Aardvarks, Aardvarks

THE NAMING OF THINGS is a small, subliminal task you might not ordinarily think difficult, but I was given the job without the necessary skills, and when I named an aardvark a kitten, God had to swiftly revise His kittens. In my mind, you were in some way creatures that inhabited the American Northeast. Like opossums, I imagined you foraging near the trash bins, making pretty good wingmen for raccoons. But you strictly live in sub-Saharan Africa, according to Wikipedia. There are other things that I imagine inhabit the American Northeast, like lumberjacks and lobsters, but now I’m not so sure. Perhaps they too are disappearing. Soon Wikipedians will maintain that they were always missing, like the -stein variant of The Berenstain Bears or that Sinbad movie Shazaam that never existed. Like how the definition of spatula has changed over the years, and the thing you flip grilled cheese with is properly called a flipper. Even now, your vague mystical properties are only listed in the online mythologies that spell magic with a k. What will you become if I grant you a new name; will you be able to consume the Fukushima fallout that’s been slipping under the mantle? Sometimes one forgets that aardvarks, along with pangolins, are just fancy anteaters.