6/1/2025, 1:04 AM
Effaced by distance the grey stranger stood in the depression before him, a psychopomp with an open mouth.
Irineu tensed, flashed his teeth. But there was no real anger behind the ritual, only a consequence of the fact that they were both wild animals as of yet unfamiliar with one another.
He regarded the wet splay of grass underfoot, all around them the slumped signs of life struggling to break free of an earlier amniotic existence. Amphibians that housed their young in the pores of their skin; birds with webbed feet, spearing fish with their bills; great waterside bugs shining, perverse and pearlescent in the half-light.
Life on Earth began ensconced in liquid, vast oceans not yet corralled by continental drift. By the same measure, all life surely receded to this featureless, cold moisture.
Hackles pricked, he circumscribed a wide arc around the stranger's front, taking pains to not leave his field of vision.
"Onde estou," he asked. His voice did not admit the rising tone of a question.
Irineu tensed, flashed his teeth. But there was no real anger behind the ritual, only a consequence of the fact that they were both wild animals as of yet unfamiliar with one another.
He regarded the wet splay of grass underfoot, all around them the slumped signs of life struggling to break free of an earlier amniotic existence. Amphibians that housed their young in the pores of their skin; birds with webbed feet, spearing fish with their bills; great waterside bugs shining, perverse and pearlescent in the half-light.
Life on Earth began ensconced in liquid, vast oceans not yet corralled by continental drift. By the same measure, all life surely receded to this featureless, cold moisture.
Hackles pricked, he circumscribed a wide arc around the stranger's front, taking pains to not leave his field of vision.
"Onde estou," he asked. His voice did not admit the rising tone of a question.