#TalesFromTheGrid is a surreal thought experiment regarding absurdity (AI, algorithms, technology, giant rodents pretending to be doctors, and apparently… cats and rodents). Born in that weird, vulnerable moment between being awake and asleep, this set of text explores dream logic, surrealism, and the absurd. Sometimes? This series features very real stories about actual recorded human history—like the time we parachuted beavers into Idaho. …But not this episode. This episode is merely… reality-adjacent. I present the latest episode of #catentpending
The Wolf of Vole Street
OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE FROM THE DESK OF ARCHIBALD BROCK
Managing Partner, Sovereign Badger Wealth Fund
TO: The Partners of CATENT Pending
REGARDING: Formal Termination of Representation / The “Wolf of Vole Street” Incident
To the Partners (and I use the term loosely, as you were primarily horizontal when I arrived):
Why I never! I came to your Midtown glass-walled convection oven today for a high-level strategic summit regarding the Serpentine Incursion—a literal “Snake Problem” threatening the sanctity of my Northwest Burrows. As a badger, I am biologically equipped to absorb a lethal dose of venom, take a nap, and wake up refreshed. However, I pay a staggering retainer so that I do not have to engage in such primitive physical labor. I expected a “Best of the Beast” legal defense; I found a bacchanal that would make Caligula look like a teetotaler.
I am documenting the following for my formal grievance to the Bar:
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The Ivy League Betrayal: I was promised the intellectual rigor of your Ivy League Shrews—the academic elite of the animal kingdom. Instead, I found these nocturnal, over-researched, $120k-in-debt professionals being physically trampled by a pack of coked-up ferrets. It is a tragedy that the only individuals in your firm capable of citing the “Adverse Possession of a Burrow” statute are currently being used as literal floor mats by your logistics division.
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The “Powdered” Logistics: Your ferrets were not drafting my anti-snake injunctions. They were engaged in a frenzy of “powdered logistics,” sprinting across every laptop in the room. My legal strategy now consists entirely of the letter “Q” and a series of illicit emojis.
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The Gravitational Collapse of the CTO: I witnessed your Chief Technical Officer fall off her executive swivel chair, only to remain clinging to the underside of it in a state of high-grade “nip-lightening.” She stared at me with pupils the size of dinner plates and insisted she was “monitoring the ceiling for scaly intrusions.” She then had the gall to ask me why I was “standing on the sky.”
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The Liminal Space Party: The boardroom felt less like a law firm and more like a Las Vegas suite party at the end of a three-day bender. There were backroom deals being made for shiny bottle caps while your Senior Partner attempted to “litigate” his own shadow on the mahogany table.
I have spent forty-eight hours clutching my ceramic teapot for emotional stability, waiting for a single coherent thought from your ferrets.
I am a high-net-worth badger; I value geometry, structural order, and professional decorum.
I am taking my business to a “Normal Human” lawyer. At least they have the decency to be afraid of snakes, and they generally understand that the floor belongs on the bottom.
Good day to you, and may your highly-educated Shrews eventually find the loan forgiveness they so desperately deserve for putting up with you.
Indignantly yours,
Archibald Brock
Managing Partner, Sovereign Badger Wealth Fund
