The Council of Animals

by Nick McDonell

  “After siesta,” purred the cat.

  The bear, seeing she would not win the argument, lay down, too.

  And with the tally 2–1 in favor of humanity’s survival, the animals all drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 7

  It is well known that animals dream.

  Crows have an especially rich dream life. The more religious crows—like the one at the council—insist that they commune with extinct creatures in their dreams. They claim to have learned much from dinosaurs, and especially from krakens, which went extinct just before The Calamity. Apparently dream krakens told the crows of their battles with ships and sharks and whales, of the deepest kelp forests where they birthed their young, and of kraken operas.

  This narrator, for one, is skeptical.

  But whether the crows communicate with the dead or not, their dreams are of historical import. For that afternoon, after siesta, the crow raised his wings up above his head and cleared his throat and said:

  “Caaw! I dreamed the vote!”

  The bear rolled her eyes, but the crow didn’t care.

  “The only true Gods are the Bird Gods, and crows are their messengers. In the beginning, The Egg. From The Egg, the earth. It is known what the humans have done to the earth, to chicks and nests, to all animals. But what have they done to the Bird Gods? Disrespected them? The Calamity is punishment!”

  Listening to the crow, the dog became sleepy again. As far back as he could remember, when the birds talked about their religion, he’d gotten sleepy.

  The cat, for her part, was wondering how crow might taste. She was often hungry after a nap.

  But the baboon yelled: “Praise to the Bird Gods! How do the crows vote?”

  The crow didn’t answer the question. Instead he said:

  “Hear the bird laws! On the full moon, no worms! On the seventh day, attend thy nest! Thou shalt not fly above the mountain, nor below the sea! Caw caw caw!”

  “What the devil?” asked the dog.

  “The crow seems to have flown into some kind of trance,” observed the bear.

  And indeed, the crow was hopping and spinning, like he was receiving sacred wisdom, or like his claw was stuck in an electrical socket. The cat, who studied bird dances, had never seen one quite like this. It didn’t resemble the blue-footed booby foxtrot, nor the zen waltz of the cranes, stately and delicious.

  “Caw caw caw caw!”

  The crow seemed to be coming out of the trance.

  “A new bird law!” said the crow, returning to his senses. “If you do not eat the humans…”

  The crow, a ham, paused.

  “Well,” said the dog, “get on with it!”

  “… the humans will eat you!” said the crow.

  “Praise to the Bird Gods,” shouted the baboon. “How do you vote?”

  “Humans are a danger to The Egg,” said the crow. “Kill them all!”

  Chapter 8

  The bear updated the tally on the tree.

  “Bear,” said the cat, “do you think it strange that we few should decide the future of all mankind? What if there are other creatures who would like to join in the vote? Perhaps even right now, watching us from beneath the ship, creatures like … a mouse?”

  The cat flicked her ears at the base of the yacht and the animals looked over.

  Indeed, there was a mouse, carefully poking his snout into the sunlight.

  “Trespasser!” shouted the baboon. “The council is full!”

  “Baboon, my friend,” said the cat, “no need to shout. Come, mouse, you are welcome. No animal invited to the council shall harm another. This is the law.”

  The mouse crept out from beneath the yacht.

  “No mouse votes!” cried the baboon. “The mouse was not invited!”

  “No one is saying so,” said the cat. “Let’s just hear what it has to say. It must have a reason to approach us here. Speak, mouse.”

  The mouse, standing on his hind legs, spoke in a proud mouse voice:

  “I speak on behalf of the absent council member.”

  The mouse bowed and flourished his tail.

  “I speak also on behalf of all mice and smaller mammals. I speak for the two thousand two hundred and twenty-seven species of rodents, none of whom were invited to this council. We wonder, why this insult? Did we not suffer in The Calamity? Have we not been involved with humans since they lived by nut and berry gathering? As though mice, rats, squirrels, prairie dogs, gerbils, chinchillas, porcupines, voles, and mighty capybaras were not living beneath their homes…”

  “Enough, rodent,” sneered the baboon. “What have you come to say?”

  “The seventh council member is delayed. He will arrive at sunset. And: the small mammals vote in favor of humanity.”

  This caused an uproar, for, as the baboon had noted, the mouse had not been invited to vote in the council. All voiced an opinion, some in favor of counting the mouse’s vote, some against. The horse whinnied, just to be part of the noise.

  And then the cat pounced.

  It was done in an instant, though there was much to see. The cat’s shoulder blades rising. Her whiskers in the breeze, the twitch of her ears, the widening of her golden eyes. She was airborne.

  The mouse, terrified. In his mouse brain, all signals firing. Adrenaline flooded his pea-sized heart. His eyes widened. He tried to flee, but too late. The cat’s paw stunned him, a claw pierced his delicate skin. The cat delivered a neck bite, severing the mouse’s spine.

  The cat gulped down the mouse.

  After a moment of silence, the uproar among the animals redoubled.

  The cat licked a drop of blood from her paw.

  “You’ve broken the rules of the council,” shouted the baboon. “The seventh council member will kill us!”

  “Curses on egg crackers!” cawed the crow.

  “I have broken no rules,” said the cat, repressing a belch. “As my baboon friend says, that mouse was not invited and spoke for no one. I was hungry. And”—she raised her tail straight up, against further objection—“if the seventh council member has a problem, he can take it up with me.”

  “Classic cat behavior,” muttered the dog.

  “Now,” continued the cat, “there is nothing more difficult than changing an animal’s mind. But I will say, in case I can change yours: humans are more useful to us outside our bellies than in. Consider: how many more years will you live? Five? Ten at the most? For myself, I know I shall be dead in no more than ten years—and that would make me a fortunate cat indeed. Remember, humans are dangerous. Why risk the few years we have in hunting them? So that our children might not be endangered by some unpredictable future Calamity? What children? My kittens all died in the last Calamity.”

  The cat paused, twitched her whiskers.

  “Remember this, too,” she said, “humans were good for cats. Not for the big kitties, the lions and tigers and so on. I sympathize. But for house cats, and city cats—the time of man was a rich time for us. There was a certain … symbiosis. Not unlike, I must admit, that between man and dog—n’est-ce pas, dog?”

  And here the cat slyly winked at the dog.

  “Well, well, I…” the dog stuttered, embarrassed at the association.

  The cat now burped quietly and continued. “Domestication was not so bad,” she said. “I recall milk in porcelain plates, sunlit cushions high above their cities. I too am saddened by what men have done to the earth. But what arrogance to think we can simply kill all the remaining men! Where did we get this idea? Because the animals of these particular nearby forests have told us that there are only a few men left? But what of the rest of the earth? On the islands of the ocean, in the far reaches of the north, do you think there are no more men? That these men here truly are the last of their kind?”

  “Yes!” cried the baboon. “This is known by all the animals. All the animals!”

  The cat shook her head, knowing as she did that it was useless to argue with this baboon.


  “It is better,” said the cat, “to accept what cannot be changed, and pee on it. Cats were not made for one life or another, nor were baboons or bears or horses. Nor, I’m sure, were men. It seems to me rather too much trouble to surround the men and kill them. Why strive for such empty power? Baboon, do you wish for power? Crow, do you?”

  “All praise to the nest!” cawed the crow.

  “I think,” continued the cat, “the baboon has not thought through his plan to kill the humans. I think he has been carried away in the excitement.”

  Here the cat turned away from the scowling baboon. In particular, she appealed to the horse and crow.

  “My fellow creatures, the baboon will not lead you to safety from humans. I think, instead, this baboon will flee at the first sign of danger and will, when it suits him, betray us all. Notice that he carries a bell and a bag. He who hates the humans most is most like them. Remember too, as different as they seem, as horrible as their behavior may have been, humans are animals. Whatever they say, whatever they do, whatever Calamities they create upon the earth, each individually is interested in surviving and mating. That is it. When I hear the howl of the tomcat, I strut into the moonlight. Same for humans.”

  “No,” shouted the baboon. “Humans are different from animals! The cat is lying!”

  “So,” the cat continued, “I vote for my own survival. I do not vote for rushing a camp of humans who have probably already built various devices for killing crows and horses and bears and cats in the time that they’ve had to regroup. I say: don’t trust the primates. The cats vote to leave humanity alone.”

  “No! No!” snarled the baboon. “This is the wrong vote! You betrayed me, cat! We had a deal!”

  And with a great roar the baboon rushed the cat, intending, it seemed, to rip her apart.

  Chapter 9

  We shall leave, for a moment, this scene of impending violence between cat and baboon. But we shall not travel far.

  Down the promontory, at the edge of the forest where the humans made their small camp, lived a large tribe of mice. News had already returned to them of their emissary’s death at the council, and now the mice were in their own council, discussing the matter.

  Consensus was: something had to be done about this cat.

  One might quibble over whether or not the mouse had been invited to vote, but the spirit of the agreement had surely been violated. An animal had been eaten at the council. And going forward, they must secure themselves against further attack from what was an unusually cruel and dangerous cat.

  In a cavernous burrow beneath an oak tree, the mice debated their response.

  “We must ally ourselves with the dogs and horses!”

  “We must build a trap!”

  “We must ask the seventh council member to avenge our fallen brother!”

  And so on. After some time, a young but quite well-regarded mouse stood up with a proposal.

  “Let us sneak up on the cat in her sleep,” he said, “and tie a bell around her neck. I have taken one from the humans.”

  Several of this young mouse’s acolytes emerged from within the tunnel complex dragging a shiny bell, much like the one so beloved by the baboon.

  “When it rings, the cat shall never be able to pounce on us again!”

  The gathered mice applauded this idea roundly and congratulated the speaker on his wisdom.

  But a frizzy furred ancient mouse was not so sure.

  “And who,” he asked, “will bell the cat?”

  A long moment of silence.

  Finally, the young mouse who suggested the idea spoke up, huffily.

  “I will bell the cat,” he said, “tonight or in the morning, whenever the cat next goes to sleep.”

  At this there was more applause from the gathered mice. And, to their surprise, some additional, slower, higher-pitched applause.

  It was coming from the burrow entrance, from some unexpected guests.

  Clap … clap … clap.

  The mice quieted, and looked:

  Cockroaches.

  “Mammals,” the spokesroach said. “You mammals, thinking about mammals. To hell with your little bell. We have a better plan.…”

  And he began to explain.

  Listening to the roaches, the frizzy old mouse wished he knew history better, had some guidance greater than his own limited experience. Were roaches to be trusted? Not so many generations before, in the human cities, roaches and mice lived tail to shell. But the old mouse realized he’d never had a real conversation with a roach. He didn’t know what it was like to have hundreds of children, or to walk upside down. But mice and roaches, he thought, must have things in common. Fear of being stomped by humans. And, did he recall correctly that cats will eat a roach sometimes? Monstrous creatures, cats, they would eat anything,… and this old mouse was a bit hungry himself just then. A blackberry, yes, that would be the thing, or even, if there were no berries, some of that dead worm he recalled seeing …

  “Sir,” one of the younger mice was saying. “Sir?”

  The frizzy old mouse snapped out of his reverie.

  The younger mice wanted to know:

  What did he think of the cockroaches’ proposal?

  Chapter 10

  Back on the cliff, the baboon was bull-rushing the cat. But:

  The dog intervened!

  Leapt between the two, bowled the baboon over. Saved the cat’s life! He was a highly trained military creature, after all.

  Still, it was a very close thing—the baboon had nearly got the cat by the tail, might have ripped it right off.

  The cat, hissing, crouched behind the bear.

  Regaining his paws, the dog snarled at the baboon, who, baring his teeth, howled in frustration. The horse was so stunned he turned three circles.

  “You betrayed me, cat!” yowled the baboon.

  The cat only hissed back. The dog was still barking. The horse whimpering. The crow cawing. The baboon furiously slapped the ground and gnashed his teeth and rang his bell.

  Finally, the bear could take the noise no longer and let out a great roar, quieting the rest.

  “Enough, baboon! What are you doing? No animal is to hurt another at the council!”

  The dog, out of breath, stopped barking. “All dogs accounted for?! Alamo? Biscuits? General Bill?”

  Unanswered, the dog started barking again. The crow flapped down beside him.

  “The battle is over. Over! Caw!”

  “That cat ate the mouse,” said the baboon to the bear, accusingly. “Maybe I’ll eat the cat.”

  “But, as the cat said,” noted the bear, slowly, “the mouse wasn’t really invited.…”

  Even as the bear said this, she realized she didn’t believe the argument the cat had made. It did not seem right for the cat to have eaten that mouse. And then the bear remembered what the baboon had said just before he attacked.…

  “What was that,” the bear asked, “you were saying about a deal?”

  “The cat and I had agreed to vote together,” said the baboon, glad to betray the cat.

  The bear shook her head and sighed. She looked at the cat with reproach, but the cat only shrugged.

  * * *

  This historian has been unable to verify what passed between the cat and the baboon. Sadly, we must proceed with fuzzy variables, unknowns.

  This is inevitable, of course. The task before us is to live with limited information. Perhaps the baboon and the cat had simply misunderstood each other. Perhaps the cat tricked the baboon, or vice versa. The answer is obscure, not to be found in my hundreds of hours of interviews with baboons and cats; nor in cat archives, where this historian pored over their nearly indecipherable scratchings; nor among the singing storyteller baboons, in their banana skin epics. History will simply not give up her secrets on this matter.

  We do know, however, that when the animals had calmed down after the fracas, the baboon proceeded to make his case.

  He was himself well versed in the h
istory of humanity’s poor decisions. More convincing, perhaps, than the cat expected.

  * * *

  The baboon stalked among the animals. Even the bear was uneasy. An angry baboon is dangerous, and the cat had only just escaped with her life.

  “Stupid animals!” said the baboon. “I won’t waste primate time on a speech to stupid animals. I vote to kill the humans.”

  “Baboon, why?” said the bear. “You were closer to them than any of us.”

  “Why?” Here the baboon dropped his voice. “Closer? They cut down the forest and burned the plain. They poured poison in the ocean and sprayed it in the sky. They paved grasslands. They built cages and locked us up. They cut us open; they put chains around our necks and forced us to dance. They hunted us for sport. The bear says some of them wanted balance, but the bear knows most of them didn’t! They wanted only to stuff their bellies with our flesh and spray their poisons so they could use their devices. And they caused The Calamity. You think I am some baboon who lived in the forests and does not know men. But I was in their university. They kept me in a laboratory. They did not speak grak, but they knew we were not dumb, that we animals were not like plants and rocks. They knew. We spoke in sign language. They watched me paint. You animals have sympathy for man. You think man is part of the balance. What would man do? Man would kill all of us. They even kill their own kind, millions of men, killed in wars. No baboons ever did this. No bears, no cats, no dogs. Only men. This is unnatural. We must kill and eat them.”

  All of this was not, strictly, accurate. Baboons do indeed kill (and eat) their own kind, though not on the scale of man. In any case, the baboon was just getting warmed up—but then, he was interrupted.

  It was another animal’s call, enormously loud. It contained the alto of a thousand bugles and the basso profundo of a whale’s heartbeat. But this was no giant marching band or whale.

  The earth beneath the animals’ feet trembled; the air around them warmed. The call went on for several seconds. None of the animals had ever heard anything like it. It came from over the edge of the cliff.