Birth of Beasts

So, our great creators had officially begun their great work. Their magnum opus was under way. The problem was its lack of er… anything. And a great lack of knowledge on what exactly to put on their new planet! Have no fear! Like all the greatest storytellers, they just made it up as they went along.

Charles stared at the page Maximillianatticusebastian (for the sake of brevity and a fear of tongue sores on my part we'll refer to him as Max from here on) had handed him. He stared some more. Max leaned in to say something. Charles’s finger sprang into the air, a clear signal for Max to keep his thoughts to himself.

Charles stared at the paper. He mouthed the words flora and fauna as he stared.

He stared some more.

Then, suddenly and without any warning for poor Max, Charles threw the paper to the side. The paper, which I cannot assume had any particular vendetta against Max nor can I assume it didn’t, flew directly into Max’s face.

Charles slammed his fingers on the typewriter’s keys and began rattling around.

As Max shuffled over to his desk pressing his fingers to a small cut on his cheek, Charles began shouting aloud the things he typed.

"Upon the surface of Earth…”

Are we set on the name Earth, Max? I’m having second thoughts now. My mother never did pay much attention to my work anyhow,” Charles said.

"I think it’s perfectly fine, sir. She’ll certainly pay attention to this one,” Max replied as he applied a bandage to his cut.

"Alright then.”

Charles continued his typing. “... a creature appeared. It had four legs to stand on. Its face was pointed. Its skin covered in long hair called fur.”

Charles paused. “Oh!” The hammer of the typewriter began clacking again. “It had a long appendage on its backside that was also covered in fur. This appendage was not a leg or arm. It’s called a tail and it serves many functions.”

Max stood next to the window of the office and watched as the tiny brown speck appeared on the green surface of the Earth.

“What’s this creature called, sir?” Max asked.

“Hmmm. Richard!” Charles typed the name into existence.

He stared out at his new creation. “No, no. That doesn’t fit.” He returned to his desk.

Charles shifted the hammer of the typewriter and wrote over the name Richard with "Dog".

“There. Nice and simple. Don’t you think Max?”

I should say that Charles actually used Max’s full name but, as I said, I don’t think my poor mouth could handle saying that name anymore. Okay, back to the tale.

“Yes, sir. Very nice. He seems quite lonely, doesn’t he?” Max replied as he shuffled some papers around at his desk. He set aside a smaller piece of note paper.

“Yes. Yes, he does,” said Charles. “Let’s fix that!”

Charles rushed over to his desk and opened one of the drawers to reveal a large roll of white paper. Charles unrolled a strip of this paper. The previously unseen side of this paper was sticky and had a slight purple glow to it.

Charles took the strip of paper and placed it across his lines about Dog. He ensured it was properly adhered. Then, with all the speed of one of Dog’s great racing descendants, Charles pulled off the strip. He repeated this process in the empty space below. Now, the passage about Dog had been duplicated. So had Dog down on Earth.

The two beasts began running and playing with each other.

Charles reached for another strip of paper. Max interrupted him.

“Sir, isn’t there a faster way of doing that?”

“Not that I was ever taught. Nope. This is the only way to copy text, dear Max.”

“Right, sir. But surely there’s a faster way to say there were more of Dog. No?”

“Hmmm. Perhaps.” Charles placed his fingers on the typewriter. He thought for a moment.

“Upon the surface of Earth, there were now one hundred Dogs,” typed Charles.

Poof. One hundred copies of Dog appeared on Earth. Naturally, with such a powerful amount of duplication, some of the dogs ended up slightly different in size, color, and shape. Some even morphed far beyond that and began hissing at the other dogs for seemingly no reason.

Charles silently decided that from then on he would only copy an animal a few times and let them handle further duplication through a new technique known as procreation.

“Wonderful!” they both exclaimed. Charles returned to his desk and began typing again.

He repeated this same process again and again with slight variations in his creatures.

He gave some longer tails with more control. He gave some stronger legs and some sharper teeth. He made some as large as he could imagine. He made some as tiny as one could think of. If there was a way to make a beast different, Charles did it.

It took days.

At one point, Charles created a creature that appeared to be an amalgamation of his previous creations. His creativity had gotten slightly out of control. Max vomited into a nearby waste basket at the sight of the thing. It was a platypus.

Towards the end of his days of creation, Charles realized that the surface of his creation was beginning to get a bit crowded.

“What if we put some of them in that blue stuff, sir?” Max asked.

“Ah yes.” replied Charles.

Charles typed away on his typewriter and a quarter of the Earth’s new population were lifted into the air and scattered about into the various bodies of water.

Thus, each of the Earth’s animals was created. Charles leaned back in his chair with a contented sigh.

“Alright, sir! On to the next task,” Max said as he pointed to “Flora” on the page he was now holding.

Charles groaned and sat back up in his chair. His fingers placed neatly on the typewriter.

Image Information: Stray Dog on Beach by TheOtherKev on Pixabay