The Brilliantly Rainbowed Adventure

        As I relaxed and began to dream, reveling in the soft pulse and ebb of the gentle breeze, I slowly became aware of an unusual sound. Subtly at first, the curious noise began to superimpose an edgy grid on top of the lush, sylvan symphony.
        "Whaaaaaaaarp...," it went, "whaaaaaaaarp." I looked around our camp. It was Billy, sharpening his hunting knife against a grinding wheel.
        "Whaaaaaaaarp...," the blade whined. "Whaaaaaaaarp...," it moaned, "WHAAAAAAARP!"
        "Sharp enough yet?" I asked Billy, sauntering up to watch his work.
        "It'll do," he replied, carefully slipping the scalpel-sharp blade into a black leather sheath attached to his belt. "Now we will hunt," he said, giving me a glance that seemed to fathom the depths of my soul.
        "Knives only?" I asked.
        "Knives only."
        I felt the Buck knife in the holster on my belt. I always kept it sharp and clean. It would get the job done.
        As silently as whispers of wind in the grass, we slipped from the bright clearing and disappeared into the great hardwood forest that lay to the northeast of our camp. Deep in the dark recesses of the virgin woods, we located a well-trodden game trail.
        Thick copses on either side of the trail had forced the deer to use this convenient path on the nightly forays that carried them to rich banquet tables: small clearings scattered throughout the vast live oak hammock. As silently as thought, or as the sighs of the creaking trees, we made our way beneath towering centenarians that shielded us from the morning sun. Our eyes flashed here, there, scanning the forest floor for our unsuspecting prey.
        Deer are swift and painfully cautious, sudden in their flight, and tectonically slow in their careful approach. The North American whitetail deer is particularly flighty. A flash of white, a crash of twigs, and the impertinent whisk of distant white flag can be all that a careless or impatient hunter will ever see.
        Our quarry would not escape.
        We drew our knives. We would have to be swift and certain.
        Our first goal, as always, was a clean and humane kill. I considered the grim work at hand and steeled myself inside. In our fallen, fictive universe (according to Egghead), the taking of life was a necessity for all who wished to eat. It was unpleasant, but we had decided to face this part of life without flinching.
        We would not pay strangers to kill and clean our food for us, nor would we drowsily fall into a delusive dream, pretending that vegetables felt no pain when they were harvested and slain. We had all seen the wild eggplants dancing to lunar tunes under the light of the baying moon, and we knew that plants were living beings.
        We were ready to do what we had to do. We were armed with sharpened steel, and we were stylishly dressed to kill.
        Suddenly, Billy froze. I searched the distant reaches of the forest with my eyes, and then I saw them.
        In the small, bright clearing ahead of us, tonight's dinner was languorously feeding on the rich green turf. Billy silently circled to the right, and I automatically moved to the left. I singled out the largest one as my own: a massive specimen with a true trophy head.
        We gave no signal. At the glimpse of Billy's swift motion I leaped, the knife arcing instantaneously in a fiery flashing stream of silver light. Seizing my hapless victim by the head, I severed its neck in one incredible, gargantuan blow.
        "YEEHAW!" I hollered.
        "AIEEEE!" Billy yelled.
        I looked at what I held, at the prize dangling loosely from my hand.
        There, a massive form that had once lived and breathed and feasted upon the treasures of the forest now hung, bereft of life. It was a trophy. It was beautiful.
        It was the largest edible mushroom that I had ever seen.
        We loaded up our knapsacks with the tasty little treats while the sun warmed our backs and the dragonflies whirred across the clearing. It was a beautiful day… a snip doodly-doodle day, as a matter of fact.
        As I gathered the mushrooms, I began to notice a vividly colored monarch butterfly. To my surprise, the multi-hued insect flew over and landed on my shoulder.
        I turned my head and studied his homely face up close. As I did, he seemed to wave at me with one of his tiny legs. Then, he did something that I could hardly believe.
        I'll be jiggered if that little rascal didn't wink at me! Somehow, he stretched his proboscis into the semblance of a smile. Then, with a wave and a belch, he lifted off from his flannel shirt launching pad, bringing his own colorful self along for company.
        Sailing aloft with ease, the butterfly found a convenient draft and went soaring off into the distance. But before he left, I do declare, that rawbony little insect waved at me with his legs, did a double rollover, and waggled his wings!
        Well, by now our knapsacks were full, and we began to slowly wend our way back to camp. As Billy and I happily strolled through the ancient forest, we little realized that our companions were in deadly peril. Scattered throughout the wilderness near our camp, they faced dour jeopardy and dire straits that endangered their hairdos, their good vibes, and their very own, impersonal lives.
        At this moment, the situation was downright grim for our formerly happy campers. Frogstick was being attacked by a gator, Egghead was risking the entire natural universe by attempted to congeal the Stranger Quark, Stink had fallen into quicksand, Zeb had been adopted by a family of bears, and Slug had fallen asleep on a spur line of the old Nowhere County Railroad System… right in front of the first locomotive to pass by these-here parts in thirty-some-odd years.