Tree Climber

I climb the tree. I crack the nut. I drink the juice of the secret skull. It is sweet and milky creamy. I shave some of the skin and flesh off with my teeth. It is bitter. I throw the drained nuts away. I let them fall from the sky. I have not yet figured out to turn them into weapon, or seed. I sleep in the tree and do not wake unless my primate mates wake me with screaming and hollering which always means panther or python my two worst enemies, I mean other then other primates of course, no one knows how to kill you better than you.

I am figuring out sabotage and subterfuge, the shadows of strategy. I am beginning to play mind games with my tribe. I pretend that I am great and they leave me alone. They do not threaten me. They let me come to them sexually. I am a mystery to them. I have begun to stare at the stars and contemplate dimensions. There’s more to this life thing then eating, sleeping, fucking, pissing, shitting, and watching out for one another; which reminds me: I got to learn how to kill that panther, before he kills me.

I sleep while the others forge for food. They forge for food for me. They believe I have special powers. I found a tree that had been split by lightening.

I made a torch. I’m not really certain how the whole thing works, but I taught my clan to see in the dark. We did not know how to keep the fire going. It went out. I am the Promethean fire bringer to the clan. I watch for the rain. I know that is when the neon bolts strike from the sky. I will follow the rain clouds and hope to find a tree struck from the fire tongue.

We now know that you can survive in several locations of the cave, and we know what happened to Dave, and I’m beginning to suspect that smell is Dave too.

I like the caves. I believe that I have explored the furthest. Well, the furthest that has come back and explained to the other’s what I had found. I walk tenderly and carefully in the impossible darkness rich with sightlessness and blind to the slippery abyss. I feel the bones of my fallen comrades. I feel their faces and know who they are and count the years they have been gone. I have deduced a lunar calendar.

The others have no idea what the fuck I’m talking about. No one studies the language we invented. It is frustrating. I have so many new words I want to invent. And I hate the guttural grunts and groans, the ear piercing cries of frustration when not able to remember the word for Fig. I am wondering if Eve shouldn’t have left that fruit in the forbidden garden, though I do like figs. I like old figs, and old pomegranates too. I like them when their mushy and sour, disgusting I know – but I don’t know – I get kind of like a buzz when I eat them you know – I mean we’re fifty thousand years before wine…

I only let one groom me. I am trying to encourage the others to engage in monogamy, to form perhaps a nuclear family and be responsible for their offspring. I do not attack the other males when they mate with the females of my clan. I encourage it. I am looking forward to meeting their offspring. I am the undeniable king, and leader of this troop. I expect to be greedily assassinated by some ruthless cold blooded brother much stronger then me and the next three of us, but so far, letting them all fuck seems to do the trick, no pent up energy to take out on the restricting command. Free and easy, for soon we will have to write our language. I will have to invent an alphabet and a form of mathematics. I am going to have to teach them abstraction, art appreciation, or at least what I mean when I draw a herd of elk and a compass, possible disguises and new hunting methods.

I try to convince other tribes to adopt a principle similar to ours. I seemed to have engaged them in war with my heretical suggestions of peace and prosperity.

They engaged us in war and tore us to pieces. I mean how could they not have? The other tribes were ruled by one selfish alpha demon and an army of sexually frustrated males who were beaten into submission and ready for the kill – the taste of the blood and the victory – savagery, pure and perfect bestiality. They ate our flesh and enslaved only our youngest girls and women, the virgins.

They saved me for last. I was crucified on a tree on the outreaching areas of their territory. They tied me up and spat on me, pissed on me; dry humped my leg, bit me and slashed at me with their jungle claws. I could see the other skeletons of heretic minded leaders, previously perverted alpha males wiped out by the weakening of the savage gene; their dried and decayed remains falling apart on their respected trees. I am happy we are learning geography but it takes romance to create poetry and there is no love in an alpha run society.

I would last three days and expire. There would be no resurrection or heavenly light. I was decaying carcass. I gave up the ghost and waited for return. There would be no engraving of my dramatic moment. There would be no last words or weeping entourage, only a gagged last spittle breath and an explosion of birds from the tree most recent with expired meat.