Once upon a time… In Chad’s life… Far, far away…Over the years, Beavers have taunted and teased me; they have filled my body with fear and they have taken every opportunity presented to them to rage havoc on my life. I constantly live in fear that at any moment a beaver will dash towards me, leaping towards my jugular vein, leaving a gaping hole in my neck with their huge knife wielding teeth. I am no longer safe anywhere I go because they have penetrated our cities and towns, our amusement parks, and of course our forest and campgrounds. Our precious Earth is being overwhelmed by their numbers and I just know that one day I will wake up with those vicious teeth glaring down at me. I lack the understanding of their kind and the reasons why they hate me so. I do know that if anything happens to me, like if my corpse is found floating down a quiet river bend with teeth marks scattered throughout my body, my genitals torn to shreds, and my eyes gauged out of their sockets, that I do have a list of beaver suspects, each of which have made a failed attempt on my life.
I don’t know what I did to piss off these raging beavers but the first incident was a few years ago in southern Missouri. My family had decided to take a trip during spring break and kayak down a river that was frequently visited by humans. To my defense, their were a few hundred college age humans that were drinking and partying during our few days there and any one of them could have started this war with the beavers.
I had not had a good day on this particular trip due to an incident that involved my mother and step father, neither of which had spent any time in a canoe and neither had never apparently used or managed a paddle. We were trying to get through a rough patch of water when my kayak had been pushed up against a side of a cliff. I had water flowing over me and I was unable to paddle myself out of my predicament due to the force of water pushing me against the cliff wall. To make matters worst my mother yells at me from about thirty feet that they are going to hit me. I look back towards them and saw their canoe heading straight for my head. Mom was staring at me wondering why I wasn’t getting out of their way and my step father was trying to figure out his paddle. Sure enough, a few seconds later, their canoe slammed into my little kayak and I got dragged under water.
I fought my way back up to the surface and found myself about twenty feet from where I had gone under and of course, of all the places I could have come up along this cliff wall, I come up at the only place where a tree stump was protruding out the side of the cliff. I hit my head on the stump and I immediately go back under, only this time, with a splinting headache. I finally get back to the surface to meet the giggles and quiet smirks of my family. Each of which were asking if I was okay with their futile attempts to hold in their laughter. My mother’s only comment was, “I told you we were going to hit you, you should have moved.” I gathered my things and got back into my kayak grinding my teeth.
We found ourselves in a very quiet part of the river and I laid back in my kayak, closing my eyes, enjoying the breeze, and allowing the river to calmly guide me down stream. Only a few moments of peace passed before I noticed a clicking sound coming from my right. It was fast and quick, pausing only for a few seconds between each segment of clicks. I opened my eyes to see a massive size beaver on the shoreline staring straight at me from only about five feet away. It was jumping quick little jumps and the hair on his backside was standing straight up. I screamed at the top of my lungs lunging myself out of my kayak and back into the water. It was at this point that complete panic sat in; I realized in that one complete truth of the moment that beavers are one of the best swimmers in the animal kingdom and I was bound to be dragged under by the horrendous beast. I couldn’t stop screaming as my family began to freak out over my reaction. I started yelling, “Beaver! Beaver! Beaver!” I turned back to the shoreline to point to them and the beaver was gone. The beastly creature had vanished as quickly has it had appeared to me. I then realized that it could have jumped into the water so I leaped back into my kayak and used my paddles to pushed myself down stream, as far away from the incident as possible. I took comfort in the fact that I had my paddles and I would not hesitate to use them as weapons if the beaver tried to take control of the kayak. After a couple of hours I felt that the threat was over and I began to relax a bit.
I don’t know if I had startled the beaver or what but I became a joke within my family as they teased me that beavers don’t make clicking sounds nor do they attempt to murder humans in cold blood. I didn’t sleep well at all during the rest of this weekend trip and was thankful when we returned home. I thought I would be safe being back at home in the confounds of my bedroom and that this was an isolated incident. That illusion of safety however, was going to be shattered quickly, for I would soon discover that this so called, isolated incident in southern Missouri would spark an all out, interstate war between me and the beavers. Over the years they would send spies and assassins to watch over me and spend numerous attempts to slaughter me. This was far from over, a quiet shift was happening in the darkness and it was being led my a dark beaver by the name of Darth Francis; and I would come to realized that his beavers are everywhere and that they are constantly listening to us, watching us, and building an army to move against us.
Coming Soon: BEAVER WARS: ATTACK OF THE BEAVERS
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