This Animal Man

From the past to the future and back again.

This Animal Man

Trapped!

His hands leave the stream. His eyes open wide. He searches the crags, the river, the trees.

There are sparks in the air: sparks that hover and quiver. He scrapes to his feet, forgetting his knife and spear. Silken sounds, like whispers, waft and drift to his ear. Voices from nowhere collide in his skull. Those sparks turn to white spots that mutate and sway, billow and color, interlock, freeze. He drops to his knees. The voices grow clearer. Clusters of spots form a picture; a living image of women and men--not wearing skins, but silver attire. They are speaking to him. They are gesturing.

He leaps to his feet. He knuckles his eyes and he slaps his ears.

The sight disappears.

He runs to the river, plunges his face into liquid fire, sits back on his haunches, teeth grinding, head aching. Shaking, he drags himself back to the stream. Blood fills his vision; he narrows his eyes and squints. The undergrowth clears. The savanna yawns at his daydreams and fears. But other things warrant his heed: another hunter, then a pair, are hot on a trail, tracing a fresh line of prints. Dangerous neighbors. Deadly contenders. They come on, ever-reading, never stopping, proceeding his way. No chance to retrieve his weapons. He moves silently, slowly. Minding his shadow, he creeps round a craggy outcropping.

There:

A fissure, a crack, just large enough for a man lying flat. He drops and worms his way in, squirms to all fours. He peers around. Sufficient light bleeds through that rent in the rock: there’s a few feet of clearance, then the facing wall. A long, sweaty silence ensues. He lowers his head and listens.

The hunters pass by, trading whistles and coos. They pause at the river, fill their skins and move on.

He heaves a sigh.

A rattlesnake’s lair.

But on that wall there’s a quirk: a glowing, growing stone. Another appears, just to its right. Then another, gradually growing white. A hiss fills the air. Those glowing stones flatten, shiver and fatten. Appending, they group into islands, then archipelagos, until half the wall’s a bright screen of light. The hiss waxes oral. Shadows emerge on that flat field of white; shapes clustered centrally, eerily wrought. Sounds of animals straining. The shadows gain hue. Women and men, hairless and sallow, peer out from a strange metal cave. That vocal hiss splinters, comes needy, comes plural: those phantoms grow flustered, they are flushed and distraught. They are pleading and shouting. They are shouting at him.

Lunging, scraping, screaming right out of his mind, he hammers his fists on that haunted rock wall. The ghosts disappear, the wide dots deflate. The wall returns to its previous state. He drops on his belly and claws his way out.

To the river again he runs. He plunges in whole; afraid of the air, afraid of the dark, afraid of the light. Washed quickly downriver, too anguished to stop or stand; unable to swim, the swift current takes him, all but dead, to a small spit of land. He climbs out lunging, staggers, stumbles, lurches, and falls. With the last of his strength he rolls over, supine. But then, even there, the bad dream replays: sparks fill the air, a pattern evolves, spots glow in rows, those whispers align. It’s all way too much; the blue sky revolves, his conscious grip flutters and goes…lights like comets whip all around him. Weightless, he hovers; voiceless, clueless. Grid lights surround him. Bolts streak away from his fingers and toes.

Then those faces again, enthused and entreating. Objects lack mooring, he’s wading, he’s floating. Those voices, emoting, are fading, retreating.

The voices resolve. The faces zoom in. The metal room comes to a rest. He lands on his back on a silvery bed, surrounded by figures in silvery skins. Arranged just behind are cages, aligned, their contents securely enclosed: cave bear, great beaver, saber-toothed, dire wolf; their bright fangs exposed, their wild howls never abating. And, grandest of all, adorning that wall, an empty cage open and waiting.

Grotesque are these strangers, disturbing, surreal. Tiny, devoid of all hair, staring bug eyes and pursed purple lips. They cringe with their snares and their cute little whips. He strains for his weapons, remembers the stream, and leaps to address the unreal. Trapped! Just like before. These weird folk embrace, cry as one and step back. Unready for this, they scatter and squeal. He lashes out blindly, all canines and nails, mustered and maddened by scream after scream. They run bleeding and wailing, their scrawny arms flailing, failing to reach a discrete little door. Trapped! Sweet turnabout. Grouping and quailing, their feet skip and slip on that gray metal floor. Encouraged, enraged by the beasts’ howls and roars, he fully ignites: he kicks and he smites, he clobbers and claws, he gouges and bites. Smashing those lights, he hauls back and yodels the lone hunter’s cry, till one little female crawls from the pile, yanks down a lever, and wails in reply.

The whole place goes dark.

The console shuts down.

The console reboots to its previous mark.

The whole place lights up.

Rays leap from his fingers, bolts shoot from his toes. The grid lights go down. Those bright comets veer, dwindle and pale, at last disappear. His shoulders smack boulders, his back and butt slam on the ground. He scrapes to his feet. Staggering, stumbling, he fights his way back to the stream. He glares all around, carefully scoops out a drink. Barely able to think, he hallucinates faces, fabricates cages: people and beasts in a gray metal room. No, just ripples and traces. No, merely a dream…but wait--

Trapped!

His hands leave the stream. His eyes open wide. He searches the crags, the river, the trees.

Only motes in the air.

Just a howl on the breeze.

Morning’s fledglings are chirping away.

He gets to his feet, grabs his knife and his spear.

His mind and eyes clear, he sets off to meet the new day.