The Specimen

Day 1

They dragged her out, today, like a slab of meat. I watched the tendrils of her hair slide across the concrete floor toward the airlock. I didn't move from the corner where I crouched cherishing the shadows. I could hear her body, clothed in the thin fabric they gave us each day, rustle, her thighs exposed, not dignified in death. I sensed the hint of other air, drifting and mingling, invading my home, a lonely home now, without her, her soft purring on my shoulder as we slept, among the shadows, her touch, the questioning eyes, the quiet words we spoke that no one else could understand, not the clickers with their claws; aaah the grunting, sweating of our joining in the quiet of the night, her birthing our children, all like her, year after year, her tears as they took them all away when the milk was almost dry.

They dragged her out today to some strange place beyond our home; maybe to where our children are. They dragged my soul out with that cold carcass. I know they are watching me, for a reaction, an outburst or a sinking down into the somber depths of solitudinous bereavement. I'll not satisfy them anymore with little stage plays for their experimental studies. I am in the shadows forever.

Day 2

From the darkness I can hear them, see the shadows of many forms pressing themselves against the glass of the dome. I hear claws clattering, the tiny clicks, b-flat shrieks strung together into an undulating linguistic syntax - children's gasps of awe and amazement at the exhibit, wondering curiosity as to where I am in my home. But I am the darkness, wary and dangerous in my loneliness.

The airlock opens and the other air breaks across my nostrils. Quickly it closes, leaving a thin crouched shape, timid, waiting in the open, a piece of prey. I cannot move. They are waiting for the reaction that I must not give to them. I remain the darkness, listening to the clicks and clatters on the outside. I smell her and know she is my own, of me sometime in the past when I coupled and held a small child against my chest, sleeping off the feasting of her mother's milk. Over time she stands, still timid, naked and newly ripened into womanhood. I can smell her and she smells of coupling. I feel the darkness creeping over me, triggering me to action but I'm staying quiet in the shadows, controlled. I grunt low soft words so she too can find a corner in the shadows, a refuge. She moves slowly, frightened by my presence. I sense her arousal within her fear and my heart cries out to her and against the humiliation of all of this.

Day 3

Now that the old loved one has gone two days past and the new one crouches in the other corner tempting me to know that I must escape although I've never thought about it before. Somehow now it is all so intolerable, so cruel and inhumane. They won't expect it; I've been docile, cooperative, a special specimen, some kind of feature attraction, judging from the daily clicks and clatter outside. Now they watch more closely, after the death, linger longer at the glass, waiting for me to devour my prey. I'll not satisfy them. I'll wait for the right moment to seize the elements of surprise. I'll brave the other air for a release from this degradation. I'll stop eating. I'll let the fungus spread a blue carpet over what they leave. I'll wait for the moment.

The Day

The airlock opens. The food sits a wave of mossy mold on the rectangular table beside the airlock. Beneath the table I press myself flush to the under surface, gripping each leg in a tension that holds me flat against its darkness. Two of them enter clicking. I can see their scaly legs as they approach the table. I drop quickly and lash out snapping their limbs, sending their thin brittle appendages rotating into the air. Their bodies drop to the concrete and I lash out again, crushing the heads, and mashing their abdomens into a pulpy mass upon the floor. A few clicks reverberate through the dome followed by an eerie silence. The other air is moving through the opening in the airlock. I smell its odour and wonder how they breathe such a choking atmosphere. I act quickly, grab the young one's hand, and rush toward the corridor of the airlock. I hear a siren and manage to block the closing outer door with my body. We both exit into the other air.

The sky is blue. Soft white clouds drift across a crispness so sharp the grass and trees hold a depth greater than three dimensions. There is a purity I've never known. My head is light and for a moment I sense I've entered into a forbidden garden hidden in the dark dusty past. It's heady stuff. We run, both of us, like children but the other air is all around us; it invades us, crawls into our lungs and cuts us down. There is a cold burning sensation and my eye is losing its crisp image of the garden. A cold fire sears my chest. The young one lies flat arching her spine into the air, her eyes glazed over like dead fish. I want to reach for her and protect her from the dangers of the other air and I can't. It's heady stuff and we both are being lifted into the air, cushioned from the ground and enveloped within a latex bubble net full of our air, not other air, and slowly we float and regain our composure. I hear the clicks, lower-toned adult guardian language and I watch the bubble net being manipulated back into the dome. Finally we are cut loose and we each retreat back into our own private darkness. I smell the dome atmosphere and comfort seeps into my lungs, the comfort of the familiar sulfur dioxide, benzene, and carbon monoxide soup. The other air recreated by my guardians must be too pure, too natural for the few remaining specimens. I'll be solitary now not procreating with my offspring as they want, waiting in the darkness. I'll wait for my carcass to be dragged out. I'll wait for my soul to escape.

David Fraser

David likes to balance his life among a variety of activities in the areas of writing, education and sports. When he is not formally working as an educator, he is either writing and researching or involved in one of the following sports: alpine skiing, ski teaching as a full time professional ski instructor at Mt. Washington, BC http://www.mtwashington.bc.ca/winter/default.cfm , windsurfing, tennis, golf, cycling, hiking. In addition he likes to garden, listen to the blues, and search for his way through Taoism. He has built his second water garden which has become his new daily sanctuary. His is learning and refining his Spanish fluency and will travel back to Central and South America in the near future. He lives among the flora and fauna of the British Columbia West Coast. David is the editor of Ascent Magazine - Aspirations for Artists (established 1997).

Email: David Fraser

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