The Turn: Chapter 1

3/8/2026

I promised you all a nice little political satire about "The Turn" a story plot I almost put in one of my novels. I adjusted it to be more appropriate for the blog. So, here it is, more of a cautionary tale, a bedtime story, a Conrad Fable if you will. Perhaps, my great-great-great-great-great- grandchildren will tell this bedtime story to their children and have no idea where it came from.

Hey, a girl can dream, right?

I hope you enjoy my night time reading.

3/7/2026

I know I wasn't the only one that saw it coming. Many of us saw the adaptations in the Orcas first. Because, of course, it's going to be the Orcas first. Some may argue that we should have anticipated it in the apes first. BAH! Apes are too much like us, plus they are out in the open. The ocean is shrouded in mystery. So much is going on in the ocean that we have no inkling of.

The Orcas have been up to something for a while. We are seeing changes in behavior in multiple pods. We had the pod over in Europe attacking shipping boats and yachts by a Spanish port. That had an obvious explanation. Has anyone ever seen the horror movie from the 1977 called Orca? That gem came out two years after Jaws and was still trying to ride the wake of the giant killer from the sea.

***Spoiler Alert***

Orca had a great cast with Bo Derek, the late great Robert Carradine, and Will Sampson and it made me feel bad for the "killer" Orca. He watched fishermen kill his mate and his unborn calf. You felt his pain and hatred for the murderers. Then the Orca went on a murdering spree in a campy way that any movie from the 1970's about a vengeful Orca on murdering spree should.

So, I was not surprised at all to find out that the pod was getting revenge for the killing of their matriarch by a vessel six month prior to the start of the attacks.

A quick fact about Orcas. This is off the top of my head, so it may be a bit distorted. Orcas pass down hunting techniques from generation to generation. While, each pod my hunt with vastly different ways, you won't see major variation within pods regarding hunting techniques. Not all Orcas "play" with their food. That is an example of a unique behavior that is passed down from generation to generation. We don't often see radical changes, or adaptations, in hunting behavior within pods.

Adaptation versus evolution. We are going to cheat and defer to Webster on this one. I am not relying on my ability on words to get us through this. It could take days. Webster says adaptation is "something that is adapted." Yeah, thanks a lot. Seriously, how are definitions like that supposed to help anybody. Later, Webster says that adaptation is, "adjustment to environmental conditions." Whereas, it defines evolutions as, "descent with modification from preexisting species: cumulative inherited change in a population of organisms through time leading to the appearance of new forms: the process by which new species or populations of living things develop from preexisting forms through successive generations." In a nut shell, adaptation happens within one generation, or within one animal, whereas, evolution happens over time and generations.

Okay, now that we have lost whatever remaining MAGAts may have been left reading this. They sure do hate all of that Science stuff. Seeing adaptations in the animal kingdom firsthand are pretty fucking cool. Especially when they are drastic.

I have a cat named Stevie the Wonder Cat. He's popped up on my site a couple of times. He's a grey tiger and white cat with no eyes. He was brought in to the veterinary clinic where I worked to be euthanized. He was scurfy, both of his eyes had prolapsed and were damaged beyond repair. He was a shaking eight ounces of crust. The receptionist came striding back on Monday morning and dropped the carrier off, "Bring the carrier back up when your done, please."

I looked at the Vet I was working with that morning, "Ugh, what a way to start the week." I looked in the carrier and looked in at this tiny scurfy kitten with two crusty worthless eyeballs popped out of their sockets. This blind fucker looked at me and cried. I reached in and grabbed him. The tiny little feline immediately wrapped his scrawny legs around my arms and started rubbing his leathery eyes on my arm; I could feel his little motor on my wrist. I looked up at the vet, "Are you fucking kidding me right now?"

It's been almost fourteen years since the cat distribution system brought me Stevie and taught me all about adaptation and instinct. Based on Stevie's size and how he was found, it was determined that he had most likely developed eye infections in his eyes prior to them opening. The infections had caused abscesses. The pressure from the abscesses got so great that when the eyes opened the eyeballs themselves popped out. Regardless, they were most likely already too damaged to salvage by then. The mother cat probably moved the litter and Stevie was unable to keep up.

Stevie has extra whiskers. They are not just on his muzzle; they are on his "eyebrows" and in his ears. These are ways his body has adapted to him not being able to losing his sense of sight. I find it so remarkable. When you look at his face compared to the faces of our other cats you can see that he has more of the thick white whiskers. Those amazing underrated feelers. They don't just "tell your cat if he can fit through that or not." Watching a blind from birth cat with extra whiskers read the room is just amazing. He will come racing through the room, then stop six inches from the dog sleeping in the middle of the room. He sits at attention, sniffing all along the air, every whisker twitching, his ears moving to and fro. Then he relaxes, trots around the dog, and off he races to his destination.

Stevie the Wonder Cat that has no eyes can stare you down like you wouldn't believe. In case you were wondering. His eyelids are sewn shut and yes, he still blinks. And, the other day I found him napping in the middle of the day, with his arm across where his eyes would be. "Oh, it's instinctual to cover your eyes when you nap during the day, too, Stevie?"

Like I said watching drastic adaptions in animals is pretty fucking cool. It helps that I am a science nerd. I love science. I love animals. I love Mother Nature. She is my higher power, if I have to have one. I don't think anything matches the sheer power of Mother Nature. I am pretty sure we, as humans, are in the midst of pissing her off ………….really bad. We have upset the balance of nature. We started to make it better, but then we went and elected chumpy chomo………..again.

Now, I feel like I've been reading about more and more adaptations playing out in the animal kingdom, and I can't help feel like something is going on.

Adaptations happen because of changes in environmental conditions.

Maybe there's more to it.

Maybe there's more to the Animal Kingdom than what we give them credit for.

I told you it was coming.

The Turn

It started with orca pods attacking boats in near ports in Spain. They eventually determined it was because the Matriarch of their pod had been killed, but I knew it was more than that. I had been listening for a while. I had been to listen to dogs and cats years ago, but it was once I started paying attention to the birds that I noticed the patterns.

Hunting patterns started changing among pods. Scientists told us this was very odd behavior. They don't change their behavior like this. How could whales from one pod suddenly show hunting behaviors that were never seen in that pod before? Most people blew it off. Big deal, so an orca whale did something different when hunting a seal. We all know orcas are smart. I paid attention, though.

I also paid attention when the orcas in Canada started wearing dead salmon as hats. Everyone thought, "Oh look, isn't that cute? They are swimming around with fish hats."

"Hey guys, look at me. I have a dead salmon for a hat. yuck yuck yuck."

Gag me with a spoon. Orcas are smarter than that. What we saw was a special meeting of the smartest orcas of the world. The dead hat society. That is where they shared all of their hunting strategies. This is also where they discussed "The Turn."

The Turn involved every single animal on earth, except for one. The one animal that is responsible for it's destruction. The animal that has upset the balance of nature. The animal who's numbers need to be drastically reduced, humans.

The orcas reached out for information to find out why the humans seemed to be getting worse again. They asked to apex predators to amp their encounters with humans which, of course, got groans from the great whites, "But they taste like shit. I don't what they are eating, but ech." The orcas explained, yet again, that they didn't need to eat the humans, just give a little bite here and there. "Yeah, they still taste like shit. Still have to taste them if we have to bite them."

There were a couple of orcas that were in charge of getting the great whites in order. They were young and chosen for their speed, agility, and taste for shark liver. Killing sharks just for their livers is usually frowned upon among whale communities as it is a waste and disrespectful to the life of the shark. These two were supposed to remind the great whites that they had a job to do when it was time.

The two orcas headed to Africa and there, they caught the eye of researchers and were dubbed, Port and Starboard. As they did their job, quite efficiently, I might add, not only just killing the up and coming leaders of high ranking South African Great White Sharks, but eviscerating them and feasting on their livers, leaving the carcasses behind for the vultures of the sea to feed on. News of the orcas attacks rippled quickly through the all of the ocean, not just the shark community.

When the Order of the Dead Salmon speak, the whole ocean listens. Something was different this time. This time, the birds paid attention as well.

Have you ever just sat in nature and listened to the birds? Have you ever tried to speak to them? I'm not talking about "domesticated" birds. I'm talking about the birds flying overhead, the ones at your feeder, sitting on your roof, on your power lines. I listen to them and talk to them all. Have you ever looked into a birds eyes?

Have you ever stared deep into the eyes of a raptor? The intensity of the stare is unreal. You can feel them prying around deep into your brain, into your soul. They can read you, who you really are on the inside. There is no fooling a raptor. I have felt those piercing eyes, felt them poking around inside my brain. There was nothing I could do, I was frozen, while the osprey poked and prodded, deciding whether or not I deserved to keep my eyes or not.

Birds, like all other animals don't only communicate with vocal sounds. They use a combination of body and head movements as well. As I sat in my steel cage of this last summer and listened to the large waterfowl flying overhead, I learned to distinguish which type of bird by the sound of their wings flapping. The difference between them all truly is amazing.

When the Canadian Geese fly by, their wings are so heavy with their thick feathers, you can hear them squeaking on each other. It took me a while before I figure out that the sound I heard when the geese flew over was the harsh squeak of all of those feathers rubbing against each other in brute force as they work together keeping these large birds in the air. They always announce their arrival and their departure with a loud cacophony of, "Gawk-gawk-gawk!" as if we've all been anxiously awaiting their arrival.

Every morning I'd go out for my morning joint and listen to the commuters, the egrets, who fly east to the bay to hunt for food every morning at 8:30 am. At 5:30 pm they fly home to roost at the golf course. They are silent, betrayed only by the gentle swoosh of graceful wings and the ever so tiny squeak of rubbing wings.

Then there's the ducks. They are always frantically flapping those wings, like they are late for something or they are flying for their lives. If it's January, I'm sure it can be the latter, but based on the constant nagging of the one of the ducks that can be heard I'm sure it's usually the former.

We have a family of catbirds that live in our front yard. When they have babies, they attack my stepfather and Willy any time they are in the driveway. For some reason, they leave me alone. I think it's because I talk to them. One of the catbirds and I have been having some choice words lately. Willy got my mom and David a bird feeder with a camera this year for Christmas and we set it up right away. I've been feeding the birds all winter and since the catbirds have shown up, it's been a mess. They cherry pick what they want and throw the rest on the ground. The juncos and the finches don't mind so much, but it's a mess.

This one catbird, who has put on probably about five ounces, mind you, will come right up while I am filling the feeder and stare me down. I know he is the one that throws the food all around. I will talk to him. Tell him not to cherry pick. Tell him not to make such a mess. Talk to him about his weight. He just stares at me. I even give him the I'm watching you thing with the fingers that go from my eyes to his then back to mine. Then when I go in and watch from he storm door. We watch each other. Me from the storm door, "Don't you do it!" He stares at me intently in the eyes while he throws the food around on the ground.

Anyway, the birds listened to the Order of the Dead Salmon as they spoke and they spread the message along the planet through the other birds and throughout all of the other animals. The big cats heard the call and nominated a pride from Namibia to migrate to the Skeleton Coast as a symbol of unity.

Scientists all over the world were getting hard-ons because animals were adapting to their environment in ways they had never seen before, unfortunately, scientists were so excited about the adaptations that they couldn't see the forest for the trees. They couldn't see the connection between everything. Why would they? Why would anyone think that all of the different species on earth were working together to save their planet?

Canadian geese always used our lagoon as a meeting place during migration and the year of "The Turn" was no different. What was different, was that Nellie seemed to be spending an inordinate amount of time with her head through the fence while they were congregating. She was doing a lot less barking and chasing, and a lot more listening.

I'm glad I made friends with the birds, especially the raptors. That's all I'm saying.

They understand more than we know. We tell them ALL of our hopes and dreams, and ALL of our fears and nightmares. They are our best friends, our most wonderful companions, our therapists, our unconditional lovebugs, our cherished pets. We unload a monumental amount of information on them. How much do they understand and how much do they "understand"? I tell people I'm training my one dog to be a MAGAt detector. Ha ha. It's a joke, people. She's a dog. She detects scum of the earth instinctively. She doesn't need me to train her to do it.

But, when we tell our dogs that shit for brains thinks that climate change is a hoax and is repealing everything forward thing that we've done to help the environment, do you think they somehow understood? How could they have managed to get that information to the rest of the animals? To the Dead Hat Society?

They must have told the birds!!

How else could one explain what happened that fateful day when Chumpy Chomo was forced to fulfill his prophecy by a real motherfucking black panther?

They still never did catch that black panther or figure out where he came from. It disappeared as quickly as it appeared. Some say he was someone's pet. Some say he was the pet of an assassin. I say if he was sent by an assassin, the criminal-in-chief would have ended up dead, not with a missing ear, a broken hip, and the best nickname ever.

The next day it started happening all over the world. Not everyone was lucky enough to just get a broken hip. Everyday, more and more men and women. Then, they just started turning themselves in.

Turns out even Mother Earth hates a fucking pedophiles!!

Oops, I guess you want to know what happened huh?

Well, after Twatzi Noem got demoted to the basement office of the Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas (don't forget to take her stapler), things didn't get any better. Aunt Pam, the drunk cunt, just kept drinking and popping pills in public again. She started picking fights with street lights and after she cut up her hand beating up "some blonde bitch in my bathroom" one night, had been taking some time off.

Crack boy cousins Petey and Kash had been partying pretty hard down at Daddy Warbucks Florida estate. Apparently a few new holes had to be dug on the golf course.

Well, once party boy poopy pants found out, he called his favorite escortFor and his last remaing coke source, Cuba and off they went to Florida to join the party before the old stiff found out, the crypt keeper himself, Stevie-Boy.

By the time, the con man, the hooker, and the Cuba made it to Florida, they were all feeling pretty high on life. They made it to Florida and headed right to the estate. Once they got there, all of the news and paparazzi were all there with their cameras and videos going. For a little birdie had told them, today is the day.

"Today you will learn the truth. Today the animals will reveal what the humans will not!"

When Petey and Kash saw their Patriarch Grifter with his hooker wife walking with Cuba towards the house, they were scared they were in trouble. Then they remembered that they could do whatever the fuck they wanted without fear of retribution in this new regime. And they rejoiced. They ran outside and to embrace their leader.

Suddenly, there was a roar. Everyone froze in place. All noise immediately ceased, the only sounds were the last remaining remnants of flashes bulbs going off from paparazzi cameras. A roar again. Everyone looked around. Suddenly, from the tree line, a large gorgous sleek black panther gracefully plodded out onto the lawn. She seemed to glide along the lush green grass. Her jade green eyes scanned the audience until she caught her prize. When she did, she stopped in her tracks and stared at the large old doughy man with the awkward lean.

Immediately and slowly, his hooker wife and "loyal" cabinet start distancing themselves from the great grifter. The grifter on the other hand is just too dull at this point to have any real clue as to what is going on. He thinks everyone is in awe at his mere presence. He is too busy smiling his stupid smile where he doesn't even show his teeth. You know the one, he looks like a real dolt. He hasn't seen the panther, now crouched closer to the ground and moving slowly towards him. And not one single person has told him yet that the panther is there.

Personally, I've watched the videos about five hundred times. Watching those cowardly assholes retreating from him, leaving him to die alone by that panther is priceless. I say that now because I know he survived, okay. I'm not that heartless. Well, I am, but, I'm not being right now, okay.

It's funny when you think about who saved chumpo that day. It was Kaitlan Collins. Some people say she should have let him go. Not only when you take into consideration the way he treated her in the past, not just that day. The journalists were all relatively safe from the jaguar. It was the clusterfuck of what happens without DEI that was in danger. They were all subscribing to the, "It doesn't matter if you are the fastest as long as you're not the slowest," theory in survival with the panther and their bunion filled leader was the slowest. And how fast can you run away if you don't even know that danger is present?

"Mr. President! Mr. President! Look behind you!!" Kaitlan was yelling with controlled urgency. "That is a very nasty thing to say. Why would you say that. You are not even a real reporter," doofus retorted.

"But, Mr. President, there is a black panther coming right for you!"

"Again, Ms. Collins, that is a very very nasty thing to say. I am not afraid of anyone. You are a very bad person. Why are you here?"

Kailan Collins threw up her notebook and pen in exasperation, "I think I'll just go climb a tree now," and walked away.

"Yeah, go climb a tree," Poopy pants McGee laughed and that's when he finally noticed he was alone. "Guys?" He spun around,"Guys? Guys?"

Then he saw the panther and he ran. He ran as fast as those little 84 year old legs in lifts could run. His depends did their best that day, but between the flight from D.C. to Florida, the "fight" with Kaitlan, then running from the panther, each step a cartoon brown spray of speed. His hair the world's biggest buckwheat. His arms pumping, "Melania!!" Did you know that melena is the medical term for black tarry stool?

Somehow, this floppy ballsack of a man managed to make it to a majestic Southern Live Oak and attempted to climb it to escape from the gorgeous black panther that was hunting him. Yeah, the babbling bozo was never really very smart, why he headed to trees instead of the house with everyone else was never well understood, but not my problem.

Once he got to the tree, he jumped up at every branch he could scrambling until he found one that he could climb up on. It took about ten minutes of this and three branches, but he finally made it a good seven feet off the ground. After about six minutes, even the panther just laid down and watched him struggle to get up the tree.

Once he got up there and saw her lounging out and watching him, he seemed to mistake her ambivalence for an inablity to climb because he started taunting her.

"Haha. You stupid bitch cat. You though you were goung to attack me, but you couldn't outsmart me."

The panther yawned and rolled around on her back a couple of times. There was a screech in the air. It was a bald eagle. The panther looked up. Another screech and the panther was up on her feet in a moment. In seconds she was effortlessly on the same branch as our fearless leader whose pants suddenly became wet on the other side.

She crept closer to him and he took a step back. Closer still she crept.

With each step back he took, he was losing circumference on his footing.

Could he jump? If he didn't jump the panther would kill him for sure.

He could feel the panther's warm wet breath on his face each time she exhaled. She brought her muzzle right up to his face and breathed in hard. She sniffed all along his head, his left ear, the right side of his head, his right ear. She hovered over his right ear for a moment, then she bit it off. He screamed in agony. He started to lose his footing, he lurched forward. The panther checked him with her shoulder and slid out his right leg. With authority, he slammed down on the branch cradling it with his legs, slamming his family jewels on the hard wood of the Southern live oak. The panther slammed his face down to the branch and held him down by the back with one paw while she chewed his ear. He held his right hand to the hole where his ear used to be. A guttural scream of agony still coming from his lungs.

"SHUT UP!!!"

He didn't know where it came from. It almost sounded like it came from his head, but it was as real as that black panther that just bit his fucking ear off. It was a feminine voice. Hardened by years of whiskey and cigarettes.

His screaming wound down to a light blubbering. He felt the pressure of the paw ease up off his back. He tried to sit himself up, but started vomiting as soon as he did.

"Ugh, they are so gross. Why can't I just kill him?"

It was another voice. Younger. He wiped the vomit off of his chin and sat up. He looked around. He could see his Petey, Cash, the Hooker, and Cuba all inside looking at him through the drapes. The press on the other hand was happily taking pictures and video. He couldn't figure out why nobody had shot this fucking cat out the tree yet. And why the fuck was no one helping him? He looked up at the black panther and she spit his chewed up ear at him.

He picked up his ear, his beautiful cherished ear. He had been through so much with this ear. The staged assassination. He wondered how that guy and his family were doing down in Argentina. Ah, who am I kidding? He doesn't give two shits about how that guy and his family are doing in Argentina. They staged his death, they got a good new life in Argentina. Case closed. Ever wonder why that guy is never brought up? He's a fucking martyr for Chumpo Chomo for fuck's sake. He should come up all the time, right?

But, chomo and that ear have been through a lot. That exploded kethcup packet caused a tiny scar and the plastic surgeon almost wasn't able to cover it. He did some class A acting and that ear had to take some damage for the team. Not like his asshole did, but some damage none the less. Now, here it was reduced to the play toy of some South American sewer cat that shouldn't even be in Florida ruining his fun day with his hooker wife and their fun friends. He's going to have to buy a new goddamn ear.

That dumb numpty actually tried to reach out and hit the panther. As he tried to get up, he slipped on his own blood and slipped and just slammed his jewels on the tree again. The black panther sat looking at him. She simply cocked her head and had a look of amusement on her face as he fell again on the branch.

The reporters watched on as the chumpster sat there resigned with his head down on the branch, legs dangling down either side while the black panther stood guard seeming to wait for his decision. None of us knew what the question was though.

Something seemed to happen on that branch after a few hours. The panther started to nudge the numbskull. The cameras all started rolling. He looked up at the panther and seemed to understand what she wanted. He carefully stood back up, even using the panther for help and support to stand up. Then, he turned to face the reporters. He looked at the black panther. She slowly closed her eyes. He turned and faced the crowd.

"I am Donald J. Trump and I am a Tree Jumper!"

And with that he jumped off the tree and broke his hip. The panther slunk back into the woods and was never seen again.

It made the news that night.

Donald Trump was indeed and tree jumper.

Many of us already knew it. Now, we could all admit it.

Many animals around the world came out in force in the next few days and many high profile men and women started jumping from trees.

And that, my friends, was how "The Turn" happened.

And how DJT came to be known as The Tree Jumper.