Samuel L. Raccoon

With the meanderings of the human species, ever so often a person or a group of people or some exclusive gathering finds a piece of the puzzle that, unbeknownst to them, should’ve remained undiscovered. Heretofore, the archives of mankind filled with book upon book of new and exciting discoveries, has up until now, only scrapped the surface of the yet-undiscovered truths of the unknown world beyond the tree line. Having laid aside all of one accepted understanding as to how the world should be, how people should act, how far people should be allowed to go, and how time deals with the opposition to the natural laws of nature, to find out that the laws of nature don’t really apply to all equally, can be disconcerting.  It can be disconcerting in the animal world that parallels the human existence.

Alas, in the fullness of time and under the direst of circumstances, fate or the winds of the universe open up one single opportunity to see into the complexities of human frailty, some more facetious, some not so much so. The discourse of man against man and the eventual outcome has been studied by many but the absolute truth remains dearth. As in the animal world, truth can be stranger than fiction. The result, even though expected to be minimal, became so much more convoluted, much more multi-stratified causing major shifts of power and thought for Samuel L. Raccoon as he stood his ground against his opponents. It is in this place, this bastion that harbors secrets told of what humanity might be, that one single being along with one trusted friend, Samuel L. Raccoon, a member of the Raccoon dynasty, finds himself standing on the precipice of understanding that all that he’d been taught, all that he’d seen, all that he’d been told wasn’t true. It is at this point that a decision has to be made that would catapult him into the realm of the hunters and killers who wear suits and ties in the world of humans. He didn’t consider his life ennui or dismal, but electric with promise if he could find a bridge to cross from the side of the animal world to that of the humans. If he could remember the cants, the incantations told to him by his great-grandmother, he might be able to pull it off.  

It is understood or at least assumed that there is a resulting effect for every cause action or decision that each living being makes. That simple law stated by Newton many decades ago explains and reveals that when one makes a decision or turns a certain way or speaks a certain truth, there most assuredly will be consequences. Those consequences, more often than not, are uncontrollable, unpredictable, and dominate, at least in the short term, the lives of those perpetrating the offense to natural common sense and stand to either gain all truth or lose it when the confrontation begins between the forces, animal or human. Even though Samuel L. Raccoon was an even-tempered member of his family, his father, Joseph P. Raccoon was an old, worn-out cantankerous old buzzard who wanted nothing to do with the outlandish plan that his son was cooking up not because it might not work, but because there was a possibility that the plan would work.  If it did work, there was a chance that he’d never see his son again at least not as a raccoon.  To become human he felt was to become less in the eyes of nature.  To become human, to walk as humans do, would throw dirt in the face of all that nature had planned for the species living beyond the treeline.