Entry #38

Squamata’s Rumble: Certain Results of Biker Attitude
by KJ Hannah Greenberg


Johnny was a good boy. He regenerated his tail in champion time and made sure to eat both leaves and flies. Day’s off, he obeyed the speed limit, usually.

Summer’s sensual airstream had tickled him awake, moaning gust and heat, in turn. He had tried to ignore that tempestuous summons, willing each of his limbs to sleep, concentrating only on the smell of jasmine and aloe buds, counting the scales on each of his clawed feet. The warm season, unhurried as a sated cockroach, endeavored otherwise.

A new zephyr puffed at him, introducing enticement by first name. Squamata approximated a groan and reached for his goggles.

Lean in body, dexterous, and fleet, Johnny was the sovereign of the merpesset tetrapods, his taunt centimeters assuring mortality for other leaseholders. Only July’s breeze ever beguiled him away from his chopper-earned safety.

Johnny listened. No one else was chirping or whistling. No one else had donned gloves.

Again, the puff of air became insistent. Johnny swallowed, subconsciously, flicking out his tongues and then retracting it to his vomeronasal organ. No other chasse had been mounted. Eagerly, Johnny reached for his cruiser.

Counting himself down, Johnny leapt over the rail, his short neck sailing Earthward before his tail hit orbit. He surpassed his best elapsed time as well as his best terminal speed, his thirty foot free-fall toward cement having been fueled by those lusty atmospheric gases.

So marvelous was his sprint that Crows did not pick up Johnny’s pieces until morning.