Rudy | La Cage aux Folles

Author’s note. Rudy | The Unofficial Novella is comprised of notes found stuffed in a stainless steel shoe box that floated up from what used to be frozen tundra. There will be 25 posts containing random insights into the seasonal saga. This is #12. They are not in order, but will be when pigs fly.

 

The edges of this note were scorched. Or chewed on by a herbivore. Whatever the case, this little piece of science was not meant to be discovered.

Inductive Reasoning:

• Most deer have antlers.
• Females have antlers in winter.
• Males lose theirs in winter.

Rudy [Santa’s entire team] must be

1. Female
2. Deer in drag.

Now, why would someone want to destroy this information?

Illustration: http://mother-mary.deviantart.com/

Rudy | The “Fly Agaric”

No Rudy saga is complete with the science behind how reindeer overcome gravity.

Media truth is hard to come by these days. Today’s content will rely on the world’s renowned purveyor of fact, the British Broadcasting Company, aka the BBC. *

Discover how Rudy and his species take flight, often with humans in tow.

*Hoof-Note: The BBC’s reputation for sticking to news that ‘has legs’ survived the sullen skeptics who denounced “Spaghetti-Harvest in Ticino” as Italian/Swiss propaganda. Did you notice the use of the hyphen?

Rudy | The Family Antler

Throughout millennia, fawn, stag and doe have gazed at their reflections in still water ponds and wondered, “Who am I?”

“Why are my eyes crossed?” “Where did that beard come from?” “Why is my left front hoof shaped like a heart? “Whose nose decided to turn crimson and pulsate after sundown?”

Many of these questions can be answered by referencing the Deer Family Antler. While humans expose their Family Trees to the public through the massive Mormon enterprise’s Ancestry.com, family Cervidae records hang on racks in the most sacred Hall of Secrets, only accessible to the eldest of the herd.

Occasionally, a tribal elder will take pity on a youngster suffering from indignity and bullying. Such was the case for Rudy.

“You should be proud of your relatives. Your great great great . . . oh heck, I’m not going to list the exact number of greats. The point is that your ancient relatives crossed the pond on the DecemberFlower. The little ship arrived five months after the human-bearing Mayflower because your G-Mother suffered from an advanced case of seasickness, which spread to the humans.”

The elder continued. “The little band of migrants pulled into the first port they spotted. They remained moored on the leeward side, safe from storms and the perils of tropical life.”

Rudy loved geography. He had the highest grade in his class, one of the reasons his classmates bullied him. He had to know. “Where is this island?”

“In the Caribou-ean Sea.”

 

Rudy | The Unofficial Novella

Chapter One | Resignation

“I quit.”

The words were printed on a brown paper bag. The letters were crude, scratched from what appeared to be the mud from just outside the barn. A tiny, debossed stamp of a deer’s hoof served as the signature. The bag sat on the Claus’s kitchen table, surrounded by two-dozen salt lick angel cookies and a wilting bouquet of mistletoe. It was the day after the day after Christmas, 2017.

Chapter Two | Rudy | Making Hay

Nobody knows the exact second on the atomic clock when Rudy weakened. Or what form that final straw took.

Theories flooded in from the usual subterranean provinces as well as the ethereal. One farmer reported that it was not one, but thousands of organic missiles snatched up from wheat fields that hadn’t been bailed.

The winds of that tornado would hold the title of ‘storm of the century’ for ten days, until a bigger one scraped across the earth.

There was no last straw. Rudy’s noble soul was pierced by a byproduct of cereal.

He was hit by the hay.

Chapter Three | Ancestry Matters

Rudy comes from a long line of loyal and true steeds, a fact first noted by none other than Charles Darwin, who made a clandestine journey to Lapland in the winter of 1835. Following his Indian summer voyage of discovery to the Galapagos, there was such a brew-ha-ha about the idea that the sweet red-breasted robin’s Jurassic ancestor could have been a Velociraptor, that Chuck hesitated to tell anyone what he was up to at the tippy top of the planet.

His intention was to test his aerodynamic mammal theory as it applied to the Norse and Germanic mythology. He hid copious notes in the flyleaf of his red-leather journal, which he placed in a secret drawer of his roll top desk. His wife [and first cousin] Emma donated the desk to a museum and nobody opened the drawer until 2016.

Now we know that Darwin had surmised that Rudy’s ancestors were massive, horned beasts that pulled Thor, the mighty god of Thunder across the sky in a chariot on freezing winter nights. This suited Santa, who acknowledged a fondness for the thunder god’s bellowing “Ho Ho Ho”. However, amateur Norwegian rune translators had mistakenly dubbed the beasts ‘goats’ not reindeer – a tragic example of semantic disaster. Darwin tried to correct the mistake, but he didn’t have access to DNA analysis.

Rudy did. He sent his sample to Ancestry.com. Soon after he received the results, left his resignation on Santa’s kitchen table.

 

to be continued . . .