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A Twitter Tale about Two Moose

Every so often, I enjoy using Twitter's short, 140-character platform to write up very short stories which stretch across 4-6 tweets. The stories are whimsical, whacky, off-beat and sometimes, just frankly silly.

Sometimes a fellow tweep (twitter user) or two will join in and we organically tag-team the stories, lurching them in manically, magically improbable directions. Sometimes, they degenerate into pun wars peppered with wordy brilliance. Either way, they're all in the name of creativity, word play, and bouncing off the inspiration of other people's wordy brilliances.

This is one of my solo efforts and one of my silly ones.
But I like it, so am adding it here to the blog. I've decided to try and capture some of these stories for posterity before I forget they ever existed. (There will be more of these Twitter Tales, so consider yourselves warned).

Two moose were strolling through their forest. One was adjusting his new red scarf, and the other was trying on a monocle. Suddenly, they encountered two hunters. A short, sharp fracas ensued which ended with a smashed monocle, a ripped scarf and two rifles splintered beyond repair. They all called it a draw, agreed they shouldn't cross paths again and that the mooseterious event could never be repeated. (Also, the moose said they knew where the hunters lived). And so an easy moose-truce was maintained in this neck of the woods.

The original story was split over four tweets.

This story was actually born out of one of those late-night, 'fall-down-the-rabbit-hole' thoughts. In this case, for no logical reason, I began wondering why the plural of 'moose' wasn't 'meese' (following the 'goose' and 'geese' rule)*. I wanted to play with this idea; initially, I wanted the fracas between the two moose and the hunters to be initiated by the hunters' refusal to call the moose 'meese', as per the moose's (meese's) own preferences. But, character limits plus sleep requirements meant that I wouldn't be able to do justice to this more... nuanced, linguistic argument. So I went with the 'natural enemies' angle - where moose and hunters just don't like each other. I think I'll save the 'meese' angle for a sequel. I'm already quite fond of these meese, what with their penchant for sartorial elegance and all.

This story thread was also followed by a fun moose-filled word/pun fest. The link to the tweet and the ensuing moose fest is here.

Wherever your neck of the woods, I hope it amooses you half as much as it amoosed me to write it.


*Edited to add: a quick google would have answered the 'moose' vs 'meese' question, but then the world would have missed out on this story of moosketeering magnificence.



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