Our Story - as much of it that can be told that is...

Story One - Chapter One



The Beginnings - One of Many Possible

It was a deep gray depressing October afternoon. Winter was busy forecasting itself overhead. To hide from its onset he had been browsing, as was his habit, in some of Ottawa’s many bookstores. As the day closed he approached one exceptionally decrepit example. It was festooned with hand-written announcements taped to the huge front windows and carelessly stapled too much stained and splintered counters. He entered anyway.

As he meandered his way past mashed cardboard boxes of obscure Macedonian poetry, and frayed Saskatchewan cookbooks he came upon a small group of bedraggled Animeaux in a tall wooden pen. High above them, in badly scrawled block letters, a sign had been hung from the dusty rafters, “PRETTY GOOD STUFFD ANIMALS FOR SALE -- CHEEP”.

From their battered and disheveled appearance he knew at once that they were some unfortunates captured by the increasingly desperate and despicable Pyrates, and interned in that infamous “L’Animeaux Perdu” depot, in French South-by-North East Africa.

Fortuitously he was quite knowledgeable where Animeaux were concerned, having witnessed the endless extravagances of “Dragon Dragoon Guards”, “The Queen’s Own Pig Irregulars”; a rather motley crew of Bears, and Colonel Blackthorn-Badger for several years now. Therefore it was with an abiding sadness that he looked across the deeply bowed and grimy shelves at the small huddled and dejected group. He would consult with the Colonel and the Dragoon Guards as soon as he got home. Perhaps together they could right this all too common scandal.

That night, over dinner, he told Zita about the small herd of hostage Animeaux. Naturally she was appalled. As she had often said, “Living amid shelves of tawdry third-rate romances and worse biographies was a poor fate for any self-respecting Animeaux.”

(And all the Animeaux that they were acquainted with, were quite respectable, -- well most of the time anyway, and that was usually all that could be said for anyone of us.)

As they continued with their dessert, Colonel Dugal arrived. He had just climbed the stairs from the basement, where he had been checking on the state of his “supplies”. He stopped by the dining room doorway and listened intently.

Now Dugal was usually found with his long black nose pushed far into some new book; trying to re-fight Gettysburg or defend the lost residence in Kabul, but fortunately for all, this time he was not too preoccupied or polite, to eavesdrop.

After a few silent moments, he strode into the dining room, and took to one of the side chairs and said, “Craiglellachie, we must have a powwow. I seem to have misplaced an old friend of mine. Careless I know; but did you perhaps see a tolerably stocky, closely cropped, rather natty looking Rhinosasauris in that crowd of unfortunates?”

Craig said “Well no. Actually I don’t know what a Rhinosasauris is. A relative of the rhinoceros I assume?”

The Colonel was appalled. He grasped his walking stick and gasped, “By the Great Gods in all the Heavens. Ahhh.... No wonder the wee Animeaux are disappearing at such a rate, when not even fine Peoples like you ken The Rhinosasauri! ‘Is no right. No right t’all!”

He rocked back and forth for a few moments, bracing himself on his graying tail. He stopped and looked off into the distance and said, “Now whist a while and listen to your betters for a change; for your information The Rhinosasauri are one of the most majestic creatures on the once beautiful Earth. Along with Badgers – naturally - the formidable Great FuryBears, the Vainful Lions, the Whimsical Wolves, and their extremely dangerous friends, the Worrisome Wolverines, Various sundry Whales and some of our very peculiar Porcine friends, and, and.... well Others!”

Dugal shook his head several times, and then turned away and looked out the dining room window with a sad, wistful and slightly older look on his checkered face.

“Oh, I am sorry. I really didn’t know.” Craig said softly, not wishing to upset his old friend any further. Then Zita said that she would be off work the following day, and would risk sneaking into the bookstore to see if there were any Rhinosasauris matching Dugal’s description held captive.

He thanked her, and using his ever-present briar walking stick slowly got down from the chair, climbed over the sofa and onto the walnut cabinet. He rummaged around for a moment until he found one of his discs of “The Tannahall Weavers”. With some difficulty he placed the headphones atop of his ears and then withdrew into the familiar pipes and Bodhrán of his Caledonian home.

Craig and Zita were more than a little distressed, and a bit ashamed that they had let their old friend down. They decided never to let this happen again.