Word of the Day: mantic

It’s Groundhog Day, which is not a particularly obscure holiday, but, it is one of the favorites for your humble writer of strange tales. It’s a hoot to harness the power of a prognosticating rodent, who has a longer and weirder set of legends associated with him than the Grimm Brothers.
 
Today’s Word:
 
mantic
 
As in:
 
Punxauntawney Phil saw his shadow today, but unique to his sighting was his reaction. Phil panicked.
 
Consulted annually for his mantic weather abilities, Phil emerged from the door of his Gobbler’s Knob estate, saw a shadow, and made some dire predictions not about the weather, but about things no groundhog should ever know.
 
Through his handlers, in impassioned Groundhogese, Phil frightened those gathered with his frenzied attempts to escape and with the words that seemed to need no translation.
 
His handlers worked hard to convey Phil’s nearly incoherent predictions. His ranting, as nearly as can be interpreted from his native language, are cryptic and ominous.
 
Nowhere in the century-long record has Phil spoken of anything besides the weather. Some have speculated that Phil’s hibernation might have been interrupted this year due to El Nino, or maybe “those crazy kids playing their Rock music too loudly.” Others suspect Phil might be getting senile, and the elixir of life has made him insane.
 
Phil’s cousins, Georgia’s General Beauregard Lee, New York City’s Staten Island Chuck, Jimmy of Sun Prairie,
Wisconsin, Wanda of the Milwaukee County Zoo, and Buckeye Chuck of Marion, Ohio, did not behave out of the ordinary, but, a spokesperson for Chuck, interpreting for his employer, indicates that Chuck always felt that Phil has “unstable,” and that “the fame would go to his head, and one day he’d just snap. If you want a woodchuck of sound psyche, you know where I live.”
 
None of these other celebrity woodchucks could explain what Phil’s message means. His message, reproduced as accurately as is possible, is included below.
 
“The shadow of gas returns. The island awakes. Towers of four toes shake. Fire burns in the rabbit hole. The clock can never be correct. Bears of white prowl far from home. No constant. Never a constant. Biscuits of fish.”
 
“Golden man looks for tall blue people of the tail. Solid raspberries for Bullock and Steve. Bowling Saints and horses. No asking, no telling.”
 
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For those unaware, Phil’s has lived for more than 12 decades thanks to an annual summer ritual where he gets some elixir that extends his life. I am not making this up.
 
Lost returns tonight, if you didn’t know. And the Oscar nominations are on their way. But then, you all knew that already, didn’t you? I do have well-informed readers.
 
mantic / man – TICK / prophetic