This article is classified "Fictional"
Some millions of years ago a couple of possums decided to play a trick on
evolution and to quite deliberately change their form to something hardly
recognisable as animal. They started to perfect their ability to "play
the possum" in able to never to be bothered by anyone again. They failed
miserably.
It is widely known that the rodent called the possum, when finding itself
in extreme danger, pretends it's dead. This way it expects the attacking
(or just mildly curious) creature to loose interest and eventually go away.
A similar strategy can often be seen in all kinds of movies about wars and
criminals, but there it hardly ever works, because the attackers are
always smart or perverse enough to empty their complete ammo-clip in the
supposedly dead corpse. Possums, however, seem to get away with it [1]
The possums I refer to were so lazy that they wanted to use this ability
for a larger range of occasions, more accurately, for *every* occasion.
Over the years they found a way to lie down on the ground more often, lying
still, until they hardly ever moved at all. Due to gravity they became
flatter. They became furrier and started to loose all features that could
identify them as animals, such as their head, tail, pouch, and feet. Their
need to breathe and feed was brought down to an absolute minimum.
Today these creatures have found a home in the same home we occupy. Yet we
never recognize them for the animals they are. Very inconspicuously they
lie on our floors. In fact, we bring them into our homes ourselves!
Unfortunately the animals can't defend themselves against that, and spend
their whole life trying to avoid the consequences.
Because we don't know they are alive, we tread on them all of the time. We
actually like to do that, because they're all warm and soft. The possums,
however, hate it. Imagine being stomped and trampled on all day long.
This is even worse in households with lots of children running around all
day, or fat people, or both. For this reason the animals try to crawl to
the sides of the room. They have found a way to crawl using their whole
body, in a similar way as snakes do, except they don't bend sideways but
upward. They never get far. The humans occupying the house soon find out
that they have moved by tripping over the folds they make in themselves, or
by just noticing that they have quite inexplicably made a slight turn.
Another reason for them to move should become quite clear when you've got
two of them in one room. Due to a strange twist of probabilities, *if*
there are two in one room, they are always of different sex. As it seems
that most people choose to be blind and not (want to) notice, I will
explain. Reproduction of these possums would have become very difficult,
were it not that they found a very easy and pleasurable solution. They
changed their body into one large reproductive organ [2]. To mate they
merely have to touch each other. Therefore, if you've got two of them in
one room, you will quickly notice that they have moved closer to each other,
although you can't see the movement itself. If you let them go, they soon
lie partly on each other. Realize what they're doing, and please don't
spoil their fun!
Now you understand why it is doubly so painful if you tread on them. This
knowledge will also, I expect, give you a different perspective to the
activity of vacuuming them. Although you take away much of their food, you
also give it a feeling, let's say, much more pleasureful than a massage :).
The next step in the reproduction is the actual birth. It takes place
almost immediately after conception. The child, just like the adult, is
not recognisable as an animal, and looks completely like something else.
By absence of a pouch on the parents, the children crawl around until they
finally find a very suitable pouch on our body. When we discover the
children we call them belly button lint. Most people out of ignorance
throw them away, but some people have a heart and let it grow, until it
finally turns into a full grown parent, so that the owners have a new pet.
These people are the same people who never vacuum their possum, the
catholic fundamentalists of the possum world, we could say. In the third
world there are large factories where people get paid (although not much)
to nurture these possum children in their navels. The children turn into
adults and are then sold to be pets in homes all over the world.
I own two pets and I occasionally give them a nice rub down. They aren't
allowed to climb up the walls, or on to each other too much, and I'm afraid
I throw away the children, although I give them plenty of opportunity to
grow in the distant corners of my room.
[1] But *they* of course don't have the mob after them!
[2] In the same way that the body is one large digestive organ, feeding on
dust.