already screamed at Sara to run, and she was beside me stride for stride. We had a slight lead on the others since I had waited some distance back of the girls as usual, and because after the attack on the first calf Sara had immediately run back and out in a large arc trying to spot another victim in the confusion that always followed the initial attack. As luck would have it, this placed her close to me.
Sara and I waited on the arched branch of a fallen tree. Safe from the hyenas who were already gathering to assess the results of what could only have been a hunt by lions, or perhaps a leopard. They moved cautiously because they had seen, heard and even felt the stampede, and stampedes had to be respected. They barked and yapped at us for a bit while waiting for the herd to settle, but they didn’t hang around for long as they probably feared the return of the rest of the pride. But sadly I realized that Sara and I were the only survivors of the dawn’s insanity.
Sara didn’t say anything for awhile, and neither did I. It didn’t seem real. Such things just didn’t happen, but I knew in my gut that my eight remaining girls were not coming back. How were Sara and I to survive. The hyenas now represented a threat to our very survival. We would certainly be chased off of many kills in the weeks to come. Would it even be ‘we’? A lion and a lioness do not a pride make. Sara, driven by her own needs, might join another pride. I could hardly blame her. What about me? Could I take over another pride? I thought so, but there is no guarantee. I would have to find a pride with just one leader if at all possible. A pride with a team of two males would be very risky business.
All those worries were soon replaced by a wave of sorrow such as I had never felt. Was I never to see Janice, Priscilla, Jenny and the others again? Ever? It was too much. I roared in sorrow and anger for hours as Sara mewled in helpless grief. To tell the truth much of my anger was directed at the fear I now felt. A single lion alone but for one young lioness was not truly the King of the Serengeti. It was wrong, so wrong. All that I had was gone in an instant. All the work, the risk, the dangerous battles required to maintain a pride were now for nought. And as the day wore on into the evening, Sara and I sat on that same fallen tree, immobilized by shock, loneliness, and fear. As night fell I began to think for the first time about what the Wildebeest felt when we preyed on them. Thankfully I had Sara to talk to.
“Sara”, I asked, “what do you think upsets the Wildebeest the most?”
“I don’t think, I know”, replied Sara. “It’s the taking of their young. They’re not dumb brutes, Sam.” She went on, “They know there is a natural order to things. They are never happy to see the old, or the lame taken, but they know we must eat. They know the herd won’t always be able to wait on the old, and the lame. They see it as part of the circle of life and hope only that when their time comes, their end will be swift. They are not quite the philosophers the Elephants are, but they know things, and they want things, the same things we want.” And here, Sara began to weep and mewl again, for the stampede had run directly over the pride’s cubs, who had been old enough that they had simply been left well back of the hunt, but close enough to see it unfold. She knew with certainty it was the last thing the cubs saw.
“But Sara”, I said, “haven’t we always taken the young when we can? Was it not so in our parent’s time, and in our parent’s parents time? Why should we have to change now? What was so bad about us? We didn’t create the natural order of things.”
“Sam,” she said, “you have already changed. You’ve asked a question that only a few lions before us have ever asked, if indeed the question has ever been asked. One Wildebeest has forever changed things. And no, Sam. We were not bad when we did the things that lions have always done, but if we continue to do them now, after Glenda, I’m not sure that we will still be able to say we don’t do bad things. We need to think about it Sam.”
“It was so simple before. Why does it have to be so complicated now, Sara?”, asked Sam.
“I don’t know, Sam. I don’t know.”
The sun had set and the herd was quieter now, but still tingling with elation. There was sadness as well. The calf they had rushed to save had been unintentionally knocked down and trampled. Two adults were limping a bit, hopefully just minor injuries. There was a lot of talk about how things were going to be different from now on. Everyone had wanted to be close to Glenda, to groom her, to thank her.
In the middle of the night, when everyone had settled down, Glenda meditated quietly on the events of the day. Why had it taken so long to finally do for the first time what could have been done all along? Why were the many so willing to be victimized by the few? Why had her ancestors focused only on the power of the lions while ignoring the power of the herd? Would the lesson learned today stick, or would the herd revert to the old ways at the first setback? Glenda realized that no one knew the answers to these questions and it troubled her. But tonight they were safe, and as little Sally began to suckle, Glenda drifted off into a contented sleep and pleasant dreams of little Joey. Joey kept turning into little Sally, and then back again, but Glenda ignored the confusion and happily groomed whichever child presented itself to her contented imagination.
copyright July 24 2013 by Brent Farwick
san bernardino, ca