Occamy
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Occamy | ||||||||||||||
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An Occamy is rumored to be a type of animal.
Description[edit]
Philosophers who believe in Occam's Razor for too long have a tendency to spontaneously transform into occamies, large creatures who looked as though they were designed by a drunken god who didn't remember snakes and birds belonged to two different taxons. While different schools of philosophy assert that the creator must be either God or Mother Nature, neither is taking credit for this trainwreck of a beast.
Occamies are basically snakeiform animals of the class Reptilaves, with wings and a beak rather than birdiform snakes of the class Avereptilicus. Their bodies are iridescent blue with the exception of populations in the cities of Liverpool, Glasgow, San Francisco and the nation of Uzbekistan that have been red for decades.
Behavior[edit]
While having sufficient wing power to fly long distances, the occamy has completely adapted to an urban environment. They can be seen riding on the roofs of streetcars, cabs and buses, even transferring to private vehicles when the need arises. Public and private transport companies suspect losses of US$15 million a year from unpaid fares. However, those monies remain uncollected as the animals' nests are quite well hidden.
Occamies are well known for their extreme aggression when approached by humans, especially when nesting. Further, the animals somehow have been able to retain some very powerful and equally aggressive legal firms. The latter have blocked any formal scientific studies of occamies even though the beasts seem capable of doing that all on their own.
It is known that the creatures build bird-like nests from wire taken from construction sites and parked cars. Single occamies will then lay 1 egg or sometimes 2 in spring, every 117 years. The creatures reproduce by parthogenesis, thus needing no partner, the ultimate in DIY. In suburbia and newly expanded city areas, their eggshells are made largely of silver (67.4% by weight) while in older urban neighborhoods the animals will just huff silver paint from spray cans following the practice of local human residents. It is unknown exactly where the creatures source the ingested silver, but it is known that they will scavenge carcasses of dead werewolves.
The parent then leaves the nest after egg-laying. This situation does attract the attention of the European cuckoo (Cuculus canoris) that will lay its eggs in the same nest. However, pairs of cuckoos keeping an eye on the nest often die of shock when they see occamies hatching out. This provides a ready first meal for the hatchling or hatchlings.
In a matter of an hour or two, young occamies are fully fledged and can fend for themselves. While they are still small, the animals rely on a diet of birds and rodents. However, as they grow, their prey will include monkeys, kindergardeners and school mascots, whether animals or people in costume. This puts occamies in direct competition with harpies, but the often much larger occamy is the more successful hunter. Harpies are on the decline because of it, reduced to lurking in customer service centers and behind desks in doctors offices. Mature occamies have displayed surprising amounts of innate intelligence as they are known to prank fast food drive-throughs by using calls that imitate human language to place orders. They then fly to the pickup window and snatch the food from a frightened clerk.
Attempts to create occamies by CRISPR technology has failed so far. Still, as a result of experiments, cottonmouths in silver eggs have been created commercially as well as accidental but amusing occamy-human hybrids that are also able to prank fast food drive-throughs.
The occamy is known for leaps of logic aiming at simplifying everything. Thus, its preferred form of nourishment is "eating food", it is incapable of mating, and it never dies , thus shirking the need for tombstones and other such complex funeral rites. Studies have shown that the animals are attracted by “old school” hard rock and rap music but are repulsed by chance music and anything by John Taverner.
History[edit]
Occamies were once mentioned in the Bible and the Quran. They were removed in both by scribes who decided to fabricate more fantastic creatures and situations in order to capture more readers.
The story of Snow White’s revival by a kiss was conflated from an 8th century incident where a Germanic prince encountered a sleeping occamy in the Black Forest. When the prince approached, he woke the animal, who bit him on the lower lip and then ate him. Retellings over the years changed the character of the tale to romanticized fiction similar to the way the 2008 recession and the US invasion of Iraq is presented today.
It is unknown exactly when occamies first crossed paths with their namesake, William of Occam, but is thought by scholars to be right around the year 1300. The animals say it was when William was still a child and carried to a nest for food. William's intellect so impressed the animal in question that he was set free on condition that both would continue to engage in philosophical discussions. Occamies consider Occams' Razor to be their concept, while William's later writings point to his invention of the safety razor hundreds of years before Shick was even born.
Also in the early 14th century, the people who would become the Aztecs founded their capital city, Tenochtitlan, on the site of where a sacred eagle was seen attacking and eating a snake atop a cactus. However, it has been recently discovered that other local native peoples observed that it was just an occamy vigorously scratching itself.
In the year 1789, the writer J.K. Rowling was bitten by an occamy in revenge for her frequent use of over-complicated plots in her writings (such as her hero being an evil sorcerer's phylactery all along, or Grindelwald actually being a time-travelling Johnny Depp with a bad haircut). An unforeseen side-effect was that Rowling, having become aware of occamies' existence, included them in her writings. For unknown reasons, she found the monstrous bird-snake things 'cute'.