Herman Melville actually STOLE the idea for Moby Dick from Hernia Smellville. Hernia had written a far superior book, Moby Moth, which began with the line, "Call me Furball." When Melville saw how much better Moby Moth was than Moby Dick, he took Hernia's manuscript and hid it in the sea chest. Hernia retaliated by barfing in an open box containing Melville's free author copies of Moby Dick. Melville was so depressed about having to buy additional copies for his family and friends that he set forth in a dinghy and was never seen again.

According to Clawbone, "Herman didn't have a whisker's worth of Hernia's creativity or talent. In her manuscript, Moby is actually a luna moth (can you believe that Melville made him a WHALE -- what an idiotic idea)." 

As the manuscript explains, Moby grew to nine feet in length after being attracted to the exhaust pipe of a passing UFO (the NCC-Essex from the planet Zontar) and receiving a hefty dose of high-energy gamma radiation. In the process of growing to gargantuan proportions, Moby's wings sustained unsightly stretch marks. So the resourceful luna moth commissioned a tailor to make him a white jump suit, complete with a fluorescent red bow tie. Unfortunately, the encounter with the UFO radiation turned Moby into a latent serial nuisance who takes to terrorizing a feral cat colony each night. Only one member of the colony is cat enough to stand up to the deranged and very mean creature: Captain Redbutt Aflabb, retired.  

Aflabb becomes as obsessed with nailing the Great White Moth as the Great White Moth is with harassing hapless felines. Aflabb sets out with a giant net and a can of Raid, planning to bring down the beast and donate its carcass to the local aviation museum. Unfortunately for Aflabb and his sidekick, Furball, the mission goes terribly awry. And unfortunately for modern catkind, we'll never know what Hernia intended to happen; Melville used the last few pages of Hernia's manuscript to clean up the barf from his author's copies. 

Which is why the Morning Hairball is turning to you, furry literary geniuses, to suggest an ending for Hernia's epic novel. Send in your ending to editor@meowmail.com; entries will be printed in a special page on the site. 

Please help us solve this mystery and tell us what happens with the Great White Moth!