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I found these guys caught in mortal coils on a mountain trail high above Arcadia. The smallest one, the one being bitten but not biting, was dead and had been for some time. His limbs were curled up and the color had faded from his body. They were roiling and boiling all around the place, tumbling down the trail in a rolling, reptilian ball of concentrated aggression. From the looks of it, they had been at it for days and showed no signs of letting up. It was without a doubt the strangest thing I've seen in all my tramps through the forest.

Or was it really so strange? I invite you to disregard your intricate mammalian brain, with its gaudy pleats and involutions! Recede with me past years of evolution innumerable and into the throbbing medulla oblongata of your own reptilian core--do you see here perhaps a metaphor for your day? Kinda reminds me of a fistfight I saw late one night last week, beside a taco truck on San Fernando Road.

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