The Animals Are Scribbles

Later, it is the future. Also, I am dreaming. Or dead. Or maybe you're the one who's dreaming. Or it's all of those things all at once all of the time, and it never stops.

In the future, the pond has dried up. Strange plants are everywhere. My tent is shaped like a huge mouth, with teeth. When I walk in, it makes a sound like swallowing. When I walk out, it makes a noise like vomiting. The ground outside is made of sand - there are mountains everywhere. It all looks so scorched. In the future, the sun looks exactly like the moon.

You feel all of this happening inside of your veins, however many years in the past, as you get undressed to go swimming in the pond. As you take off your cowboy hat, my feet crunch sand beneath them, through your blood, down your arm. The landscape is dry all the way into your heart. You can't help it. This is the way the future works. I'm sorry.

My machete's wooden handle has rotted away. But the rough metal blade will do fine for digging. I want to excavate. There are bones down there, at the bottom of the hill, fossils, underneath all that dirt. Your bones, probably. Mine. Someone else, maybe. The remains of horned grazing mammals.

Bones are scarce. I examine every rock as if it could be your tibia. No fossils. Instead I find artifacts. I find paper with your handwriting. I find grass. I find thorns. I find rice.

After five days of digging I have found no bones. I feel so dry. My teeth grind together viciously. Every time I move it sounds like rocks.

At night, there are harsh winds that pull ghosts out of the dust. They get inside my skull. In my sinus cavity. I picture each one inside a coffin. At night, there really isn't a moon. That's what the future is like, probably.

The first thing I do when I wake up is spit out the ghosts that gathered in the night. They pour out of my throat and my nose and my eyes in hacking convulsions. They land on the paper with your handwriting and fill in the extra spaces. Dot the i's. They curl up in your whorls. They hide in the deep pockets of your penmanship and stop crying about how horrible being a ghost is, for a bit. They peer out at me, gleefully, when I read what you wrote, sometime, somewhere, whoever you are. Sometimes I feel like I know you.

In the future, all the animals are just scribbles. Letters that have been crossed out. You can barely see them. One day they gathered around the pit I was digging, made scratching noises at each other and wandered off into the sand. They seem so clean.

I keep digging. Although, we all know that when the future ends, I still won't find any bones. Fossilization is a complicated process, the conditions must be just right. There's nothing left. There are no bones for me to uncover. But that's okay. I don't need bones. Mine will do. What I really need is some skin.

As I fall asleep my tent flaps in the wind, sails, taking me further into the future. This is the future. Here is the pond. Your bones or my bones. Or some bones. Mammal bones. Fossils. Here are your veins. You feel an earthquake, or you think you do. Or you inflict one on me, accidentally. When you wake up from your dream, maybe, you lean over and puke into your hat until it is so full, filled to the brim. There are bugs everywhere outside. The sound of trees breaking. You're writing a letter. Your veins bulge, as if they're filled with hornets. You puke everything, until the earthquake passes. You touch your skin. You feel so dry and numb. Now think about that. That's what the future is like.

In the night, I wrap the paper around my bones. It feels enough like skin. It'll do. Thanks.