Aaron M. Fortkamp

The Spider Does Not Know Love

An elephant’s heart can weigh up to sixty pounds.

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A blue whale weighs as much as twenty-two elephants. So its heart weighs… carry the two...

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Lobsters have a nine-month gestation period.

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Tarantulas can go for two years without eating. They do this not for lack of food but because they are trying to make a point. Very political creatures, tarantulas resent the media’s deleterious effect on body image for today’s youth (in particular, all the airbrushing going on in National Geographic).

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The elephant is the only animal with four knees. At least, that’s what they say. Their front legs look similar enough to their back legs that they can get away with labeling the joints identically. And why would they do this? To disguise the fact that elephants can’t jump (“Of course we can! Look at all these knees!”). In actuality it’s just a weight issue, like why ostriches can’t fly. Elephants are, creationarily speaking, somewhat of a mess. Not as bad as the platypus, but not far off.

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Lions mate in four-day orgiastic binges, copulating twice an hour for about a minute at a time. The male roars loudly at orgasm. The female says yes, thanks, that was terrific—or anyway, nice try.

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Male tarantulas, once burrowed, spend their lives within eighteen inches of their hole. They only venture off to mate and then die. If the first female tarantula doesn’t kill them (post-coital munchies), they move on to the next, fulfilling a sort of arachnid bucket list. Eons of evolution it took, but tarantulas now hold the title for “most badass way to go out.”

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The male praying mantis cannot fertilize the female until his head is detached. This has led to a black market of autoerotic guillotines. Which is a bit further down the “badass” list.

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When lobsters have sex it’s merely a transfer of sperm, not a fertilization. The female lobster saves the sperm until she wants, or needs, to be pregnant. Lobsters really know what’s going on, sometimes.

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Rhinoceroses are too heavy to have sex in the conventional animal fashion (doggie-style), as the belly of the rhinoceros is not strong enough to withstand the stout rump-bone of the female. Thus, they perform the act by backing up into one another, quite literally “bumping uglies” until by sheer chance the rhino penis finds its way into the rhine-gina. The rhino also blows his load faster than any other known species in the animal kingdom, which is necessary due to the brevity and uncertainty of the copulative act. This is the real reason why rhinos are going extinct. Because they fucking deserve it.

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A lion’s roar can be heard up to five miles away. Ten with Verizon.

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A duck’s quack does not echo. This is because the quack is not actually making a noise, it is a signal transmitted directly to our brains.

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Puffins, though often associated with the benevolent, waddling penguin, are actually kind of assholes. Penguins always want to hang out with them, but they’re all, no. And then they fly away.

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Elephant tusks continue growing throughout the animal’s life. For an elephant, its tusks are like its pubic hair. When they first show up, the elephant is very proud, but then and rather quickly they get out of control and serve no useful function in the adolescent elephant’s life. Soon, he or (with African elephants) she wishes they did not exist because the tusks muck up pronunciation of certain letters (b’s, f’s, and v’s) and get them caught at hide and seek. Lions don’t understand what the big deal is, remembering the day their first mane-curls appeared. A nice, big-ass set of ivories, doesn’t that get you laid? Actually, elephants reply, they make sex very awkward. It’s like trying to screw while a couple Olympic javelins are jutting out your mouth, it’s very distracting, even dangerous. We’re looking into the rhino method but we’ve yet to perfect it. And the lions say, Oh. Well at least you got that knee thing going for you.

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Penguins only have sex once a year. Lions love to tell this joke during their lion orgies. Lions and puffins get along quite well, actually.

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There are 40,000 muscles and tendons in an elephant’s trunk, making it remarkably dexterous and controllable, and all the more tragic that it looks like a big face penis.

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A sheep, a duck, and a rooster were the first passengers to ride in a hot air balloon, but two of these were last-minute replacements. The lion missed the whole affair, deciding instead to spend the day shagging and taking several naps. The elephant proved too heavy and lamented ever getting its hopes up. Meanwhile the duck, who thought the balloon ride looked like wicked fun, was always supposed to be there, having made his wishes known via mental telepathy.

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Koalas don’t drink water. Watch your whiskey, though.

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The male howler monkey can be heard clearly at three miles (ten with Verizon). Which only means the words are recognizable; the content itself is a load of gibberish. It’s like hearing teenage Russian poetry in translation screamed unseen from the trees. My heart hurts like breadbox for you!!

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Hamsters and select other rodents must eat their food twice to get all of the nutrients out of it. Only previously digested food can be converted into the final “droppings” that are left behind; the hamster immediately eats what it poops if said poop is being pooped for the first time. Elephants eat their mothers’ poop because they lack a certain necessary stomach bacteria until they do. They don’t know this, though. Instinct simply takes over, says, This poop smells like something that should be eaten right now. Immediately after, the young elephant is filled with horror that anyone should find out what he’s done, and this guilt, this sort of shame can be seen in much of the elephant’s behavior for the rest of his life. Lions on the other hand are only coprophagous for humor’s sake. They routinely force one another to eat poop and then laugh about it for approximately half an hour. Then the original poop-eater forces someone else to eat poop, and so on. Lions do not know the meaning of “that joke is so old.”

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You can tell the sex of a horse by counting its teeth. Females have thirty-six teeth, males have forty. Or you could just look for the penis, if you’re in a hurry.

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Porcupines have hollow quills, which helps them in being excellent swimmers. Elephant tusks are not hollow, and thus swimming is very ponderous and labor-intensive. But an elephant can swim twice as fast as any human, thanks to the extra knees. Elephants have been found swimming miles off the ocean coast of India. Always swimming away from shore, however; none are ever seen swimming back.

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A turtle can breathe through its butt. Not quite talking out your ass, but still impressive.

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Earthworms have a circulatory system consisting of just a couple main blood vessels, with periodic aortic arches, or “hearts,” numbering up to nine. Being blind hermaphrodites, earthworms are often unaware that other earthworms exist and thus fall in love with themselves. Sometimes it works out, and the earthworm raises a nice family with itself in the suburbs, but just as often it breaks its own heart (literally—and so it needs a lot of them). It is a lion’s business to break hearts. It is an elephant’s business to have its heart broken. This dictates the lifespan of these two species as well—but with only one heart in a body, things work a little differently. Biologically, each should live about twenty years; lions burn through their allotment of life and rarely make it to fifteen. But when the young elephant’s heart breaks, it breaks in half, and thus can only use up life half as fast. A “half-life” state sets in, behaviorally manifested in long, solitary walks, decreased appetite, and an unwillingness to return phone calls. This halving can occur multiple times; some elephants on record have lived more than eighty years. But most are too smart to experience this (intentionally) more than once. Earthworms are not too smart. They fall in love with themselves often and die a little each time. And they only get nine.

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Male goats compete for mates by peeing on each other. They thought this would be a much better idea than the broken heart thing, and they were right.

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Squirrels cannot carry rabies. Raccoons cannot catch the common cold. Lions can be carriers of syphilis and indeed frequently pass it on, but never suffer the symptoms. Elephants are immune to nothing, but the hell if a little cough will keep them from coming into work on time.

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The word “koala” is a version of the Aboriginal term for “no water.” “Alligator” comes from the Spanish el lagarto, “the lizard.” “Elephant” comes from el afán, which refers to an eagerness, often to please, often at the expense of oneself. “Lion” doesn’t come from other words; other words only come from “lion.”

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Octopi have three hearts, one for each gill and one for the rest of the body. Both males and females die soon after copulation, but unlike the worm’s franchised circulatory system, all three hearts cease functioning simultaneously, and it’s got nothing to do with love. Octopi do not possess or understand the emotion. Much in the way a juggling juggler never has to use the bathroom, if you have eight arms you don’t have time for matters of the heart. There are more important things going on.

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Though it has been rumored, lobsters do not actually mate for life. Females prefer the most alpha male around, and the male will mate with anyone he can get his claws on. However, beavers do mate for life. This is why they build dams. So you can’t watch, you cheeky bastard.

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Contrary to what that same kid who ruined Christmas for you says, elephants are actually terrified of mice. But then again, they’re terrified of everything, so it’s hard to tell. Elephants only walk on tiptoe. The “heel” is nothing more than fatty tissue. Elephants must tiptoe because silence is an essential part of who they are, they speak only when spoken to, like abused children they learn to navigate the world unnoticed, and when they’re noticed they lie. About anything. Say anything to make you happy, or for no reason at all. As if the truth itself is the source of all sadness. Maybe they’re right.

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All shrimp are born male. All elephants are born hopeless.

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Elephants are bothered by insomnia. Four hours of sleep on a good night. Unlike horses, they prefer to sleep lying down, but it’s so hard for them to catch sleep that sleep usually catches them, still on their feet; thus, the four hours are never sequential. Two on their feet, then comes that horrible falling sensation, and after they finally empty their hearts of adrenaline and calm down, two more on the ground. Which is never enough. Lions can sleep for up to twenty-four straight hours after a large meal, and generally sleep more than half of any given day. It’s like they’re stealing from the elephant, stealing individual pleasantries that make life worth living, they do everything the elephant wants to do but can’t, and they don’t even care, they take it all for granted and they peak at age ten and die by fifteen, they burn so bright and burn out so quickly, they suck every pleasurable juice out of life and leave nothing for anyone else. A third of a lion’s sleep is REM sleep, the dream cycle, they even get to dream about five hours a day, during which they probably fly around and win the lottery and poop on movie stars, laughing the entire time. Elephants don’t dream. Elephants only ponder, sometimes wonder, but they don’t dare dream.

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Sheep can remember faces of other sheep, much the way humans do. Lions remember each other by their genitals and by who tells the best jokes. Elephants remember everything. Elephants remember the exact spot their parents died, their babies, their friends. Elephants grieve.

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When a lion’s roar does not echo, he’s roaring at an elephant. Getting into his head. The elephant says Stop, please, I’ve had about all I can take, what do you want from me? Please tell me, I’ll give it to you! But the lion doesn’t know.

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Elephants can hear sounds as low as five hertz, or five vibrations per second. These are the saddest sounds imaginable. In this range are the sounds of distant storms, oncoming earthquakes, awakened volcanoes, and the speed of the soul’s departure at death. That’s right: elephants can hear death and it is every bit as uncommonly terrible as you might think, and then ten times more so. Imagine living eighty years with this noise happening all around you, all the time, and you never get used to it. You hear your own father’s soul escape into the sky, and what’s more you know it’s going to hail like shit in an hour. You know how big the hail will be, how much it will hurt when it falls. You know that future hurt will actually make you feel better—but knowing you want to hurt takes even that solace away.

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Yes, elephants grieve. The first stage is denial. They’ll stand a dead companion up on its worthless knees and try to convince it to be alive again. Finally they accept the death, but years can pass and the elephant will still stop at that site, pause to pay respect and to cry. Elephants cry. Elephants mourn. Elephants hate their lives so constantly from the moment they first know death that occasionally they suffer a break. They slam their giant heads into trunks of trees, they blast their trumpet call at anything that moves, they go take a swim in the ocean until they can’t swim anymore, but once out miles from shore where their loved ones might not hear their escaping soul—they do not die. No. It is here they meet the lobster.

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The lobster is immortal. Lobsters do not weaken, slow down, or even lose fertility with age. The older a lobster is, in fact, the more fertile. They possess a DNA-repairing enzyme called telomerase, making them effectively immune to time; they will live until some external force kills them. Thus the lobster is wise. The lobster will provide counsel to those who seek it.

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When the elephant’s strength gives out, it expects to sink and die. But it does not. Something buoys it up. Shit starts to get weird. Hundreds of thousands of tiny bubbles hold the elephant in place, and then even more bubbles breech the surface all around, millions and billions, a giant froth of bubbles slushing their way into the atmosphere and then the lobster, the immortal lobster, the oldest and wisest of the crustaceans (and indeed of all animals) appears, great antennae like telephone poles flipping around wildly in the air. The elephant is awestruck, but before it can speak, the lobster says, “Shut up, I know why you’ve come. Here, stand on my claw, dry off, chill out. Now please. You need sleep, I know. You need solace. One day these things will come. You are jealous of the lion—don’t shake your head, admit it, own it, understand your jealousy, it gains power when denied. Some part of you believes that if only the lion would acknowledge its advantages, everything would be alright. But that hope is futile. To the lion there is nothing wrong with the world, and therefore it doesn’t understand the term ‘unfair.’ It is the lion’s job to find out how much life can be enjoyed. It is your job to find out what is beyond the sadness. These roles cannot be changed. Believe me. My role is to acquire knowledge through pain. You think I don’t want to change that? I do not age, but every second of my life is spent in agony. Where your elephant toes touch my claw right now, there is a pain I cannot describe in terms you would understand. No, don’t worry about it, it would hurt anyway. Also, I pee out of my face. How fun could that be, right? And I pee competitively upon other males, just like a goat. And when I’m at home in my hole I pee constantly. Like, I never stop, I just keep peeing. I have to do this, you see? How else will the other lobsters know this is my hole? Listen. I cannot change these behaviors. This is what I’ve learned. Pain guides us by removing luxury. Every move I make is one I believe essential, or I wouldn’t fucking do it. But I do go on. I make moves. I make jokes, even though it hurts to laugh. I help someone whenever I believe I can. These are the choices we do have. I’m going to send you back, now. (Along with immortality, I’ve been granted teleportative abilities.) I’m gonna take you right back to the very spot you were born—but don’t stay there. Go out. Fall in love. Get your heart broken. Live a while longer. See what’s next.”

Return to Volume 7.1

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