Page 3 - Fables volume 3

If something were not done soon, he would have to bestir himself
and restart the world yet again. Too bad, he mused sourly; it seemed
as if they had gotten it right this time. And cosmogony took a lot out
of him. He wasn’t a hatchling any more.
It had been Second Cousin Once Removed’s idea to divert the
humans’ restless inventiveness to building ever more hypnotic means
of self-distracting and mind-numbing amusement. Past a certain
threshold, they would simply squat like fat pigeons in front of their
infernal machines and make easier targets for the new and improved
Anopheles. That point had been reached, and the herd of Homo
sapiens was increasingly easier to bleed. But they were damaging the
ecosystem to the point of threatening the lizard clan’s territory. It was
time to put the brakes on all the logging and mining and pollution of
air, water and soil. Sometimes the Great Lizard grew nostalgic for the
old days, when the scarcity of juicy insects sharpened the wits and
honed the reflexes. But no one wanted to hear him say, “Stay hungry!
It’s good for you.” The situation appeared to be salvageable only by
moving forward, to a new level of prosperous stability.
Then Son-in-law returned, leaping onto the branch where his
leader crouched, jaws clenched. The youth forced himself to meet the
baleful basilisk gaze focused upon him by the aged God of Nature.
“Well, I found the problem and fixed it.” That was met by silence.
“Really. It’s their triune brain. The lowest part, the reptilian, was too
large. That kept them from behaving rationally, because—”
“Eh?” The Great Lizard’s nostrils flared dangerously. “You saying
we aren’t rational?”
“No, no, no, Your Exalted Squamousness. In those creatures, our
exquisitely tuned sensibilities become coarse and corrupted,
particularly when those hyperactive hominids are crowded into
limited dwelling spaces. So, after my intervention, the most recent
generation did not have the early childhood experience of lizardry we
all take for granted. Consequently they are less competitive and
violent. In fact—”
Again the Great Lizard interrupted him. “Then why do I have the
unpleasant suspicion this tree is about to be chopped down by
yonder mechanical contrivance?”
All heads swiveled in the indicated direction, whence a loud
chugging and whining announced the slow but steady progress of a
huge engine of earth-moving and vegetation-leveling capabilities.
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