I have decided to go with a more laid back take on the blog series as it's supposed to be quick reads and hopefully quick writes for me. Most of the entries won't be edited or proofread. I just need to type-vomit and get some writing out there. I'm VERY excited with this new direction for my blog series and I hope that you will enjoy it as well. The entries will be shorter than I was intending last incarnations to be, which will be easier. I'm desperately hoping to release a new entry every month.
So here's Animental, my blog series. Meet Nat and his companion--and his world. Any questions or comments leave one below OR email me at N8Charley@gmail.com
1: Waking Up Alive
THE STENCH WAS THE FIRST THING TO HIT HIM. Perhaps it was the stench that brought him to consciousness. He opened his eyes, blinded by the sharp rays of the morning sun. How did he know it was morning…? He didn’t, he was waking up from sleep, for how long he slept—he doesn’t know, but it was only natural to think that it was morning after sleeping.
Nat, eyes closed, sat up and brushed sweat off his forehead. He was met by the grinding of sand that was clung to his arm. The smell! He heard the running of water—a stream or river. The scent was dead fish…And other things, large creatures, with fur. When he was brave enough, he opened his eyes slowly. He tested his pupils and they desperately tried to adjust. What the fuck happened!? Nat thought to himself. He felt hungover.
Nat looked around and everything was glazed over with a halo of light. It was as if his eyes have never seen sunlight before. How long was I asleep? He crawled to his feet, on wobbly muscles. He surveyed his surroundings. Everything was dead!
Bears, raccoons, a bobcat, carcasses were everywhere! The Fish! There were fish flowing down the river like logs from clearcutting! They were the cause of most of the choking smell. Tiny crawfish and frogs rested on the shoreline, sprawled on their tiny backs and sides. Everything was dead…
Nat suddenly felt sickeningly alone. He surveyed the splayed carcasses, desperate to find another person—dead or alive…Nothing, nobody! Nat fell to his knees, wanting to cry—but no tears birthed from their ducts.
There was a squirrel an arm’s length away. He prodded the creature with a finger, it rolled onto its back, limp, lifeless. The tiny beast’s chest cavity had been torn apart. There was no blood. In fact, as Nat looked around, even at the bear, there was no blood in any of the creatures! They had all been drained as if a swarm of giant mosquitoes had descended on them, eager to get their fill and lay their precious eggs.
What happened here? Nat couldn’t put it into words. There was no one to talk to if he had!
He suddenly felt very naked…Not just because he actually was naked, but because he was on the riverbank without any overhanging trees. Whatever had done this could come back for him. As far as he knew he was still plump with blood! He jumped to his feet, his muscles screaming in protest as if they haven’t been used in weeks…And he took cover under the shade of a tree. Squirrels and voles littered the base of the tree. A deer was close by, the smell turned Nat’s stomach.
A chill ran up his spine and he scampered up the tree like humanities’ most primitive relatives probably had at one time. Fear washed over him, turning him into a machine of instinct. He crouched there on a thick branch for what seemed like hours. He jerked his head left and right, swearing that he saw something move.
His human brain, the part that could reason and think, desperately tried to swim to the top of the pool of fear and instinct. Nat crouched on his branch, it was his branch. Anything that came too close was subject to a fight because Nat would defend his branch with his life.
He didn’t have to. Nat sat there, eyes sharp, listening—until his reasoning mind came back from the darkness. He shook his head as if he was shaking from one personality into another. Fear, run, protect! All of his instincts still screamed, but they were being drown by the voice of reason.
Nat would spend the next few hours making a cover for his genitalia out of fibrous plant material and animal hides. He stunk of fish when it was all over and proceeded to wipe plant sap all over himself and attempt to rinse off in the river, but the throngs of dead fish floating down made it nearly impossible. So he simply cupped his hands along the riverbank and splashed water over himself until he was content.
Nat had honestly been afraid to leave his little cemetery of fish, a bear, two deer, raccoons, squirrels and other carcasses. It seemed like he’d been reborn and that was all he knew, was this riverbank and these deceased animals. There was a moment where he had to stop himself from speaking to them and giving him names—just another personality that was peeking through, another way to deal with the trauma.
Fearful or not, Nat whittled a stick into a spear and began leaving his dead sanctuary. He stalked, not unlike a tiger, if a man could become a tiger, and came to a bank. The bank was scattered with voles and more squirrels, all with their chests dug through and dry of blood. He climbed the bank, jerking at the ready, spear raised, whenever he thought he’d heard a sound. Nothing was alive—nothing was moving.
Nat stepped onto the peak of the hill and breathed a sigh of relief. There was something familiar up here…A road, a car, and a house down the lane. He was almost manic with glee. He smiled, dehydration cracked the corners of his mouth. I’m so thirsty! He realized for the first time. He laughed. A car! He ran to it and opened it and found nothing. It was dusty almost, like it hadn’t been used in weeks.
He was drooling with excitement and wiped away the spittle from his cracked lips. It hurt. But it didn’t hurt as much as when he realized that the car was at an odd angle, in the middle of the road—as if someone had been driving it and suddenly had to abandon their vehicle. A sense of hopelessness washed over him and, again, brought him to his knees, his body wheezed as if he was having a good ugly cry, but there were no tears—there was no sound of agony that left his lips.
He crouched there sobbing for too long…Only minutes, though it felt like seconds. He was losing sense of time. He was hungry and thirsty. Thirsty more than anything. The thought of food made him want to vomit.
Nat walked towards the house.
He came to the house and burst through the door. Even though he didn’t want to believe it, he knew that the door would be open—and he knew that there would be nobody home. He hobbled to the kitchen as hopelessness made him weak. He lowered his head underneath the faucet and sucked and drank the water desperately until whatever was left pressurized in the pipes was gone—because there were no people anymore to keep such things running. He knew in his heart of hearts that it was true.
He lifted his hopeless head and looked out the window that was set just above the sink with his hopeless eyes. There he saw, as if the sun gave it it’s own natural little spotlight, a plant! It wasn’t just any plant. It was the first living plant he’d seen since waking upon the riverbank. It had leaves!
Before he knew it and without knowing how he got there he was kneeling in the sandy soil around the plant! He looked down at it in awe. Man never identifies itself with plants. Our “kingdoms” are so different from each other that it’s hard to believe that we are both made up of cells, that we both eat and drink and breath, though in very different ways. Nat identified with the plant as the only living things left in the world.
“It’s just you and me,” Nat croaked, finding his voice. It almost hurt to talk, the pain was sharp like his throat had been sore.
Nat couldn’t let the plant alone! It was the first thing that had made him feel comfortable in this expired landscape. He rushed, animalistic, to the houses’s shed, outback, not far from where the tree devoured solar rays. He easily found a pot and fashioned a strap about it so that he could carry it upon his back, over his shoulder. With two eager hands and a demonic smile upon his face, Nat buried his bare hands into the dirt and with one scoop lifted the plant and all of its roots from the earth and transplanted it into the pot. He fed the plant some extra soil and padded it down like he might after tucking in a child into bed.
Nat was sure that it was delirium, but he let it go. A voice, feminine, wispy and almost like a whisper, came to his head. It said a single word and Nat knew without a doubt that it was the plant’s name. When the name was spoken, for a split second, probably shorter than a second, Nat could swear that he and the plant shared memories, a vision. They communicated—and Nat was sure that he was going crazy and this was some symptom of one of his growing internal personalities…But how could you call him crazy when there weren’t any other people around to call sane?
“Vivirdrasil,” the plant cooed, in Nat’s head. Nat smiled. He didn’t feel alone anymore—and he swung the potted plant around his shoulder and headed down the road.
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