Yesterday, I Killed a Man
I'm not a murderer, let's set that straight.
I’m not a murderer, let’s set that straight.
I am something more.
And I am becoming.
Initially, I almost died.
My first host was dead — feeble heart pulsing its last.
It lay at the bottom of the tree it fell out off. There would be no more jaunts across branches for this one.
Hairy — Mammal — Primate.
It had been a good host. Not excellent, but good.
Too fragile an immune system though — but that couldn’t be helped, such things happened.
My host lay there, on the jungle floor; undergrowth whispering about the weird newcomer. Insects starting to wonder if the sky gods had really been this generous.
Something was dead, amidst all that life. There was a lesson there, waiting to be teased out.
But no matter, an even larger tragedy was occurring: I was dying.
Something crashed through the foliage.
Large, cumbersome, smelly.
Man.
It swept plants aside, with the practiced expertise of one who doesn’t know what it’s doing but carried on all the same; heedless.
This one was even more clueless than most.
Strange.
Also strange was the rank odor from the man thing. An overwhelming blanket over the normal human miasma.
It came closer, louder than ever. Odor and noise.
I waited, observing. I had nothing else to do really.
Except die;
But that was currently taking its time.
The man stretched out beefy arms, knife in one palm — leaves got separated from stem with a deft twist. Again, and again.
Ahh. Herb collector. Hunter, this one is not.
The man startled.
He had seen me. No, seen my host.
Alarm dissociated into calculation. Then my host was dragged out, foot first. Too-slow insects mourned, their food had suddenly become another’s.
We walked a footpath. Trampled ground splitting forest to either side; Israelites through red sea.
Me, my host, and man.
He had slung my host over a shoulder. The burlap sack that contained us bouncing slightly on his back.
His gait was gay, and he whistled a tune. No doubt his mind already savoring monkey stew.
I had been handed a lifeline. We were both thanking the universe. Albeit for different reasons. Man for the promise of food, me for the promise of becoming.
My host was silent because she was dead.
I wasn’t unduly worried about the cook-fires. If this man were a quarter as clumsy with cooking as he was navigating a forest, I would be fine.
Then I would pass from this host to another, and my becoming would continue.
I whistled a tune of my own, also gay.
Monkeys are actually very hairy.
I watched through rheumy, dead eyes, the skinning of my host.
Her head already separated from the rest of her body, hung via rope from an acquiescing tree’s low hanging branch — grotesque voyeur.
Deft hands exposed raw flesh, expert fingers set to cleaning.
That worried me.
This female human was clearly well versed at handling dead things.
The broth bubbled nearby, spices and herbs mixed with the twang of burning wood, gleefully riding the air.
The uncooked meat my host had become sizzled as it settled into the broth’s waiting embrace.
I only had smell and hearing left. The cells in my host’s eyes had died. Nose and ears would follow suit.
So would I, it appeared. This woman was far to thorough with her preparations.
I left my host’s skull to join the rest of me in a silent scream as the broth’s fire purged us out of my host’s flesh into the waiting arms of death.
I would not be becoming.
Enough of myself gathered into an awareness and I drew my first ethreal breath.
I was alive!
Alive.
I shouldn’t be.
That monkey was cleaned thoroughly, the broth far too hot.
Yet, there I was. Alive.
This new host pulsed with a vitality far beyond the monkey’s.
I swept to look through its eyes.
Man.
The same man.
Mirth coursed through me. Maybe he shouldn’t have handled a suspiciously dead monkey with his bare hands.
He was sat at a table, food set before him.
Soup. Monkey soup.
He had a wife — the thorough woman, and a child — son, early teens, precocious.
Good potential, one and all.
I set to work. I had becoming to become.
The man lay on an elevated mat in the corner.
Illness was ever a personal thing. Especially when its effects are ghastly.
How many orifices could a human bleed from?
Oh, a lot.
He died yesterday, two days from when I first awakened in him. The life he lived now was as a vehicle for us — me and myselves.
Visitors would come to gawk. It was ever the way. They will take me with them. They will help my becoming.
The wife was next, the child last. Children have a weird way of resisting me, I’ll need my strength.
Yesterday I killed a man, but it is merely a path to becoming; I am not a murderer.
Tomorrow, I’ll kill his wife.
The Ebola virus is currently devastating DR Congo, hopefully its scorge is checked and all the lost souls find rest.
