The Love-Sick Hyena
She’s not like other hyenas… There’s something special about her… she’s unique!
The first time I saw her she was crouched on a rock far away… There she was, festering scabs were seductively arranged on her dusky rump, with a sneer splitting open her horrible piglike face…
What a beauty! I said to myself. Then, I heard her laugh! A frenzied, demonic giggle that made my hair bristle and my organs extrude…
“I really must have her!” I decided… but then, she vanished, she disappeared into a gully…
When would I see her again? I whined, I moped, I could not hunt, I could not play with the pups. I loitered all day in my burrow, too depressed to even scratch at my fleas.
The next day I roamed the canyons and riverbeds looking for her, searching, searching,,, finally I found her footprints! Four stubby toes squished into the mud!
I scampered upstream. There she was, there she was… She was enjoying a private feminine moment rolling around in some cheetah feces…
I crouched around behind a rock, I spied on her. I was stiff with excitement, totally extruded to my full fifteen centimeters.
Suddenly though, my pleasure was interrupted by a hideous sight - her mother! A gigantic mangy beast with scarred lactating breasts dragging upon the ground… her mother! This violent matriarch attacked me! I ran away, of course, like any other peace-loving hyena… with my little tail shivering between my legs.
The third time I saw her was just last night… I was perched on a mountaintop… I was howling my sorrow at the distant stars.. then I noticed vultures circling in the moonlight, I looked underneath the rancid scavengers…
There she was! My hyena sweetie! Enjoying a midnight snack with her idiot family!
I don’t know what they were eating — it was one of those delicious things that has been dead so long it is no longer recognizable… There were still some tasty chunks left though: stale marrow, putrid organs…
I sat there and watched as my lovely one ripped into the decayed mess… I was wondering, “Now… what does she like to eat?”
First she nibbled o the tail - and my heart sank, because… the tail is my favorite part! We could never hunt together, we would fight all the time! There is only one tail and I have to have it!
I sobbed softly, a filthy tear dripped down my muzzle…
Suddenly, though.. I saw my pretty beast get bored with the tail. She spit it out, she threw it over to her little brother! Oh, wonderful world! There is still hope for us!
Heart pounding, I awaited her next move… she climbed on top of the beast.. she ripped into the skin! She devoured a few large chunks of the dry hide…
My heart stopped… frozen in sadness… Because, because… I like skin! I kill for skin! And there she is… eating skin! I hate her! We’re totally incompatible! I would never, ever marry a skin-eater! Hyena are not big on sharing!
But then.. Oh! A miracle! My darling hyena… she went over to a little tiny hyena pup, she began to regurgitate up all the skin! All of it! Oh! Please forgive me, my dearest! I didn’t know it was only for him! Please forgive me!
Then… my hyena sweetie - she climbed back on top of the revolting cadaver, she cracked open a few ribs, she reached her head down into the chest cavity, and she pulled out a long slimy blubbery chunk of lung tissue!
Oh! Lungs are disgusting! Yech! I wouldn’t eat lung for all the dead fawns in Africa! But.. there she was! My lovely one… she’s a lung-gobbler!
She wolfed down chunk after chunk after chuck of magenta lung! Plus tonsils and bronchial tubes!
Then she crawled into that hole in the ribcage… I could hear her slurping and burping inside.. she ate her way into one side of the torso and back out the other side.
When she emerged she was gorged and contented, chunks of lung were slathered on her neck and her face. her eyes gleamed with happiness, and I - I had tears of joy, because she’s a lung-eater!
We’re perfect soulmates! We’ll never fight, ever!
We should be hunting together… and killing together… and mating together, in a dark, fetid burrow!
I opened up my throat then, and I let out the short stupid howl of the love-sick hyena… I certainly hope she hears me!