Lost in the Dark Unchanted Forest
crunch and smack and grunt, and nobody cares because they’re only hogs who eat like pigs.”
    â€œThat makes sense.”
    â€œBut we’re not hogs, Drover. We aspire to something higher and better. We try to bring a certain air of dignity to the ritual of eating. The act of imposing dignity on the chaos of experience is called civilization, and protecting civilization has always been hard.”
    â€œYeah, but I meant the kernels were hard.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œHard to chew.” He crunched a kernel.
    â€œYes, I see what you . . .” I crunched a kernel, “mean. They are hard, aren’t they? In fact, they hurt my teeth.”
    â€œYeah, and they hurt my gums.”
    â€œYou shouldn’t be chewing gum while you eat, Drover. Not only do you run the risk of swallowing it and gumming up your entrails, but it’s also in very poor taste.”
    â€œYeah, it tastes kind of like sawdust to me.”
    â€œExactly. But taste and manners are like grease in the ball bearings of experience. Without the grease, we would have nothing but friction and disharmony.”
    â€œYou reckon they add a little grease to improve the taste?”
    â€œThere’s no explaining taste, Drover. Some dogs have it and some don’t. Those of us who do, and I include myself in that group, have the added burden of defending it against the endless assaults of the mindless rubble.”
    â€œYeah, and the chickens.”
    At that very moment, a chicken came up to our dog bowl and appeared to be thinking of pecking into our food. I lowered my head, lifted my lips, exposed my teeth, and snarled.
    â€œGet away from our food, you feather merchant!”
    She squawked and ran, and we went back to our eating. Drover wore a big grin on his face as he smacked and crunched.
    â€œBoy, we’re pretty good at defending our taste, even if it tastes like sawdust.”
    â€œSomeone has to do it, Drover, and it might as well be us.”
    All at once we heard a commotion coming from somewhere down below. My ears, which are very sensitive and operate pretty muchly independent of the rest of my body, picked up the sound, and within seconds had passed the information along to Data Control.
    There the sound was analyzed, broken down into vectors and parameters, and given a specific location. The mental printout which appeared behind my eyes contained this brief message:
    â€œDISTRESSED CAT NEAR SEPTIC TANK.”
    I went on eating. We respond to most distress calls at once, but a cat in distress can always wait until we finish our meal.
    But then I heard the back door slam. I paused, switched my ears from automatic to manual, lifted them a half-inch, and opened the exterior flaps to increase their sound gathering capacity.
    Footsteps on the sidewalk. The squeak of the yard gate. The snap of the gate latch. Footsteps on gravel. Sally May’s voice.
    â€œAlfred? Alfred? Where did you go?”
    More footsteps on the gravel, moving down the hill towards the gas tanks. “REEEEEEEER!” That was the cat again, no problem there. Ah ha! A splashing sound. A child laughing. Then Sally May again.

    â€œAlfred! What on earth?”
    I sighed and stood up. “Swallow your food, Drover, we’ve got a Code Three down at the septic tank.”
    Drover had a mouthful. “Acktock cwqbhd sclcke bdkdkejald.”
    â€œI can’t understand you. Your mouth is full.”
    â€œCvkwlcled ckwoeidke bjeildhck flwe.”
    â€œSwallow, clear your moth . . . your mouth, that is, and try it again.”
    He chewed and swallowed hard. “I said, my mouth is full.”
    â€œNo, it’s clear now. I’m getting a good copy on you.”
    â€œI know, I just swallered what it was full of.”
    â€œI know you just swallered it. That’s what I told you to do, that’s what you did, so what’s the problem?”
    â€œI don’t know. My mouth was full and

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