How the Sloth Became Slow

Now, Most Cherished One, here is a bedtime tale about the Faraway and Ancient Times before the Sloth was slow.

On a night much like this, beneath the Ever So Luminous Moon hanging roundly and ripely above the rainforest canopy like a chupa chupa fruit, a mother cuddled her newborn son. Her Very Own Little Treasure gazed at her with Exceedingly Beautiful Eyes—dark and glossy as Giant Water Lily Seeds.

Just like you, Most Cherished One, he clung Upside Down and Tremendously Tight to his mama’s fur. He was so amazed at the Wondrous World that he couldn’t go to sleep.

“Mama,” he whispered into her Thick and Stubby Neck, “Why is there a chupa chupa fruit hanging above us?”

“Oh, my Very Own,” she murmured into his tiny ear, pink and cupped like a Leaf on a Certain Species of Bromeliad. “That is the Ever So Luminous Moon, hanging roundly and ripely above the rainforest canopy.”

“Is it good to eat?” asked Little Treasure, stretching his own Thick and Stubby Neck as far as it would stretch. Which, Most Cherished One, wasn’t very far.

“No, my Very Own,” his mama chuckled, with a Most Particular Low and Tender Sound. She combed his Ever So Velvety Fur with the tippy-tips of her two Curved Claws, a perfectly exacting task. “The light helps us see the Enemy.”

“Oh.” Little Treasure blinked his Exceedingly Beautiful Eyes in the brightness of the Ever So Luminous Moon. Then he squeezed them shut, opened his black-trimmed mouth in a Tremendous Big Yawn and let his Suitably Long and Sticky Tongue taste the Almost-as-Sticky Rainforest Air.

“Are you ready to sleep now, my Very Own? The Ever So Fierce and Blazing Sun will soon rise, and it’s time for Night Creatures to go to bed.”

 “No, Mama,” said Little Treasure, whose eyelids were beginning to droop like the Petals of the Night Blooming Cactus Flower at sunrise. “I want to see the Enemy. You said the Luminous Moon would show us.”

“My Very Own,” his mama said in a voice as soft as the Night Breeze, “The Enemy is coming now. Hold tight!” Stretching most awfully high, she hooked her claws into the bark and scrambled up the tree. Below, the Fabulously Spotted and Stealthy Margay climbed even faster. 

Then, Most Cherished One, there was a Sudden Mighty Wind in their Specially Satisfactory Cecropia Tree. Little Treasure’s mama stopped climbing and held stiller than a Basking Iguana at Noonday. Below, the Margay paused. A Pale and Silent Shape glided toward them—and right past.

A Piercing Scream broke the steamy air, followed by a Resounding Thump as the Fabulously Spotted Margay leapt to the jungle floor and trotted away.

After a time, Little Treasure whispered to his mama, “Did the Moon keep us safe?”

“Yes and no,” she answered. “It showed the Stealthy Margay to the Owl. But it was our Exceedingly Stilly-stillness that kept us safe.”

And that, Most Cherished One, is how sloths became slow.