This diary was discovered as part of an ongoing archeological dig of Stegosaurus fossils at the border of Utah and Colorado. It is the first evidence of a dinosaur having opposable thumbs and the abilitiy to write modern-day English. This comes as a stunning discovery to scientists everywhere and will certainly result in a complete rewrite of the evolutionary record. The diary, made from large plant leaves, appears to have belonged to a stegosaurus named “Steve,” according to the “Return to Steve at the 4th meadow over from the river” inscription on the inside cover. The recovered entries are below.
Entry #6
Dear Diary,
Something weird has been happening lately and I thought I’d fill you in. I woke up around the usual time about a week ago and was just preparing myself to find a nice, leafy breakfast when I looked up in the sky and saw something unusual. A red dot had appeared in the southeasterly quadrant of the sky (if you orient yourself to the left of the usual brachiopod group and west of the river). That’s not entirely out-of-the-ordinary, mind you. There are plenty of gigantic, flying pterosaurs that (from a distance) sort of look like a dot. But the dot stayed for the rest of the week, stubbornly. Never moving, never changing, never showing any wing-like structure. Just a dot. I asked some local watering-hole friends but they dismissed me outright, reassuring me that this kind of thing happened before and the spot would eventually disappear. But the spot was still there today! And I swear it’s getting bigger! Will update soon.
Entry #7
Dear Diary,
Just for the record, I was right! But I wish I wasn’t… The spot got bigger and bigger for weeks until finally one day, it filled up the entire sky but then vanished.
I breathed a sigh of relief for a brief few hours, mad at myself for doubting my watering-hole friends. But then I heard a low rumble that turned into an unbearably loud roar and the sky turned fiery red. Since then, the sky has been filling with a thick, dark cloud of ash, plunging everything into constant darkness.
My cousin Greg visited unexpectedly from a neighboring valley. He told me he’d been kicked off of his local Valley Stegosaur Leadership Council for telling other dinosaurs to seek shelter and for rganizing information sessions about how to store food for the apparently long winter ahead. The council claimed he’d lost his mind and issued a statement saying “his ability to predict the future behavior of the ash cloud was fake news and he wasn’t in his right mind.” It was a relief to talk with a like-minded dinosaur and we were able to exchange theories and measurements to conclude that the ash cloud must have been caused by a meteorite hitting Earth.
I tried to convince a local group of pterosaurs of the ash cloud danger but they denied it straight to my face, saying that “the ash cloud is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the dinosaur population.” I mean, what even is that? A hoax? How could it be when the cloud is right above us in the sky? Another pterosaur told me “the ash cloud is a natural phenomenon. In fact, some measurements show that this ash cloud is receding.” Since then, they’ve been treating me like I’m the crazy one! I don’t understand how they could deny what’s right in front of our faces.
Entry #8
Dear Diary,
No good news to report. The sky is getting darker each day and plants are dying en masse. It’s getting harder and harder to find food. Some of the larger dinosaurs are literally on their last legs. There’s just not enough fuel to keep them going. I feel like I’m going crazy, as if I’m the only one who believes that a meteorite actually struck. A T-Rex told me “the meteorite impact was a hoax invented by mammals to make dinosaurs afraid.” Blaming it on the mammals? They’ve never done anything wrong! This might be my last entry for a while. I’m going to head south and look for other, more rational stegosauruses. Perhaps there’s a way out of this.
On the bright side, at least this isn’t the dinosaurs’ (or the mammals’) fault. The chance of a meteorite hitting Earth was low and we’re just the unlucky ones who had to see it through. We didn’t cause any of these effects, right? I can’t imagine how guilty I would feel if I knew that I had been the cause of the destruction around me, or if there was someway to stop it that I didn’t take advantage of. It’s not like we made machines that produced too much plastic waste and harmful pollutants. Now THAT would be bad.
-Steve
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