Dreams -- Fiction; Fantasy fiction; Prehistoric peoples -- Fiction
I saw the arrow leap up, miss Lop-Ear, glance against a limb, and fall
back to the ground. I danced up and down on my lofty perch with
delight. It was a game! The Fire-Man was throwing things at Lop-Ear as
we sometimes threw things at one another.
The game continued a little longer, but Lop-Ear did not expose himself
a second time. Then the Fire-Man gave it up. I leaned far out over my
horizontal limb and chattered down at him. I wanted to play. I wanted
to have him try to hit me with the thing. He saw me, but ignored me,
turning his attention to Broken-Tooth, who was still teetering slightly
and involuntarily on the end of the branch.
The first arrow leaped upward. Broken-Tooth yelled with fright and
pain. It had reached its mark. This put a new complexion on the matter.
I no longer cared to play, but crouched trembling close to my limb. A
second arrow and a third soared up, missing Broken-Tooth, rustling the
leaves as they passed through, arching in their flight and returning to
earth.
The Fire-Man stretched his bow again. He shifted his position, walking
away several steps, then shifted it a second time. The bow-string
twanged, the arrow leaped upward, and Broken-Tooth, uttering a terrible
scream, fell off the branch. I saw him as he went down, turning over
and over, all arms and legs it seemed, the shaft of the arrow
projecting from his chest and appearing and disappearing with each
revolution of his body.
Sheer down, screaming, seventy feet he fell, smashing to the earth with
an audible thud and crunch, his body rebounding slightly and settling
down again. Still he lived, for he moved and squirmed, clawing with his
hands and feet. I remember the Fire-Man running forward with a stone
and hammering him on the head...and then I remember no more.
Always, during my childhood, at this stage of the dream, did I wake up
screaming with fright—to find, often, my mother or nurse, anxious and
startled, by my bedside, passing soothing hands through my hair and
telling me that they were there and that there was nothing to fear.
My next dream, in the order of succession, begins always with the
flight of Lop-Ear and myself through the forest. The Fire-Man and
Broken-Tooth and the tree of the tragedy are gone. Lop-Ear and I, in a
cautious panic, are fleeing through the trees. In my right leg is a
burning pain; and from the flesh, protruding head and shaft from either
side, is an arrow of the Fire-Man. Not only did the pull and strain of
it pain me severely, but it bothered my movements and made it
impossible for me to keep up with Lop-Ear.
At last I gave up, crouching in the secure fork of a tree. Lop-Ear went
right on. I called to him—most plaintively, I remember; and he stopped
and looked back. Then he returned to me, climbing into the fork and
examining the arrow. He tried to pull it out, but one way the flesh
resisted the barbed head, and the other way it resisted the feathered
shaft. Also, it hurt grievously, and I stopped him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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