The Butterfly Lanai 5

"Now why would there be a huge honkin tiger on the lanai?" asked Mr. J aloud. He heard something and turned quickly, thinking someone was in the room. He nudged the sprawled body of Hollybrick Vine, and found him inert. There was no radio. The telly wasn't working. It was broken.

"I know I hear someone," said Mr. J. "Could it be coming from next door?"

Mr. J felt compelled to look at the lanai, which he'd been trying to ignore. The bengal tiger was looking at him. Mr. J jumped. What was he was hearing was the tiger.

whale songs are like people songs, they have repeating patterns and they rhyme. there are two types of whale songs: love songs and songs to ward off rivals. whichever male sings the best wins the mating ground. so singing females flirt, even with divers, and females are always looking for the better mate. the male sticks close and vies for her attention while the divers observe. when divers surface the male approaches and shows dominance, and raises its head checking out the divers, like it would to any rival..

thinking and believing are functions of homo sapiens in the same way that singing is a function of the whales. both are a chief thing that people can do, these things are in fact fundamental. as such people are stuck on it and will continue to do it, just like sex, and dreaming, and automatic body functions, to name a few, regardless of the value of scientific arguments. this accounts for the rise of religion in modern times. people will probably never agree on the fundamental questions. consequently even in the future there will be factions and disagreement. as each succeeding generation becomes faced with the suffering and bleakness of life, many turn to traditional non-scientific philosophies to activate the belief function that the species evolved..

we believe the stories so we don't have to feel like animals. but animals is what homo sapiens will always be. perhaps the next-step evolution of people will move closer toward the mythological heroes of the stories, and farther from being animals..

It licked its paw and rubbed its cheek, seeming to lose interest.

"Heavy," Mr. J said.