In Continuum.

That is my friend Rex, he is a Tyrannosaurus. I believe I have mentioned that, but I think it is necessary to mention him again. He is in no way related to Barney the Purple Dinosaur by the way, he happens to hate that chubby dinosaur. Rex is a fully grown dinosaur, a real dinosaur with all the sharp teeth and all the sharp claws. The only similarity between Barney and Rex is the fact that they both love little children a lot, but you can't really tell from his scary looks. By the way, by "love little children a lot", I do not mean "love little children too much", like Pedo Bear. Rex really likes little children and little dinosaurs, but you can't tell because he has sharp teeth and sharp claws. He is probably the most misunderstood species out there, because he looks ugly. In human terms, if you are being said to look like a dinosaur, you are butt-ugly. Also in human terms, if you are being said to weigh like a dinosaur, you are fat as hell. The truth is, dinosaurs are always related to the not-so-glamorous aspects of us humans, and I thought it would be a nice change to show the other side of our old old friends. This idea came out from the conversation I had one night with Neptina about cows with attitudes, and how they'd sound if they try to show that attitude. Probably a short "moo", followed by a raised brow, if they have a brow at all. 

Anyway, Rex is actually really friendly, but he happens to step on little dinosaurs all the time. He has been tagged the greatest hunter on land by humans, but only because humans have never been hunted by dinosaurs before. If we have, then we'd probably call them the scariest hunter on land, ever. Imagine being chased by an animal that is four meters tall and thirteen meters long, charging at you at 25 miles per hour. You better start running, because you are going to get squashed by its feet if you are not being eaten first. That is what Steven Spielberg wanted us to believe with his dinosaur movies, that meat-eating dinosaurs are bad dinosaurs. In fact, every meat-eating dinosaur in the movie has killed a human being, and I think it is a case of 'speciesism'. Yes, I just created that word out of nowhere, and it runs along the same veins as being racist, when you have prejudices against a certain race. This time around, you have a prejudice against a certain species of animals, in this case the meat-eating dinosaurs, because they are just scary to look at. But Rex isn't like that, Rex can be gentle. Rex has emotions too, very human emotions at that. It was this morning in the lounge when I thought up how funny it would be for him to have human emotions. Here's what happened. 

Dinosaurs are not meant to be very smart, in fact they can be quite stupid. They are probably no smarter than a spring chicken, which also means that they cannot think very straight. I don't think dinosaurs like Rex kill other dinosaurs because they are hungry all the time. I mean, I think these meat-eating dinosaurs can probably survive on eating vegetables too, right? I loved animals when I was younger, but I do admit that I didn't know a lot about them. I am just guessing here, because channels eleven and twelve don't talk about them all that much. They tend to love animals that they can film more, rather than those that they need to recreate with computers. Anyway, humans can survive on a vegetable-only diet, I am sure meat-eating dinosaurs can change their diets too. With that said, I don't think they eat other dinosaurs because they are hungry. Maybe they eat other dinosaurs because they are just so damn scared. Imagine Rex trotting through the forest and he meets another dinosaur, and he freaks out. The first thing that goes through his mind is probably "What in the world is this!?" Then he'd probably resort to the second thing that comes to his mind, which is to eat the poor dinosaur. "Hey, it's gone!" he'd probably say to himself, and continue trotting through the forest. 

And, of course Rex has to eat up his fear, so to speak, instead of doing anything else. He has an ego, it'd not look good to turn and run away, especially when the other animal is much smaller than itself. That is also why they never go and disturb his friend Bronto, he's too big for his ego. So he sticks with dinosaurs who are generally makes him feel better about himself, although they scare him quite a bit. He eats everything that scares him, and it only takes so little to scare the living daylight out of Rex. So he eats everything, but trees and grass calms him somehow, and his favorite color is green. As I was saying, of course he has to eat up everything that scares him, what else can he do? His arms are a little too small for him to swap them away, they are just not intimidating enough. Rex knows that his teeth are pretty intimidating stuff, but he is also afraid of rejection. Once a dinosaur stands up to him, his ego is going to drop to rock bottom. Always remember, "Rex" means "king" in Latin, and you have a lot of responsibilities when you have a name like that. There are people in our world who name themselves "Jesus", and I am sure they have a lot of responsibilities themselves. It'd be weird to see someone called Jesus fail in an exam, or get arrested for driving under influence. It's just wrong, which is why Rex has an image to uphold. 

But whoever that created dinosaurs wasn't very kind to someone like Rex. Oh, I said "whoever" because God probably didn't create dinosaurs, since they weren't mentioned in any scriptures under any religion. They were probably created by the GOD that created God, if he exists at all. He probably left it out of the plan that he planned for God, and that is why he left it out of his own plan. Anyway, that guy didn't include very strong arms for Rex, in fact he gave him small puny arms. They look like forks, or the tongue of a snake, or something. They can't really do much with those arms, they can't help with the ripping apart of dinosaur flesh. They just kind of dangle there like little undeveloped fingers, which hurts Rex's feelings a lot. Every time he looks at them, he weeps and roars through the forests. He doesn't like the fact that he has small arms, much like how men would weep at the thought of a small genital. Rex has tried to make his arms grow longer, but the efforts don't usually work very well, and he was convinced that his creator doesn't like him very much. True enough, a million years down the road, he will be equated to being butt-ugly. 

Rex knows that dinosaurs that look like him have the very same problems, which is also why he doesn't feel half as bad. But Spino has pretty long slender arms, and his spine looks pretty nifty under the Jurassic sun. So he is easily jealous, and he often curse into the skies. Yet, with just two fingers on each arm, he can hardly point the finger right. Rex doesn't have a middle finger to speak of even if he puts two arms together, and he hates that. So he eats even more small dinosaurs to make him feel better about things, to remind that he actually has a giant mouth to make up for things. Rex has an attitude, so don't mess around with Rex. He eats you when he loses a chess game, and he certainly has to win in a ball game. He doesn't do too well with basketball due to the lack of arms, and neither is he very good at soccer because he tends to squash balls. But you still have to let him win, or else he'd either eat the basket or eat you. 

So there, that is my friend Rex, and I have given you a brief outline of how he is like as a dinosaur. He isn't around so often nowadays, he mainly prefers to be on display for little children in museums most of the time. Like I said, he likes little children, and he loves to make them stare in awe. That is also why Rex smiles a lot when you see him in museums, he loves to see you there. He has lost a lot of weight ever since then, I suppose he doesn't get freaked out by little dinosaurs any longer. He doesn't eat them anymore, which is why he is all bones right now. But if you look closely enough, you could almost see his big wide grin, despite his short puny arms. I suppose even with shortcomings like that, you can always make a difference to the world, and there is a lot we could learn from our good friend Rex. Thank you Rex, for this invaluable life lesson, and we shall not forget! After all, you've been on this planet longer than any of us here, I suppose even with your chicken brains, you do know best.