PANTHER

Panther

PANTHER

Distinguished members of the Fellowship

You have done me the honor of inviting me to give you an account of the life I formerly led as a ferocious beast of prey.

That is to say, of the transition from my life as a panther of the African savanna to my current life as a human, or species of human.

As a consequence, I am standing here at the podium in my tuxedo and bow tie with my panther’s black pelt whitened and my panther’s tail tucked into my trousers behind me where you cannot see it.

Please observe that my panther’s ferocious claws are gloved and my gleaming fangs are filed, such that if I were to bound from the podium and savage you, I would not rip you apart at once.

Not that I would wish to, you understand.

To rip you apart would mean to partake of your flesh, which, as a reborn human, I have of course forsaken.

Which does not mean that you do not eminently deserve to be ripped apart, savaged, obliterated.

Notwithstanding, I am honored to be invited to join your human fraternity in however provisional a capacity.

And I vow to conduct myself in a humanly manner while recounting to

you something of my former life and especially my transit from proud panther to humble human.

I say “former” but it has scarcely been three years since I was shot at for sport on one of your safaris on the African savanna.

I naturally expected to die violently, then be gutted, skinned, mutilated, and mounted on a wall in a hunting lodge or museum, because it is universally known that humans behave in that manner toward all living things, not excluding members of their own species.

Instead I was taken captive.

From my home beneath the limitless sky I was transported by steamship in a stinking, cramped cage where I could scarcely stand, let alone pace.

While caged, the humans—deckhands and such—fulsome in their pride at having captured a black panther, would glower and make faces at me.

They would poke each other in the ribs and laugh and spit at me between the bars of the cage.

Their laughter had always a gruff bark in it that sounded menacing but meant little.

When they talked it was usually about their fantasies of becoming rich and their envy of rich and famous sports figures and celebrities.

They talked loudly, interchangeably, using the same words and gestures.

They did this not so much intentionally, but as though they simply could not hear how they or their companions actually sounded.

As if their inner ear and brain had lost the capacity to hear and observe.

Lost the capacity or more likely forfeited it.

After observing those humans and others for the length of the voyage, I made the decision that I would be released from captivity.

The release would entail reconstituting myself to look and act human.

This, you must understand, I did not construe as freedom but simply as an expedient, a temporary way out of my predicament.

Not freedom because it became abundantly clear that you self-glorified

Homo sapiens, rather than employing your natural freedom to remove or even loosen the chains of those less fortunate, were in fact suppressing your own freedom.

And in the process tormenting everything within reach: wilderness, animals, other humans, and whatever residue remained of your sympathetic imaginations.

I say that you tormented everything “within reach,” but as you well know and take enormous pride in, with the aid of your revered technology, your imprisoning reach spans and infects the entire globe and beyond into the heavenly regions.

Into the infernal regions as well.

With the aid of technology, your imprisoning reach extends deep into consciousness itself, which it then neutralizes and sanitizes.

For no other reason, it appears, than to suppress the natural play of freedom with which you were gifted.

And, needless to say, to accumulate ever greater power and profit.

My decision to become a species of human, then, had nothing to do with your vaunted freedom but rather with a way out of my immediate predicament.

I will not lie: The other option, just as compelling, was to die, starve myself to death.

I say “just as compelling”; in fact, death made the much greater claim.

Why I chose instead the more degrading option of becoming human, I cannot plausibly explain to you.

I was calculating then as a panther and now, nearly three years later, I am trying to recount that calculation as a human, or species of human.

Perhaps it was simply the challenge, which once conquered, would permit me to display my “humanness,” as I am doing here and now in my tuxedo and bow tie, elevated on this podium.

The inescapable fact is that I am still fundamentally a black panther,

that fierce and terrifying beast of prey.

That emblem of satanic energy which once you let down your guard will snap your spine, seize you by the throat, drag you under.

I am also, thanks to you, a wounded panther, and it is this deep and grievous wound, obscured by my tuxedo, that I touch with my gloved claw and recall with every dignified word I utter to you, my human brethren.

In truth, the challenge of becoming human was even easier than I had envisioned.

In short order, with very little practice, I taught myself to spit, laugh mockingly, defer absolutely to wealth, talk into my cellular phone while stroking it, surf the Internet, pray,

All the while being blandly complicit in the official ongoing ethnicide throughout the globe of humans unlike me and my kind.

I say “unlike,” but the humans you humans exterminate are, to the outside eye, quite like you, except that their skin is darker, they speak another dialect, or they profess to worship a different, though always similar, god.

Regarding my panther-like appearance, cosmetic medical technology excised most of the physical anomalies.

Very expensive procedures, to be sure, the special privilege of the privileged class.

However, my benefactors—impresarios are what they actually are—underwrote the expense with the expectation of realizing a commanding profit from my ongoing “performances.”

For my part, I mean to do everything in my power to repay their investment.

Perhaps even in ways they may not have anticipated.

Please observe that I am still large, lithe, unimaginably strong, but that I walk with a stoop to disguise it.

 I carry a cane; you can see it beneath me, leaning against the lectern.

 I wear spectacles to deflect the furious glare of my eye.

Suppressing my naturally harsh growl, I affect the same deceptively bland voice and homogenous speech patterns that the current crop of middle-class males possess.

Here I am then, honored members of the Fellowship.

Your guest speaker for the evening.

 torque      

               sinew

tail-whip       pace-rage

savanna-no-sound  

silk-blood-coil

                    blood-bang

engine-fury-eye-drill

 sleep-no-sheep moon-grace

 pulse-rage    

                   motion     motion

Of course, that was then.

Now I am a gentleman, human like you, honored members of the Fellowship.

Ego-bound.

Brittle.

Infinitely tumored.

terrified of dying.

Pious enemy of wilderness both in and out of consciousness.

Planet despoiler.

I am human, I say, like you, but I am not you.

I am still, in the deepest recesses, a panther.

My articulate tucked-in tail confirms it.

My just-contained restraint which prevents me from pouncing from the podium and savaging you, attests to it.

My connection to the immemorial pulse of the African savanna testifies to it.

August members of the Fellowship, I thank you yet again for courteously inviting me to present an account of the transition from panther to human.

This will be the last time I thank you.

It is poor form for humans of your rank to be thanked overmuch.

Truly, I owe you an inestimable debt which even now--at this moment--I am

devising to repay in kind.

I trust you have been duly entertained.