The forest of Hatuga is not alive. It is important to make such a distinction for this next story, because some forget – in all its regal splendor, in all its vast expanse – that the forest is only considered living because it contains so much life itself. But the forest, on its own merits, is not a living thing. It is but a place, where things happen, and cycles of life and death find their being. But a forest is both beyond and beneath life; it is no more than a container for what matters, to provide a sense of foundation and connection between the living things within it.
Remember this. Sometimes it is easy to forget where one stands in the world, especially if one is trying to overcome it.
Most residents of Hatuga have no need for that brand of existential knowledge. They are content, they are happy, and their possibilities are limited. But some wish to disrupt the relative peace of Hatuga with grand ambitions, the idea that what occurs in the forest is of lesser importance than what could occur, and make attempts to change it. They like to think the container can’t hold them.
And then there are those who make a mess of things on accident, because they just can’t help themselves.
One such creature was Puripu, a caiman from the time when ancient reptiles swam, flew, and walked the lands of Hatuga. She was the end of the line drawn by those impressive beasts: a Purussaurus of humungous length and breadth, with broad, powerful jaws and impenetrable armor. The last of her kind, perhaps with good reason; she ate constantly, able to seize upon whatever she wanted. Since she was the largest and most powerful predator in the forest, nothing could stop her, and nothing could escape. None compared with her combination of speed, strength, and stealth as she stalked the waterways, dragging underwater whatever she could fit between her teeth.
A natural result of this unrestrained chowing-down was that Purpiu grew very, very fat. Exceedingly fat. The fat was quickly converted to muscle, since all she did was swim, but you still might call her a fat old gator if you saw her, since reptilian muscle is quite hard to distinguish between reptilian fat. At first, it meant nothing to her, since stalking prey was a pleasant enough occupation that needed no distraction. Puripu would compete with her own time, depending on the type of prey; how long it took to devour that particular species. For a while, this was for her own amusement alone – a blend of nourishment and entertainment – and she harbored no complaints.
One humid evening, Puripu spied a ring-tailed lemur clinging over the water from a branch. The enormous gator was never hungry until she saw something to eat, so she fancied herself in the mood for a small snack. What she did not fancy was that this was all a setup; the lemur was not resting, but luring Puripu to surface. Not with any devious intent, mind you; simply to see this legendary gator that his conspiracy were always yammering on about. Rather than be fearful, though, the lemur was intrigued. He wished to see this “monster” for himself! And so he sat at the end of the branch, one eye open as bubbles softly burbled beneath him.
KER-PASH! Puripu breached from the depths, nine tons of pure power, all focused on snatching one little lemur in a single bite. But the lemur was already gone, bounded away to the safety of the trunk, and the great gator’s jaws closed around an empty branch. The branch was crushed to splinters, and the tree capsized as Puripu pulled it into the river.
Humiliation! Never had Puripu missed her prey before! It shattered her contentment, made her conscious of being too slow, or too fat, and what this failure meant for her. Had she failed herself, or failed her reputation? These thoughts were new, and she just wanted to sink with them to the river bottom. But she couldn’t. She needed another breath, having exerted all her energy in that leap. Now she would have to surface, and listen to that crafty lemur’s jeers.
When she did, she was met with the applause of tiny hands. The lemur sat on the tree, the one she had uprooted, a look of amazement on his monochrome face.
“Wowie, wow-wow! I’ve heard stories of you, but never would I have imagined that you’d put them all to shame! Just think, if I wasn’t trying to draw you out…on second thought, let’s not think about it. Let’s think about you! Let’s talk about you, you giant, beautiful creature! I have never seen such a gator of impressive girth, such a monster born to eat! Tell me, how did you get so big?”
Blushing, Puripu opened her mouth to reply, but was not quick enough. Besides the fact that crocodilian jaw-opening muscles are relatively weak, the lemur had no intention of letting anyone else speak. He was so swept up in his own amazement.
“I mean, look at your body…It’s huge! Long as a tree and thick as a boat, the stories don’t do you justice. And those teeth, sharper than steel, longer than elephant tusks! You move as swift as a shark in the water, but no shark could even penetrate your scales. Even your legs! Your short, stubby legs! I can see the power in them. For a split second, I’d wager you could run just as fast as any jungle cat.”
Puripu started to wonder if this silver-tongued lemur was over-exaggerating. Some new throes from being in such close proximity to death? But she was too unaccustomed to flattery to dismiss any of his compliments.
After sizing her up and marveling at her physique for the entire afternoon, the lemur finally quit his endless strain of compliments. Spectacles can only last so long in the forefront of the mind, after all, before one grows used to them and admits them as normal. He thanked her for the moment’s entertainment, and leapt across the trees back to his conspiracy.
Puripu, on the other hand, lay unmoving in the water. She suddenly felt hungry again; but the hunger was coming from a place other than her bottomless stomach. It came from her head, which had swelled from all the lemur’s praises. Feeling ten times more ravenous than normal, Puripu went back to hunting, thinking she could fill that pang with more food.
Not much further down the river, Puripu spotted a Rhinoceros. They were a pain to eat, tough hide and all, so she didn’t like to bother them all that much. But she had reached such a point in her ego’s starvation that she went up to the horned beast without a second thought, and tackled it to the ground.
“Tell me,” hissed Puripu through her salivating grin, “That I am the most impressive predator you ever saw.”
“Never has any predator found the strength to tip me over, and I have run many a hostile carnivore through with my horn. Except for the Bengal Tiger, you are the only one who could possibly overrun my defenses,” replied the conquered Rhinoceros.
Puripu felt a little better, but was displeased to hear that another carnivore in the forest carried her prowess. After a few bites for good measure, she followed the river upstream until she caught sight of the Bengal Tiger, lapping water from the edge.
The Bengal Tiger only saw Puripu coming because she wanted to be seen. She wanted the Bengal, who did not impress her in the slightest with her sinuous frame and sharp claws, to fear her. But the Bengal did not show fear, since it was evident that Puripu would charge as soon as she received the feelings she wanted. Instead, the Bengal sat down on her hind haunches and waited for the gator to surface. Puripu rose out of the water. They stared each other down, eye-to-eye.
“Look at me, Bengal, only other predator to take down a Rhino,” chortled Puripu, “and see how much stronger I am than you.”
“I see you. It is hard not to see such a hefty water-lizard.”
Puripu puffed out her chest, taking it as a compliment.
“So?” yawned the cat, keeping one eye open for the best opportunity to escape.
“So?” echoed Puripu, confused by the Bengal’s lack of defense, and failing to recognize her own. “Do you not want to fight, and see who is the strongest?”
“You will always have the advantage, being in the water. I cannot swim,” the Bengal flat-out lied. She quickly added, watching Puripu drag herself on land to accommodate her, “Besides, fellow hunters are not meant to hunt each other, you tubby log of lard and teeth.”
Puripu was at an impasse. How could she prove her superiority over the Bengal? The Bengal, being blessed with a little more brain than your average jungle cat, improvised a proposal.
“There is a way, to see which of us is the strongest predator.”
Puripu was excited, and would accept the challenge no matter what it was.
“The only beast I have ever failed to take down in Hatuga is the mighty elephant. Not one of the mellow Asian varieties, no, but the African Bull. The largest land-dweller, capable of snapping me in half with its mighty trunk. Defeat him in the plains, and you will prove yourself the strongest.”
Puripu and the Bengal parted ways. Puripu’s heart was thumping from excitement, thrilled to prove her superiority to all of Hatuga. The Bengal’s heart was thumping from relief, grateful she was able to escape the voracious Purussaurus in one piece. She left Hatuga and never looked back, hoping deep down that the African bull elephant would squash this gator’s overweight ego utterly flat.
Puripu’s weight was of no consequence to herself; she was long, and she was fast. All of Hatuga heard her thunder through the forest, moving out of the way for fear she would snap them up in one bite. The uneven mossy floor eventually gave way to flat dirt plains, and the canopy opened up to sunny skies. Before her, munching on the grass in peace, was a herd of African elephants.
The African Bull glanced up from his lunch, aware of some ominous danger. He scanned the edge of the forest, searching for the source of the disturbance, until his squinted eyes caught the gleam of Puripu’s crooked grin in the shadows. Trumpeting in alarm, the elephants stampeded into a circle, protecting their young from this enormous belly-crawler. The Bull bared his tusks, hoping to threaten off the unwelcome presence. All his posturing did was encourage Puripu, who sought a challenge, and was already fantasizing about how devouring the alpha male would make her ten times as large as before. She crept forward, brandishing her rows of teeth as an answer to his challenge.
The Bull did not want to fight the gator. He really didn’t, being both peaceable and cowardly. He already knew that this monster was a match for even him. But his herd was threatened, and he had a sense of honor that not even good sense could deter. It was his responsibility to protect his charges, and it was the reason he worked hard to become the strongest in Hatuga in the first place: to keep his loved ones safe. Sounding a low trumpet, the African Bull stomped forward to stop the gator before it could devour his family.
Puripu sprinted forward on her short legs and reared up, planning to collide with the Bull using all her weight, but he lowered his head and stopped her with his tusks. Her tons of scales cracked one of his most prized assets, but they provided just enough time for his trunk to snake around her body and flip her onto her back. She was inexperienced in an even fight, and shocked to be dispatched so quickly. The Bull, believing the match to already be decided, raised a heavy foot and brought it straight down. He was going to crush her skull and end her reign of terror.
He missed. Puripu’s thick neck was more flexible than one might guess at first look; she slid it out of the way when the Bull put all his weight down, and attacked his knee before he could recover. Her jaws were exceptionally strong, capable of crushing tree trunks – it took only a few seconds for her to crush the Bull’s tree-trunk-like knee. He trumpeted in pain and fell down on his broken leg, confused at the sudden turn of events. Puripu spun around on her back, unfazed at his attempts to pierce her solid hide with his tusks. While one might expect her jaws to be her most dangerous weapon, this was actually false, proven when she flipped off her back and whipped her mighty tail against the Bull’s face. Centuries of pushing her humungous form forward had honed her tail into a deadly bludgeon; with one swipe, the Bull’s tusks shattered instantly, and he collapsed. Paralyzed, he could only stare resolutely into Puripu’s glazed eyes, wondering why an animal would ever feel the need to act as violently as she, with no real reason.
Puripu slammed her tail down repeatedly upon his face. That once-imposing African Bull, strongest of all land-beasts, was culled into submission.
His elephant herd was shocked, stunned, frozen in place when they saw their invincible leader fall. They hardly made a reaction when Puripu, spurred on by her victory, overwhelmed the herd and devoured every last elephant. Nothing could stop her now; she was the strongest creature in all of Hatuga. The strongest, perhaps, but not yet the largest. The fact that the African Bull had managed to flip her at all made this much clear. She would have to eat much, much more if she was to become larger than he was.
Thus began her unquenchable feast. Puripu proceeded to eat all day, everyday. She had grown too large for the river, causing a flood whenever she swung her tail and scraping the bottom with her stomach. After drinking up the river and its occupants, our gator of impressive girth moved permanently onto the land. No animal was safe from her snapping jaw as she grew and grew every day, yard by yard around and down. Eventually, she surpassed the size of the African Bull Elephant she ate long ago, becoming the first tyrannical reptile of Hatuga since the dinosaurs.
Even so, Puripu was discouraged. Who or what was left to compete with, now that she had become the apex animal in every possible way? Most Hatugans had either been eaten or fled the forest, leaving her starved for both food and fulfillment. How could she know how impressive she was, if there were no eyes to see or tongues to proclaim? She regretted her reign of terror – it had left her so alone, ego pounding for recognition.
But still, she had to improve. Something deep within her pushed her on, enslaving her to the competition that continued to feed the hunger in her head. Lamenting the empty forest, lamenting her loneliness, Puripu challenged the one thing left to compete with.
That is, she challenged the forest of Hatuga itself.
Its size, its spectacle, its ability to sustain instead of devour – Puripu envied it. It was powerful in a way she was not aware of, and surpassing it was the only other avenue left through which Puripu could challenge herself. To even stand a chance, she would have to become much, much larger.
She ate and ate and ate and ate, and then ate some more when she had finished eating until she became hungry again. There were hardly any animals left living in the forest, so she dug beneath the ground and ate the remains of residents buried by time. They, at least, could not flee. She ate trees and rocks and drank lakes at first, but eventually grew too large for even this to satiate her. She grew so humungous that she chewed peaks off of mountains and lapped up the ocean tides. Our gator of impressive girth expanded into a dragon of ridiculous existence, far too big to live and yet living on despite it.
Puripu was now the size of Hatuga itself; just a little more, and she would surpass the forest’s greatness. But eating everything requires a lot of energy, especially if the only reward is strictly beholden to one’s ego, and Puripu had grown very tired. Against her better judgment, rest was the next step in her fight. She curled into a comfortable position, tucked her tail in her mouth, and closed her eyes for just a minute. Waking the next day, she would finally make good on her challenge, and, hopefully, feel satisfied with herself at last. Those orange eyes, glowing strong as the Earth’s core, closed for a brief respite, looking forward to the next day when she would finally feel fulfilled.
Puripu’s eyes never opened again. When a creature grows as large as a mountain, biology implements a fail-safe: it expends all the animal’s energy to send it into a deep slumber. The rains came and sunk her hardened body into the ground, covering it in a layer of sediment and soil. Trees took root between her scales, and waterfalls poured across her jaws, cemented shut. Her massive tail formed a range of hills, and her nostrils became lakes. All of Hatuga was renewed, sprouting from the back of the gator whose maw it once disappeared into.
When life returned to Hatuga, the story of the Purussaurus and her fruitless competition with herself became little more than a legend – a tale that we Hatugans tell their children so that they will treat the land right. Otherwise, she might wake up. But the oldest know that it was no legend, that the beast will never wake up, and that the true message has nothing to do with treating the land right. Rather, it is about treating themselves right.
Puripu shall sleep on, cozy under blankets of Earth, happily lost in the land of dreams. There, she has no desire to challenge, and she feels no need to grow. Instead, she lives there at peace with herself – too full, too impressive, to live otherwise.
Morning's Early Dark 