Post by Cy Skywalker on Nov 22, 2006 16:45:49 GMT -5
Aunts and uncles, Others also with their strange movements, had plodded into the cave and fell before the children as if we stood at the head of an unbeatable army. The orange suns cast our far-apart shadows further in, and we stand with our tails on the ground for comfort.
Some Others had moved their banners in and draped them on the rafters, making unusual shapes seem ready to drop upon the Group.
I am far enough from the egg to know that fear can make things seem. The people really lay before us with Others and sisters piled up together. So many green smooth backs and the neck-transitions to the heads, the scales spread like petals. Everyone’s limbs are tucked in tight, some shivering with repressed relfex. A Deep Winter had not come for many migrations; so said the adults with long journeys under their feet.
The children are last into the cave, because we are afraid.
Mother looms beside us with four arms off the ground, postured very evocative of her noble position in the pack--Pack, now. Then she drops to the more natural stance, and begins to push with her open hands me and any other child she can reach.
We tumble, trip, scamper down to a bowl of rock. Jostling, we touched the cold hard floor of the cave. Mother drapes her tail over me and curls up so that her head is tipped around the back of the farthest child and her fragrant slit-breath floats over us.
I do not expect to fall asleep between that cold and that heat, with the smell of so many people, with the excitement. I sleep nonetheless.
I dream. I am running. Through the grass which would reach to an adult’s shoulders, there I race with my tail flicking up and down as if I am hunting, No thoughts of whether or not thinking is needed in hunting. I come to a steep rise and do not have to work any harder to mount it. At the summit, I must stop short. My midfeet thump onto the dirt
Something has cut the grass away. It has turned black, almost up the steeper hillside in front of me. Perhaps the something is the silver beetle-shape in the center of the blackness. Its markings are complicated and squared-off. As I watch, another thing rounds the corner and stops.
As my head-scales drop, bringing disproportional heat down on my skull, the scene changes.
Mother, and people, stand on a dull white flat platform in the grass. The people, like some things in dreams, do not look like they are supposed to, though I know them anyway. They have skin the color of tail-orange just before a shedding. this tan old loose color. They have tiny eyes and no slits and mouths as if their predator-teeth and muzzles have been cut off. Only the plants-teeth and speaking mouths remain. I cannot explain the crests on their heads--they are like cloth before it is woven completely, and strands are everywhere.
Mother is standing in her friendly posture and she must look up at these people, though if she were upright she would match them. There are three of them, and only mother.
I walk down the hill (the same hill) toward them. They look at me and their eyes are frozen facing forward. I step away.
Mother says it’s safe. Mother says, “Now watch this part...”
I am standing in a village built on open ground. The suns are gone, covered by a film of dust which rises from some tubes attached to the houses. I walk the streets and see a little one like me sitting in a corner with all of her hands around a young one of the type the strange people are. They are both dirty and hurt. I cannot tell whether they are cowering together for comfort or one has been eating the other. In the dream, this terrifys me and I try to wake, try to thrash.
The child of my kind says, “This future will not happen.”
I feel that that is a random useless peice of dialogue as one gets in dreams. It is not comforting, though I want it to be.
I awaken and there is heat around us all. There are stamping feet and tails raising and lowering in misplaced angry emotion, and there is mother standing in front of everyone looking out of the cave, with all her claws up and her open hands tucked in and her teeth clenched to show the serrated edges as she yells.
“Who is there?!” There is blinding light and hurting sound outside, but then it fades.
Mother turns.
I see that not everyone is awake; it only looked like the crowd was, but really many of them are still lying down and still. I feel very stiff, and realize that the dream was a long time ago, down in the depths of my sleep now. Have I forgotten some? It is one of those dreams with its own reality.
Mother says that is time to wake. The sound and light was only a rock falling from the sky. They do this often, so I have no reason not to walk out with her and try to run.
The Deep Winter has passed. I have slept for one year. Some say I am lucky to be able to experience this and remember it, because it does not happen often. I wonder whether remembering sleep is worth all the fuss, or is possible at all.
The packs disperce, taking their banners and their rivalries and their people with them.The new day is bright. Sounds of wind and insects are exactly the same as they were before.
I am powerfully hungry.
As we are chasing a stampeder, mother and the children and I pour over a ridge and stop with gasps and jerks and one child falling flat on his belly as he grabs the tail and hindmost leg of one who didn’t quite stop in time. The one with momentum’s curved claw thuds into the wrist of the one who reached, and he squeaks. He pulls his foremost wrist off of the claw and shakes it before clamping another hand over the blood. We are lucky that we do not fall apart as easily as the prey animals do.
When I am finished with this event, Mother is staring at the silver beetle in the valley.
Some Others had moved their banners in and draped them on the rafters, making unusual shapes seem ready to drop upon the Group.
I am far enough from the egg to know that fear can make things seem. The people really lay before us with Others and sisters piled up together. So many green smooth backs and the neck-transitions to the heads, the scales spread like petals. Everyone’s limbs are tucked in tight, some shivering with repressed relfex. A Deep Winter had not come for many migrations; so said the adults with long journeys under their feet.
The children are last into the cave, because we are afraid.
Mother looms beside us with four arms off the ground, postured very evocative of her noble position in the pack--Pack, now. Then she drops to the more natural stance, and begins to push with her open hands me and any other child she can reach.
We tumble, trip, scamper down to a bowl of rock. Jostling, we touched the cold hard floor of the cave. Mother drapes her tail over me and curls up so that her head is tipped around the back of the farthest child and her fragrant slit-breath floats over us.
I do not expect to fall asleep between that cold and that heat, with the smell of so many people, with the excitement. I sleep nonetheless.
I dream. I am running. Through the grass which would reach to an adult’s shoulders, there I race with my tail flicking up and down as if I am hunting, No thoughts of whether or not thinking is needed in hunting. I come to a steep rise and do not have to work any harder to mount it. At the summit, I must stop short. My midfeet thump onto the dirt
Something has cut the grass away. It has turned black, almost up the steeper hillside in front of me. Perhaps the something is the silver beetle-shape in the center of the blackness. Its markings are complicated and squared-off. As I watch, another thing rounds the corner and stops.
As my head-scales drop, bringing disproportional heat down on my skull, the scene changes.
Mother, and people, stand on a dull white flat platform in the grass. The people, like some things in dreams, do not look like they are supposed to, though I know them anyway. They have skin the color of tail-orange just before a shedding. this tan old loose color. They have tiny eyes and no slits and mouths as if their predator-teeth and muzzles have been cut off. Only the plants-teeth and speaking mouths remain. I cannot explain the crests on their heads--they are like cloth before it is woven completely, and strands are everywhere.
Mother is standing in her friendly posture and she must look up at these people, though if she were upright she would match them. There are three of them, and only mother.
I walk down the hill (the same hill) toward them. They look at me and their eyes are frozen facing forward. I step away.
Mother says it’s safe. Mother says, “Now watch this part...”
I am standing in a village built on open ground. The suns are gone, covered by a film of dust which rises from some tubes attached to the houses. I walk the streets and see a little one like me sitting in a corner with all of her hands around a young one of the type the strange people are. They are both dirty and hurt. I cannot tell whether they are cowering together for comfort or one has been eating the other. In the dream, this terrifys me and I try to wake, try to thrash.
The child of my kind says, “This future will not happen.”
I feel that that is a random useless peice of dialogue as one gets in dreams. It is not comforting, though I want it to be.
I awaken and there is heat around us all. There are stamping feet and tails raising and lowering in misplaced angry emotion, and there is mother standing in front of everyone looking out of the cave, with all her claws up and her open hands tucked in and her teeth clenched to show the serrated edges as she yells.
“Who is there?!” There is blinding light and hurting sound outside, but then it fades.
Mother turns.
I see that not everyone is awake; it only looked like the crowd was, but really many of them are still lying down and still. I feel very stiff, and realize that the dream was a long time ago, down in the depths of my sleep now. Have I forgotten some? It is one of those dreams with its own reality.
Mother says that is time to wake. The sound and light was only a rock falling from the sky. They do this often, so I have no reason not to walk out with her and try to run.
The Deep Winter has passed. I have slept for one year. Some say I am lucky to be able to experience this and remember it, because it does not happen often. I wonder whether remembering sleep is worth all the fuss, or is possible at all.
The packs disperce, taking their banners and their rivalries and their people with them.The new day is bright. Sounds of wind and insects are exactly the same as they were before.
I am powerfully hungry.
As we are chasing a stampeder, mother and the children and I pour over a ridge and stop with gasps and jerks and one child falling flat on his belly as he grabs the tail and hindmost leg of one who didn’t quite stop in time. The one with momentum’s curved claw thuds into the wrist of the one who reached, and he squeaks. He pulls his foremost wrist off of the claw and shakes it before clamping another hand over the blood. We are lucky that we do not fall apart as easily as the prey animals do.
When I am finished with this event, Mother is staring at the silver beetle in the valley.
