The Unfortunate Tale of a Now Extinct Animal

"Aww, come on!" Noah moaned as he let go of the rope to quickly snatch together his robe that just went RIPPP. His struggle was evident in his frustration. Loading animals two-by-two into an ark had been challenging. The last pair had proven the most difficult—the Farknuckle. A rare breed that's now extinct. You'll soon see why.

"Martha G," Noah called. He had to distinguish his forty wives; he had three Marys and two Marthas. The animals were bound to one mate each, but not Noah; he was a modern man despite his ripe age of 400.  He continued, "Do you have eyes on the female Farknuckle? I'm about to feed this beast one of them Eve-brand apples. He's got the devil in him."

Martha G and the female Farknuckle sat looking perturbed at their respective mates: the ripped robe and the rope-pulling Farknuckle.

A LITTLE BACKSTORY

If we've learned anything from the Bible, meteorologists have always been wrong. The throngs of thongs were smoking their bongs down by the beach, laughing at Noah, who neither smoked bongs nor wore thongs. As you know, those sinners were soon to die. Enough about them. RIP sinners.

Noah, the righteous man with forty wives, was busy bossing his sons to stop nailing broads with their wood and start nailing wood boards. To the ark. "There'll be plenty of time for broad nailing after you're done nailing boards," said Noah. "40 days and 40 nights. I'll have one for each night. But for now, I need these damn animals on board. So nail those boards."

The Farknuckles weren't Noah's only challenging animals.

The bears were busy climbing trees, the kangaroos were busy boxing, and the monkeys were busy placing bets on the kangaroos.

The sharks were busy gnawing on the throngs in their thongs, and the hippos were almost the hardest of all. Due to their cross-dressing, Noah nearly didn't have a breedable pair of hippos. He cursed the flamingos for telling the hippos about the fashionable tutus.

Then there were the Farknuckles.

A LITTLE BACKSTORY BACKSTORY

The Farknuckle is a gloriously ugly animal. The kind that causes you to squint so hard that your heart wakes up and says, "Hey, it's got a mother that loves him." But no, the Farknuckle's mother can't tolerate its offspring. God knew they were ugly, so he caused them to be born in eggs. Just like the other ugly animal—the platypus.

The Farknuckle's appearance was a blend of the animals in the Grimms' Fairy Tale of Town Musicians of Bremen: the chicken stood on the cat, who stood on the dog, who stood on the donkey. Except in the case of the Farknuckle, all four animals were combined into one. The head of a donkey, the legs of a cat, the body of a chicken, and the snout of a dog for its butt. And large ears.

I know what you may be thinking. You may be asking, "How do Farknuckles mate if they can't even stand the sight of their own babies?" Well, I'm glad you asked.

The Fraknuckles mate like humans:

1. They get depressed at not having friends or family that love them.
2. They get drunk.
3. They make questionable life decisions.

Now, let's get specific about the pair of Farknuckles that Noah chose to bring on the boat ride of destiny. I'll call them Ernie and Bertha Farknuckle. Two thematically accurate Biblical names, if you ask me.

Ernie, like most males of any species, was overconfident and under-brilliant.

Like most females of any species, Bertha was fine minding her own business.

Ernie Farknuckle, realizing his overconfident under-brilliance had led him nowhere in life, went into a spiral of depression, drinking, and chain-smoking. And yes, for the Farknuckle to chain-smoke means sticking a cig out of his dog-snout-shaped butt. Depression and desperation go hand-in-hand.

THE MEETING OF MR. AND MRS. FARKNUCKLE

Bertha owned the local bar, Bertha's Libations. She kept the crowd coming in. She may have been ugly, but she was a beautiful singer. Her drinks were mean, and her attitude charming.

The night Ernie walked in, he was mesmerized by her song MAKE YOU SMELL MY LOVE. (A little-known fact: Bob Dylan used this as his inspiration for his undeniable hit. Adele, too!) The lyrics go:

                When they say rain will be in this place

                And the whole world falls from grace

                I could offer you my best ace

                To make you smell my love

The Bible is unclear on what the Farknuckle smells like. The Baptists say one thing, the Methodists another, and the Catholics another. But whatever the smell was, Ernie was intoxicated by spirits of both drink and music.

Some of you may want to know about that night's freaky things. This website is not for that. I could charge you $19.99/mo for such details on another site, but for now, know that once the Farknuckle mates, it's for life. RIP, Farknuckle love life.

THE CHILDLESS YEARS

Ernie and Bertha Farknuckle went years without having young Farknuckles, mainly because they couldn't stand the sight of one another, and made their passionless passion a pastime—Ernie took up golf, and Bertha joined knitting circles.

This brings us back up to the Noah years. You may ask, "Why do you capitalize 'Farknuckle'?" The answer is simple and scientific. I don't know. I started the story that way and kept it that way for continuity. Plus, homage to the extinct species. You know?

Noah had a quota to keep—two-by-two were his orders, child-bearing or not. Besides, after his frustration with the bears, kangaroos, and sharks (how do you even get sharks on a boat anyhow? Perhaps that's when roller skates were invented.), Noah was exhausted and ready for this God-given project to be done.

Martha G, Noah's second Martha wife, was helpful in 'persuading' Bertha Farknuckle onto the ship. Persuading is a fancy word for lying, but we say persuading because it's not sinning when you use a fancier word.

Martha told Bertha, "You deserve a break from your unhappy union that God says you have to keep forever, whether you enjoy each other's company or not." She continued, "Come on board a holiday cruise. Get some fresh air and perspective." She finalized the deal by telling Bertha about the ark knitting group. That part is true. It's in the Bible.

Noah chose to do things the hard way. #bruteforce

For a donkey-dog-cat-chicken-looking animal, the Farknuckle could put up a fight. Thankfully, it wasn't fast. Noah was a decent wrestler (his great-great-grandson Jacob beat God in a match years later). Despite his exhaustion, he ousted the Farknuckle.

ON BOARD THE FATEFUL SHIP

Ernie Farknuckle was brooding in his disposition. Now that he was on board the ark and hearing all the lovemaking Noah and his sons were having, he wanted to redeem his relationship with Bertha. He wanted to prove himself. He wanted to be a hero.

As he paced the corridors of the ark, he kept thinking, "I used to think that I could not go on, and life was nothing but an awful song." Tears welled up in his eyes. "But now I know the meaning of true love."

He used his cat-stubby arms to climb the ship's railing, wet with rain. He said, "I'm leaning on the everlasting arms." The boat rocked back and forth in the storm, yet Ernie Farknuckle climbed on, saying, "If I can see it, then I can do it."

Something was pulling inside Bertha's heart to go outside. She saw that ugly creature that was her mate climbing up to the top of the ship's edge. She heard Ernie continue, "If I just believe it, there's nothing to it." Just as he launched himself over the ship, she yelled out to him.

"I believe I can fly," cried Ernie as he flew up, down, down, down. Sounding more distant as he fell, "I believe I can touch the sky. I think about it every…." PLOP. WHISH.

He was gone. Not only could Ernie Farknuckle not fly, but he also couldn't swim.

Bertha Farknuckle was the widow of an ugly, stupid, flightless beast. At least their legacy leaves us with two great songs and one heck of a story.