Work Text:
"He isn't real, Big Bird" Maria said.
Gordon shook his head too. "There is no such thing as a Snuffleupagus."
"But, Maria" Big Bird scratched anxiously at the pavement with one clawed foot. He shifted his
weight, swallowed hard, and tried again "I saw him at the corner near Oscar's trash can...."
Maria raised a quick forestalling hand and in a tone that brooked no further argument
insisted "He isn't real." And that was that. Gordon and Maria went back to their preoccupation
with the number twelve and the letter H.
Big Bird wandered sullenly away.
Later, at Mr. Hooper's, with the store owners entrails splayed out wetly before him, Big Bird
saw the truth. Haruspication, said the whispering voices from the corners of the room.
Haruspication begins with the letter H.
From a certain angle its trunk looked like a giant tentacle reaching out from the abyss.
"Snuffleupagus," Big Bird said reverently.
Though that wasn't its real name. Its real name was impossible for a human mouth to form...
Or even a big yellow beak.
It's voice was the sound of mountans being worn down to gravel.
"Oh dearie dearie dear."