Section 5; Never in the Same Space
Section 5; Never in the same place at one.
When I re-transform Neanderthal bodies are hurtling over a steep cliff. Gangs of smaller humans are herding the gargantuan combatants toward the ledge. With sharpened stone and torches, they continue to drive the Neanderthals over the edge of the steep precipice.
I am not surprised.
Once we arrive it never stops. Under a blood red sky, on a Tuesday afternoon in Baltimore, a night in Tel Aviv, or because the rain won’t fall, it doesn’t matter- the Homo Sapien will find a war to wage, to allow for the opportunity of violence to introduce itself. They put people in fucking gas chambers. How do you explain that? Who would do such a thing?
After the last of the giant humans have fallen to the valley below the Homo Sapien tribe scales down the steep embankment. Most gracefully navigate the steep descent, a few fall to their deaths. The others howl and wail when it happens. When they reach the bottom they gather the strewn dead bodies of their enemies. Their leader arrives with a torch and sets the deceased ablaze.
They are marvels of the natural world; lithe and strong they can run for hours on end. The Mammoths they hunt, like time and space are bigger than the textbook answer, with tusks like swords and the speed of a wolf. They too are a gorgeous site to behold. We kill them all; every last one until they no longer inhabit our world. Ever. Sure, we make some eventually, but they are never the true authentic thing. Once it goes it goes.
From behind the flames and smoke of the burning bodies I see the beast pacing.
I never interact with the past lifes, I watch them, but I cannot change it. I change shapes and forms inside of it but the longer I am there the more it shapes me. Not so in the future, (and these are loose guidelines at best) there I can still make a mess of difference.
I don’t know why but as of late I’ve been catching more notice, yes that was me you saw in the last aisle of the 24/7 mart. When you reached in for the milk, I was staring back at you. You weren’t crazy, a little drunk and jealous over another but those were my eyes, or what’s left. Maybe it’s the recent ghastly forms I’ve been taking on. Part of the old human me- baseball hat, mustache and cracked skin with part blurred shapes interwoven with random spirit accoutrements; antlers or steel, electric wire or the tentacles of an octopus, hands twisted with barb wire or any number of fantastically horrifying ensembles can complete my display. There have been less and less transferences to the animal world and a strange intuition I am becoming less and less transparent in my aberrations.
Some have been leaving me notes, but the words have no meaning. I am not your dead Uncle, or your lost childhood friend. I am the terror you thought you’d hidden.
I think I smell foul, but I can’t exactly smell. It’s more of an inference of body odor than anything. I may be in one location for decades waiting immobile in my half state, constantly metamorphosizing as time burns slow only to be suddenly rocketed in my own past life or a mineral outpost on Mars. Everywhere and nowhere all at once. I want to shower, sit down and have a smoke on my deck and watch the birds. Have a Coke, or a beer but instead I’m careening along a mountain side with a screaming Sapien tribe that has just been ambushed by a Saber Tooth tiger.
The snarling animal has a small group pinned against the base of the crag and field of molten lava. Several have tried their luck on both fronts by either fearlessly trying to run over the river fire or taking weapons to charge the savage cat. Neither end well so the trapped humans signal and scream escape plans.
The cat is in no rush as it paces back and forth eyeing his prey. His shoulders stand taller than any of the tribe and his bared fangs are the size of Louisville sluggers.
Another tribe has arrived and attacks the beast from afar. A spear drops into the Sabertooth’s hind quarters. It roars in anger then leaps through the air to land on one of the new arrivals. Then another and finally a third. The tiger mauls them in a whole new way that seems much more personal than before- she kills with tremendous purpose. Blood stains her back and more spears fall from the sky. Dismembered bodies liter the ground and the crimson red of the blood spills stains the earth. From the crag above a stone sharpened projectile falls to split her skull and she falls instantly dead. Another spear impales a female member of the once trapped group.
The two tribes begin to argue over the dead woman. Others begin to skin the Saber tooth Tiger and remove dead beast’s teeth. The argument over the deceased woman soon grows violent and the two leaders smash into one another. One mounts the other. The larger man on top strikes down upon his opponent with clasped hands before grabbing a nearby rock and crushing the fallen man’s head with one awful thud.
Both sides separate into quiet divides, a few screams go unanswered, and then an old man makes a guttural sound that signals the end of the debacle. They gather the dead in silence. I am drawn along with one of the separating tribes like a magnet. They are mourning but stay silent and light no fire along their steep route home over the terrain. After several miles they finally reach the low land where they pass along a pack of Aurochs. The tribe stops along the lakeside briefly to drink water under the lowering moon and in the far distance a rhinoceros crosses through the dark water with her cubs in tow. At shore the dead woman is wrapped with large leaves and then placed gently in the current to float away.
Later that evening I can feel the vibration of a person banging his head against rock of his cave dwelling. I am right outside his entranceway standing still amongst the mist and Giant Elk.
When the head banger emerges from his dwelling he looks at me dead in the eye, or whatever my eye seems to be at that moment, either way he see me and I see him, and when the exchange takes place is when I can slip into that crack of reality to whip the wind at a pile of low burning ambers. He searches the fields of tall grass in silence, but I am now a part of the roaring flame. He comes back to find a blaze of fire high above the stone pit spinning in a cylinder motion and drops to his knees. I am then moved along, pulled by the unknown dark matter to another place and time to leave the fire, to let it fall into a heap by the awe-struck early man who drops to his knees to get better look at my ascent.