K is for Kangaroo

YT and RG 

Post Originated via fellow A-Z blogger and author supreme Yusuf Toropov (YT). (I am RG.) After more than twelve hours of prompts and suggestions over what to write about, Yusuf wrote to me with a wild and goading accusation. Our near verbatim email conversation is below.

YT: My friend RG attempted for months to work a kangaroo into the plot of my novel JIHADI: A LOVE STORY, but he was unsuccessful. Rich, two questions. First, why were you so fixated on this? And second, are you yourself, as so many have suggested, a kangaroo?

RG: This is a kangaroo court you have me in front of, Yusuf. I will not kowtow to your accusations. I simply implied that your novel - which deals with the frequently bellicose nature of US foreign policy, the poisonous attitudes of a minority of its servicemen, conversion to Islam, extremism in the Middle East, and a cat - could have also done with a kangaroo. I asked you on numerous occasions to turn your hate-filled imam into a kangaroo, and to counter this by turning your more sympathetic and beautifully rendered character Fatima into a kangaroo, for the purposes of balance. But these suggestions fell on deaf ears.

WTF YOU LOOKIN' AT?

YT: Are marsupials anywhere to be found in your forthcoming epic sci-fi hilarity THE QUANTUM WHISPERER, wherein time traveler Keir Tremayne attempts to escape a black hole, rewrite his own plotline, and keep the universe safe from nefarious Russians? And why didn't you directly address the issue of your own personal kangaroo-ness? Something to hide? Well? Don't stare at the colored lights. Say something.

RG: I might throw in an extraterrestrial koala. A Mars-Supial? If you check my blog, I have only once mentioned the word kangaroo. I have no marsupial bias either way, and I resent the implication.

YT: I'm changing this channel. But beware. I have photographs.