They all take a swing at it. Some even think they've bagged it, but the net, upon examination, turns out empty. They all get in each other's way; Sometimes deliberately trip each other up.
This sport should be outlawed, like bare-knuckle fighting. People are hurt, reputations slaughtered.
The quarry, meanwhile, is elusive, unidentified and unidentifiable, a suspect archaeopteryx. A fraud.
Perhaps there is no such bird.
FROM HELL: DANCE OF THE GULL CATCHERS" q[n++]= "While not intelligent, the trees had learned a survival trick over the centuries of their abuse by mankind.
Firstly, they'd learned how to form their bark into a recognizable parody of a human face.
Secondly, by channeling wind down their hollow upper branches and over crude vegetable vocal cords, they shrieked like children as they were cut down.
Psychologically, the trick worked. Few lumberjacks, even hardened ones, could stand that terrible, depressing atmosphere for more than a month.
Halo Jones quit after only three days.
THE BALLAD OF HALO JONES" q[n++]= ""I guess she's pale, but interesting. Actually, I really like her.
I wish I could say the same for our next applicant, who arrived late. This was becaues she'd been darning a black hole near Andromeda, then rescued some puppies from a kennel fire.
Suprema: imagine Nancy Drew with a thermonuclear capacity and you've pretty much got the idea.
After scorching my fingers with a superspeed handshake, she said I could join her team, but that I should get a haircut.
Then she left because she had to polish the moon or something."
— Shaft, AWESOME HOLIDAY SPECIAL #1" q[n++]= ""Every time, it all comes back to me the minute that I see this strange, familiar skyline, even now it's overgrown with crepper and Buddleia.
Last night I dreamed of Doctor Cobra.
He wore a white suit, on a cane chair, in a desert. Pointing to the endless sands he said "There! Look at that! It's all of Time!""
— The Spirit, THE SPIRIT: THE NEW ADVENTURES #3" q[n++]= "There's a beat to tread and a head to beat. If he leaves a mark it'll be discreet. Where it won't show up on the record sheet. Instead of light he gives out heat. While suspects bleat in the mystery seat. He isn't short. He isn't sweet. He grinds out arrests like wars grind meat. He adjusts his helmet, feels complete. He anticipates the coming treat. There's a face his truncheon longs to meet.
And it's Friday night in Bridge Street.
NEGATIVE BURN #11" q[n++]= ""If you don't already know my name, then you're not worthy of an introduction.
I'm the new manager around here.
Naturally, I shall need time to settle in and adjust to your many interesting customs...
I know, for example that your society makes distinctions on a basis of gender and age.
Perhaps, then, you could advise me...
Which one of you would it be polite to kill first?"
— Mongul, SUPERMAN ANNUAL #10" q[n++]= ""I had to help sedate Two-Face earlier. Jeez, that guy scares me…"
"Oh yeah? You wanna see something really scary?
There…The Joker's stopped laughing."
— doctors of Arkham Asylum, THE SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING #30" q[n++]= ""If we are fortunate, there are no more cannisters to come.
Those creatures already here can only destroy so much.
As for the population, hopefully they can escape in time. If not, it is hardly a major strategic loss. They are only…"
"Human?"
"English."
— Captain Nemo and Mr. Hyde, THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN (VOL. 2) #4" q[n++]= ""A girl of my own?
Some would think it unlikely; would say I'd been programmed to think, not to love, and that may well be so… But I can still think that I love. In all honesty, can they claim anything more than this?."
— Spartan, WILDC.A.T.S #26" q[n++]= ""It is strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years I had roses and I apologized to nobody. I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish…
…except one"
— Valerie, V FOR VENDETTA #6" q[n++]= ""'One Ring too many…'
Oa's flame gutters in change's wind. If only these few lamps remain to light a darkening cosmos, can there ever be one ring too many?
No. No, of course not."
Committed, Green Lantern raises his hand.
— Medphyl, Green Lantern of J586, SWAMP THING #61" q[n++]= ""Outside, the sun was coming up over the Romance Quarter. It would have been beautiful. But since this was one of the black and white areas of the city, you don't really get the effect. Once, I dreamed about moving to the color section uptown, just for a few dawns and sunsets, but I know it'll never happen.
Only superheroes can afford to live in color."
— Nocturno, the Necromancer, ANYTHING GOES #2" q[n++]= ""No. I am but a stranger…as are we all. Lonely inside our separate skins, we cannot know each other's pain and must bear our own in solitude. For my part, I have found that walking soothes it, and that, given luck, sometimes we find one to walk beside us…
…at least for a little way.
— The Phantom Stranger, SECRET ORIGINS #10" q[n++]= "In the next room was Michael.
When Michael was seven, a schoolfriend's mother had instilled in him a mortal fear of cancer.
Unfortunately, she hadn't explained what cancer actually was.
Michael had his own ideas.
THE SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING #25" q[n++]= ""Rejoice! This is the promised time of Earth's ascent to realm's sublime.
Imagination's endless dance is mankind's jewelled inheritance."
"Imagination, then, is the key to magic's sumptuous territority.
Man's verse finds, in this moonlight clime, it's last, most satisfying rhyme."
— Mack and Mike, PROMETHEA #12" q[n++]= ""There was no pause and no respite. He lept for Aza Chorn, fast as a cheetah, as a mamba, as an inkblack thunderbolt.
Yet when they brag amongst themselves, the cats and snakes and sheets of lightning use one ultimate comparison, albeit sparingly.
Fast as a Warpsmith."
— Miracleman, MIRACLEMAN #15" q[n++]= ""Why is it that the noblest people are the ones most troubled by conscience?
— Lois Lane, ACTION COMICS #583" q[n++]= ""Dad, there was no space ship wreckage at the site..."
"I know. I think he ran here. I think he ran here across the Milky Way."
— Tesla and Tom Strong, TOM STRONG #11" q[n++]= ""My guest seems to be growing at an exponential rate. We need to contain him without harming him until the effects wear off!"
"It's no use, sir. He's becoming more complex with each passing instant until there's just a huge, sprawling ungainly mass!"
"Well, he's a British comic-book writer. His reaction may be pre-disposed by occupational factors."
— Supreme and the Suprematons, SUPREME #45" i=Math.floor(Math.random() * n) ; document.write( q[i] );