survival

My mother had been eaten by a two-ton tiger when I was four years old. My basic training proved sufficient however, and I was able to fend for myself from then on—eating the newly dead people I would find on the island and taking shelter in the caves and arms of embittered women. It would not be until my 81st birthday and a year before my death that I would have any knowledge that life existed outside the island—a mile in circumference of sand, trees, fruit, and hydrogen bombs. I had no friends besides a very large parrot named Taylor—the other jungle cats had excommunicated me after my mother died and I refused to take communion. I was above the influence of others but below them on the food chain—and it was highly unlikely that a Renaissance would occur this far from civilization and this close to the end of time. Self-conscious and self-sufficient I drifted from inlet to inlet, until I got stuck in one just deep enough that my short but strong legs couldn’t kick vigorously enough to free me. Still, tadpoles and algae floated by and I succeeded at minimum survival until the second wave of the Roman Empire descended at last from behind the clouds.

7.19.2010