I miss eating. Heck, I miss drinking. That's the problem with being a 7 foot tall teddy bear; I mean look at me! I look like some kind of carnival prize! SCAB's really did a number on my genetic code. Huh! WHAT genetic code? I don't even have one anymore. Name's Tex McCoy, by the way. Originally I'm from Texas, obviously, but I now live in Oklahoma. Lemme give you the low down. It started several years ago. Me and a bunch of buddies (at the time) were in my house watching a football game, when I felt a little dizzy. My best friend Jake noticed.

"Hey Tex you all right?" he asked.

"Not really. Pardon me guys."

I got up and went to the bathroom. Forget about dizzyness, I got a shooting pain through my stomach! I doubled over from the pain and I probably screamed my head off. Next thing I know I'm on my bed with a wet cloth on my forehead, with Jake sitting in a chair next to my bed.

"How do you feel Tex?"

"Like crap. How long was I out?"

"About an hour. We decided to skip the game seeing as how your not feeling too good."

The realization hit me.

"Aw crap!" I moaned

"What?" said a confused Jake "What's wrong?"

"I've got it, I just know it!"

"What?"

"Martian Flu ya meathead!"

Jake seemed to take it well.

"Oh, boy the guys are gonna love this."

I had no idea how cryptic that sounded until later.

"Go home Jake. If I live through this I'll call you in a few days."

"You sure?"

"Just go!"

He left and for the next two days I went through hell. Pain, all through my body. I found out later that it was my insides turning into stuffing. At one point I stopped breathing all together. Right there I had a panic attack. But I still couldn't breath for several minutes and I wasn't dead. An inanimorph! I was becoming someTHING else! I must have blacked out because when I woke up it was morning.

I got up and went to look at myself in the bathroom mirror. Clunk!

"Ouch!"

Well at least my vocal chords were intact. I was never that tall. Then I saw myself. A giant teddy bear stared back at me. Definately not good! I immediately called Jake and told him to come over. He drove me to the local hospital in his now very cramped car.

When I got there I met another SCABs' patients who had just changed as well. A fox morph who was now calling himself Rusty Bushtail. The doctor, a wolf morph ushered me in after waiting for what seemed like hours. He tried to take samples of my blood but found I didn't have any anymore. Some x-rays found I only had stuffing inside of me. He pronounced me physically fit for my condition and saw me off, advising me against eating and drinking from now on unless I wanted sogged stuffing. I know this sounds a little odd but that really hit me hard. No food? No drinks? Total bummer. Rusty Bushtail was still out there and caught my attention. He knew about a bar in town that catered to SCABs.

"Sure, but I can't eat or drink anymore."

"You don't have too." he told me "I just want to talk. I need a friend after the week I've had. My own fiancee has dumped me because I'd changed. Even my own parents want nothing to do with me."

"Ouch. So what's so special about this bar?" I asked.

"It's the only bar, restaurant even, that caters to SCABS in all of Dallas."

"Oh. What's it called?"

"Uhh, the Mute Horse I believe."

Odd name for a bar. I agreed and we went down there; owned by a longhorn bull morph named Steven Garibaldi. We sat down at one table and talked most of the day away. Around 7:00 p.m. a couple of my football buddies came by, Jake included. And a couple I didn't recognize. All activity in the place seemed to quiet down. Jake saw me and pointed me out. They gathered around our table while one of them tried to make Rusty leave.

"Scram dogface." he said "We need to talk to Tex."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I said leave freakjob or we'll make you leave!"

At this point Steven interfered.

"Noww hold on gentlemen, I don't tolerate fights here."

"Well your going to have one if you freaks don't get out of our faces!"

"Jake, who are these guys?" I asked.

"Some friends of mine from the Human First movement." he said, looking almost apologetic. Human First? My football buddies were members of those hatemongers? I couldn't believe it!

"Lou!" cried Steven "Get the police on the horn."

"Can't let you do that!" one said and ripped the phone from the wall and smashed it.

"Now see here..!" said Steven.

The inevitable barfight started. One of the goons decked Steven and threw him over his own bar. Rusty tried to help but was knocked out with a well placed judo chop to the neck. Another got out a knife and pointed it at my face.

"Whatcha gonna do stuffing for brains? Hug us to death?" he said.

He and his friends laughed at his joke. Now I was mad. I knocked the knife away and punched him so hard, he flew across the room and crashed into and out of the far wall. A second came at me with another knife and plunged it into my chest. I didn't feel a thing. I simply looked at the knife in my chest, pulled it out and broke it at the hilt and then batted the assailant away. I then set my eyes on Jake and growled.

"How could you?!" I roared.

"Get away from me!"

One of them got up on my back and began punching. That's when the real fight began. I don't remember much because I was in a furious haze. The fight spilled out into the street and I came to my senses when a cop shot me right between the eyes. I didn't actually feel it per se, but it WAS a wake-up call. It's still in there, by the way, as a reminder of my bear-like temper. When it was over the bar was a mess. The Human First goons were the ones who started it and taken to jail by the police. Over the next couple of days Me and Rusty helped Steven clean the place up, at the end of which I discovered that my house had been bombed. Courtesy of the Human First movement. Everything I owned was destroyed. Rusty suggested we leave town and head north to Oklahoma, or more specifically, Tulsa. A friendly city when it comes to SCAB's. The governor of Oklahoma had several years ago signed a bill into law considering any anti-SCAB crime a federal crime in the state of Oklahoma. And I'll tell you why.

I consider myself an amateur historian on the disasters that have struck the state of Oklahoma over the years even though I was born in Texas. I take night classes at the local community college because I don't need sleep anymore. When your a 7 foot teddy bear inanimorph you get bored quickly and you look for something, anything to pass the time. I think I might even teach at the college on Oklahoma History when I graduate.

This is something I just cannot stand still on and ignore. The Oklahoma City SCABs riot of 2021 made the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 look like a picnic. I have never been a racist, and I despise the whole idea. New Moore was a town the seemed to be a magnet for disaster. It was just named Moore when on May 3, 1999 an F-5 tornado leveled a large portion of the town. Disaster struck again when on June 4, 2003 Moore was struck again, this time by a very rare twin F-5 system. They literally orbited each other as they slashed through the town leaving nothing standing. When the SCABs epidemic came, SCAB victims moved into the scoured land and renamed the town New Moore. Pretty soon it was a thriving community, which the Human First movement did not want to see. Enter a local HF firebrand named Isaac Gabriel.

In a park outside of New Moore, Mr. Gabriel knifed to death a young girl who was a canine morph SCAB. He was arrested the next day for his crime but was let go a month later for lack of evidence. Lack of evidence! It wasn't proven but scuttlebutt said the judge was an anti-SCAB. The father of that young girl was furious. They had moved to New Moore only recently after his daughter had changed. As Mr. Gabriel was pulling into his driveway, the father took out his hunting rifle and shot Mr. Gabriel in his driveway, and also shot his wife just for the heck of it leaving a 5 year old son orphaned.

Midnight, June 1, 2021 the OKC SCAB's riot began. The HF group Isaac was a part of responded immediatly by lynching the father and his wife and burning down their home. Enraged SCABs cornered the HF group in their headquarters and burned it down. Anyone trying to escape the blaze was shot. Pretty soon the entire metropolis of Oklahoma City and all its suburbs when engulfed in the fires of hate and fear. Some Firsters even had the GALL to lynch SCABs at the bombing memorial!

It wasn't until June 4th that the riots ended with the deployment of the National Guard. During the Tulsa Race Riot the official casualty count was 30, but it was probably somewhere around 300. And to add insult to injury, blacks who took up arms to protect their families were the ones arrested. The OKC riot casualties was officially counted at 120. But there were rumors that the real count was around 500 but it's never been proven. A week later Oklahoma's govorner signed a bill banning the Human First movement from the state and considered any and all anti-SCAB crimes a federal crime in the state. Those HF groups still around were arrested and were to be kicked out of the state. But this was not the end of the disasters that struck Oklahoma.

During the afternoon, night and morning of July 4-5 that same year a weather front stalled over the state and produced a record number of tornadoes. While most of the country was celebrating Independence Day the citizens of Oklahoma were taking cover from the storms. Somewhere around 50 to 100 tornadoes were spotted in the state. It was if the hand of God himself was punishing the state for the evil that happened a month earlier. Another F-5 hit New Moore, literally clearing away the burned down homes and businesses. Not a single town in Oklahoma wasn't affected. Some were wiped off the map entirely. The least hit town was Tulsa with just an F-2 doing minor damage. Tornado chasers had a field day in Oklahoma. One of the more interesting stories was a convoy of prison vehicles carrying HF groups and supporters was blown away by an F-4. The only survivor of the convoy was the driver of the lead vehicle, and he was paralyzed from the waist down.

A large section of Oklahoma City was left abandoned for about 5 years until some billionair had a device invented that prevents twisters from entering the city. A cheetah morph from back east, I believe, who's name escapes me at the moment. Known for being very fast, and I don't mean feet wise. There is a literal ring of Tornado Buffers around Oklahoma City that prevents tornadoes from hitting the city proper. Now even New Moore is back to being prosperous. The Tornado Buffers are now standard in every town that's been hit more that once. Tulsa, OKC, and Pampa Texas to name a few.

At a restaurant on the Texas/Oklahoma border me and Rusty were again confronted by a group of Human Firsters. They were standing around our car waiting for us to come out. They gave the usual threats and said it was retaliation for getting their buddies back in Dallas arrested. We took them on when they came at us but we fended them off. Rusty used some karate that he had learned when he was younger, althought the digigrade feet he now had were a little hard to fight with. My natural new bulk helped me take them on easily.

We got to Tulsa without further incident and found a very decent appartment across the street from the largest bar/restaurant that cateres to SCABS; the Half Yard Line. Mostly a sports bar now, there are posters, jerserys and jackets of past athletes hanging on the walls. Favre, Aikman, Jordan, Woods, Earnhardt junior AND senior to name a few, there's even a giant screen tv dominating one wall. It's run by a warthog SCAB named Barney Sheridan. Rusty works as a waiter there; Barney sure pays good! I work at one of those restaurants that's part pizza parlor, park arcade and part theme park; as one of the mascot's no less. The Fun and Game Station it's called. Being a 7 ft teddy bear can have advantages sometimes.

When I'm not working at the pizza parlor I spend some of my nights at the college, because I don't need sleep anymore. And you should see the mountain of MDVDs I've collected. Every other weekend we throw MDVD parties, watching movies and old television episodes until the wee hours.

But I still miss being able to eat and drink. Ah well. Oh, and I've noticed a nice young vixen eyeing Rusty from time to time at the Line. But don't mention I said so.

Website Copyright 2004,2005 Michael Bard.  Please send any comments or questions to him at mwbard@transform.com