OWONGO OUT HUNTING

A man from the Cro Magnon era gets lost in the forest and somehow comes face to face with modern life...

  Owongo, brave hunter living at time when the height of technology involved stone, was nervous.

He had been to the far reaches of the continent-wide forest that seemed to stretch forever from his cave by the stream to the distant mountains whilst hunting, but those mountains were only vaguely visible even on the clearest of days. But he’d never been this far before. Nothing was familiar and there was a smell in the air that scared him because he didn’t have a clue what it meant.

It wasn’t the aroma of any beast he knew about, and he knew about just every beast that dwelt in the forest because he’d hunted most of them over the years, and those he hadn’t hunted he’d hid from. Nor was it the smoke from a fire lit by lightning that tore across the heavens the other night when several fires had been lit in the forest, because rain had soon washed the flames out, and anough time had elapsed for the last trails of smoke to have vanished into the air like they always did.

No. This smell was unique, at least it was as far as he was concerned, and that very uniqueness tweaked his curiosity. But it also made him nervous because a life of over twenty years had given him enough wisdom to know that he must never trust the unknown.

But that didn’t stop the faltering way he found himself moving towards its source. Nervously, he grabbed for a twitching rodent and bit its head off before spitting it out. Nasty! He’d thought it was a tiny rabbit, but it was a rat. Not tasty at all, but then, that didn’t matter, he wasn’t really hungry. Men like Owongo never found themselves without food in the wild,

Without revealing too much of himself he slid round a tree and saw where the strange aroma was coming from.

It was a cave that time had hewed out of the sheer face of a cliff, and the smell and now unfamiliar sounds were drifting out of it. Knowing that he had to be careful yet unable to control his curiosity he edged towards it until, barely breathing lest he give himself away to whatever was causing the strange smell, he reached the cave entrance.

And what a sight befell his eyes!

There were people in there, men and women, at least he thought that;s what they were, but they were not naked like he was but covered in impossibly coloured clothing and not anything like his winter skins. And then for the first time in his life he found one hand dropping down to his groin so that his manhood was as covered as were those of the strange looking men amongst the people in the cave. If they were men, that is.

In the cave?

Without giving it so much as a considered thought he stepped through the cave entrance and into the interior in order to see better, and the moment he was in it he knew that it could not be a cave at all. There were people, strange people talking and laughing together, and as if to make his own heart stop a bell rang, loud and clear and insistent, and Owongo had never heard a bell before! Such a sound was impossibly alien to Owongo or to any of his neighbours, he knew that for a certainty.

One of the men, this one clad in a shiny blue material, what those of us in a later age would call a lounge suit, picked a small illuminated slab of something from a smooth surface and defeated logic by staring at it and then started talking at it. Yes, opening his mouth and making sounds that, although they were truly unlike any sounds he’d heard before, he instinctively knew were made up as words in an alien tongue. And the small object spoke back to him! Owongo heard it and already knew he had the germ of a fine tale to tell his neighbours and friends. And his woman, the lovely snub-nosed Mirumda. He knew he must tell her, and grinned to think how she would laugh and call him a liar!

Then, while the conversation was going on between the man and the small object that was glowing as if it had a sun shining within it, a child also dressed in coloured clothing that, readers, we might cll a frock, and holding something that meant nothing whatsoever to Owongo ran up to him and thrust it into his hand.

“Look, dad, I’ve finally defeated the dragon!” the child exclaimed, though his or her treble voice was no more than slightly musical sounds devoid of any meaning as far as Owongo was concerned.

One of the women looked up and smiled when she possibly saw Owongo.

“David,” she said, addressing the man who had been talking into the small rectangular object, “we have a visitor!”

Her voice was wonderful but her face, her smile, those eyes, her hair, mentally Owongo ran out of elements in her person that he wanted to praise. She was, if there ever could be such a thing, an angel from the gods themselves. And she was looking directly at him.

“Why, where have you sprung from, Miranda?” asked the man, though Owongo was still completely unaware of even the least bit of meaning in the words.

“I thought I’d pop in and tell you about Richard,” said a voice that was behind Owongo, then it seemed to be part of Owongo, and then its owner actually walked through Owongo and stood separate from him, but almost touching him.

At that Owongo wanted to run away. He wanted to leave this place that didn’t look anything like a cave but was had he known what they were a brick built space with an entire family living in it, all dressed in absurd but attractive clothing and nothing like any family he had ever even imagined might exist anywhere on the world.

“Tell us,” said the man, though to Owongo there was no meaning in the two syllables.

He took the object the child was holding for him to examine and smiled at him or her before ruffling its hair and laughing, then saying “I knew you would sooner or later, Karen! So go to the next level and see what you have to do there!”

Meanwhile, and at the same time, the newcomer who had actually walked though Owongo was talking.

“It’s Richard’s turn on Pointless, with mum,” she said, and the speaker was clearly a she because of the lumps on her chest, even though they were covered in a light pink something or other.

“Better put it on,” said the man (his voice was deep and not at all like a woman’s, so it had to be a man.)

Then he picked up another small rectangular object and pinted it at a large black square in the corner of the cave or room or whatever it was.

And the black square was no longer black but coloured, and then it steadied and a man appeared, smiling and talking, and all in the square that was no longer black. Such things decided Owongo, never did exist and never will exist. Not here in his world. He must be in a nightmare

Owongo’s mind was reeling. Then to make matters worse, there were people clapping their hands, unseen people and quite a crowd of them by the sound they were making, and the scene scrolled like scenes in the forest never do, and other people could be seen, all smiling, all clad in the odd stuff that seemed to cover everyone and all totally confusing.

“There he is!” laughed she who had walked through him, “it’s Richard!”

“Coffee,” announced a different woman, with a smooth though feminine voice and also with bumps on her chest confirming her gender. And she did the impossible. A portion of the wall seemed to swing away and she walked though where it had been, and it clattered shut behind her.

I’m going mad, thought Owongo, nobody can walk through solid walls! And what’s that the child’s holding? And why is the man in the black square still talking? And how does he do that? I must be going mad! They’ll club me to death and feed my entrails to the gibbons if they find out back in the village…

“Dad,” that child shouted uncotrollably, “it’s a dodo!”

“Shush,” the man said, and for once Owongo thought he knew what he meant by the monosyllable. But the black square that was no longer black didn’t seem to understand even if Owongo did because it carried on with one voice after another and clapping and applause from an unseen host of people, more than everyone in the entire village by the sound of it, and lots of laughing and, apparently, joking.

And the cups. The woman who had walked in through the wall had brought cups. There were cups with handles, which he thought was a really good idea and worth remembering for when he went back to his cave, and people drinking from them, and the smell in the air changed, a rich and wonderful steamy smell, making Owongo’s mouth water, and he backed away until he fell against a tree, and stumbled to the muddy ground.

He staggered away once he’d pulled himself upright. The cave looked like any other cave anywhere, but he ran away from it, and wished the wonderful smell would return.

“I’ve been to hell,” he thought in his own language, but whatever the arrangements of sounds meant by hell it was what everyone everywhere would understand as their own version of hell.

How can people live like that? He thought, and cover themselves like that, from head to toe? And things that make ringing noises, black squares with people in them, yes, actually in them, it’s a good job life can never be like that!

© Peter Rogerson, 16.04.23

LESSON: Pointless is a UK television quiz and maybe even an identical (but for language quiz) in other countries. Who knows? I don’t. Though I doubt anyone from Owongo’s generation knew that!

Secondly, Owongo is a favourite character of mine. I devised him in the 1980s, I seem to remember, put him in the odd novel, and very occasionally returned to him and his ancient world.

Reviews

[AYVID N]

I really enjoyed this ride into the future with Owongo. It seems he just slid through a wormhole in time. It was so entertaining to read of everyday objects, people and their apparel and behavior as viewed by a primitive man.

Hey, at least there was no poverty and food was aplenty in the jungles.

[Peter Rogerson]

Time can be an interesting plaything and I doubt that I'll ever be happy if I stop playing with it.

[AYVID N]

Absolutely don't. Your readers love it.