Page 139 - TheRedSon_PrintInterior_430pp_5.5x8.5_9-22-2019_v1

I realized I wasn’t alone. There were other things down
there with me.
“Animals of every stripe haunted the darkness around
me. The poor things were horribly sad. The world had
betrayed them. It had become unnatural, and so there existed
no place for them. No place, that is, other than at the bottom
of a cave, sharing their misery with a bug-eating human
whose feet squelched when she walked. They just milled
about or slumped against the rocks. I was perfectly safe,
mind you, as even the biggest bears and cougars were in too
much shock to consider eating me. We all sat down there
for quite a while—I’d long given up trying to keep track of
time—resting against one another, depressed. Eventually, it
occurred to me to do the only thing I could think of to raise
our spirits—I sang my little song.
“Now, I wasn’t much of a singer, but the words were
easy to find, and my throat felt better, having eaten. The
song just sprang out of me, and my new friends sang along
with me. We sang louder and louder, harder and harder,
longer and longer, until we were all screaming the words
in the languages of both man and beast. What else could
God sound like, if not the combined voices of his greatest
creations?
“My Lord, did we ever dance and roar and spin! We were
making such a ruckus, but we all thought, To hell with the
end of the world! We’ll just sing until there’s nothing left of
us!
“Now, who do you suppose showed up to try and spoil
the party? Yup, Sneakers. I could see her by the light of our
lovely song, still smiling, still crazy. Suddenly, I could feel
the fire in my belly burning through my meal of worms and
lizards. I smiled back at her, and I could feel my lips and
teeth playing at the limit of my own newer, greater reality.
We were still singing when we rushed her. Oh my, were we
excited! We were just insane, I tell you! The foolish little
thing had no idea what kind of a family we had become,
142 | Mark Anzalone