We're all mad here.

Strange Creatures

You're a scientist discovering a new species that includes...? Create at least five of these such creatures; giving details including description, mode of movement, what they eat, reproduction etc.

I have no pretense of a scientific mind. If I did, I'd probably have a job and possibly an extended stay in some psychiatric ward or another. No, I am a writer. And a poet, but I spend less time writing poetry than I do writing fiction. And you know what they say about fiction writers? They lie.

I lie. I've spent a good long period of my life learning to lie well. I have a Masters of the fine art of lying (to translate: an MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis in fiction). And so, consider the following new discoveries that I've found in the course of typing over the past two weeks or so in the light of that.

Strange Creatures, found since I entered Wonderland, 1 March 2020. Each of these was mentioned in my parody of the Jabberwocky, two challenges ago.

The Polymorph: This creature defies description, not because it doesn't exist but because it can change shape, color, and size arbitrarily. It is mostly found at night, lingering just behind you. It's rather short in a tall sort of way, skinny in a fat sort of way, and male in a female sort of way. It has between ten and seventeen fingers and between seven and twenty-six toes, depending, and each of these ends in a sharp-ish nail which can be painted (the toenails tend to be sharper than the fingernails). Its eyes are full of natural colors like sea foam, leaves, and lava. Its hair is long, short, curly, straight, black, blonde, white, rainbowed, red, or anything in between, and it tends to wear clothes. It is omnivorous. It is alone. There is only one of it. It's mode of transport is to dance, and it carries music with it at all times. It reproduces at whim, whereupon the parent becomes the child, and there remains only one.

The Vernom Eel: This creature is aquatic in nature, but spends significant time swimming through the forests of Wonderland. It is long and skinny and psychedelic purple (like an oil stain, with hints of greens and other rainbow color) and has skin with fur like you would find on a white rat's tail. It is poisonous, especially when startled, but luckily, its fangs are way too short to actually penetrate human skin. In order to protect itself, it spends its time with stronger, more formidable creatures. Its movements are hypnotic and constant. It never stops moving (like a snake or an eel or possibly one of those toys where you hold one end and the other one terrorizes a sibling) even while asleep. They eat starlight. Persistent rain can lead to starvation. They reproduce via a lateral split, beginning at the head and ending when the tail separates and there are two of them.

Tyrangantic Shark: Picture a shark with the arms, legs, and attitude of a dinosaur. One of the meat eaters. Although it can swim, it prefers to spend most of its time running after anything. It is gray and has a dorsal fin and feet at the bottom of its tail flippers. This means its legs are nonexistent. Therefore, it runs fairly slowly. It primarily eats Vernom eels that have gathered around it for protection. Because of the eel's poisonous nature, it therefore spends most of its time with a stomach ache. It reproduces aquatically, a long, complicated process that involves laying eggs and hoping that it remembers not to eat them.

Waking Trees: These are trees that are awake enough to move and talk, although they tend to be rather lazy and are difficult to distinguish from non-waking trees. They look exactly like non-waking trees, with leaves and trunks and roots and bark and they bleed sap, although not often because they are inclined to move away without notice when something seems inclined to make them bleed. They eat sunlight and minerals from the soil and rainwater. They move by pulling out their roots from the soil and then teleporting to a new point where (presumably) the soil is better and putting down roots again. Finding a path through their wood is, therefore, complicated and difficult. They reproduce only when no one is looking. If a tree falls in the forest, there is great screaming involved.

Glittereem: These are always plural. They are a small group of insects that gather around excitement and glitter (that's a verb in this case). They are small, about the size of a flake of glitter (which they've infested. There are no tubes of glitter found in craft stores that do not have glittereem inside them, waiting to find some new space and NEVER GO AWAY), and come in all colors and shapes. They float near and attach themselves to any portion of surface they can find. Only when thus attached can the glittereem breed. They reproduce virally. They are everywhere. They can be found anywhere—in the air, on your skin, in the dark corners of any room. They cannot be cleared away. They eat excitement and frustration—any strong emotion, really. Their ultimate purpose and aim is to cover every surface in the world with shiny.

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