Greenbelt

Location. Location. Location. That’s what I always preach. You have to really think about where you’re going to live. Really consider what a place is going to mean to you and your family over the long haul.

That’s why the greenbelt is perfect.

Space. Privacy. Prey.

You have to go where the food is. Where you can feed a growing family of mutants. Hungry, hungry young mutants.

See, humans are discovering greenbelts, too. Building more and more homes right up against steeply wooded hills, deeply sluicing ravines, densely fecund wetlands. Their backyards butting right against my front yard.

Humans love the thought of wilderness out their back door. A refuge from their urban and suburban dependency. Best of all, a place for their kids to grow up around nature. On their own privileged terms: tamed but untamed.

I get that. I’m fairly sophisticated for a mutant. I owe that understanding to not having to spend as much energy searching for prey. Our meals come happily, curiously, to me.

Everyday, kids and parents set out to play and hike in the greenbelt, not really questioning who made the network of trails snaking the trees and undergrowth. Thinking maybe the narrow paths were made by deer or other wildlife.

Never imagining me.

Me, with the razor teeth and claws of a wolf, the hulking muscles of a great ape, the feral cunning of an adapter.

That’s me. An adaptation. An unnatural selection catalyzed by exotic toxins released for generations at an old lab site in the high hills--from which all the local greenbelts spread.

I suppose I should be more curious about my origins, but I’m an accepting sort. And so are my spawn. We live like kings in the greenbelt, feasting on the bounty of suburban sprawl.

It’s a lovely life.

And we feel lucky. Grateful for all humans who love the wild and want a taste of it every day. We sure love the taste of them.

Location. Location. Location. That’s what I preach. Mutation. Mutation. Mutation. That’s what I praise.