I awake frozen, despite hearing a fire crackling. My face feels like it is being licked by a wolf or a dog. It’s partially comforting. I open my eyes and see that I am lying on the side of a much bigger cave. I can see someone. I would swear he’s my grandfather. Long grey beard, hair tied down the back. Awkward gait. Bent. He’s wearing an overall… On second look, it’s a tidy bear skin. I try to move. I can’t. I’m tied up. I sneeze.

“Oh, I see our guest has awoken” says the man in perfect English. Actually he had said: “Murhf yetuopr ffhruth akop” but I understood what he meant. He chases the wolf-dog away. 

II have the strange feeling of not being myself. Not even like being in the middle of a movie set. I remember yesterday or was it when? The Mammoths and the robbers. If I’m not mistaken, this is where I am. The lair of the robbers who for whatever reason look like me. My species. Less brute looking, but possibly more aggressive. 

The memory of my future life is conflicting with this strange present. Is this a dream? 

I know my ancestry. I did the test. The statistics say I’m 4.3 per cent Neanderthal, 57 per cent Slavic, 15 percent Germanic and some small percentages of African, Nordic and Arabic… 

The bitter cold is freezing. I shiver. I’m still wrapped up in my rudimentary bear skin. It got wet. My feet feel heavy though I am lying down tied up to a long stick.

I say: “Please, I need to get up. can you free me up?”

The old man understood perfectly and answered:

“Murhf yetuopr ffhruth akop” which I heard as “Wait a moment, won’t be long before the chief comes back.”

Obviously.

My case is a serious matter.

In my world, I would insist to have this situation settled by a magistrate.

“Can I have a blanket?”

“Sure…” The old man takes a skin from a small pile and throws it over me. He stokes the fire. “Fire God” he says, then he mumbles an incantation… It feels like a gentle prayer and I fall asleep.

When I wake up again, it looks like someone who could be the chief is checking me up.

“Which tribe do you come from?” he asks seriously after a while.

I cry. Tears….

“I come from far away far far away…” I am about to tell the man about cars, ships and global warming but I stop myself because this would not make sense to him and now it seems to make no sense to me either… “This is a dream…” I add quietly. “A dream…”

The man does not answer.  He shake his head as if the answer is no, unless he’s perplexed. I am an enigma to him and to myself… I am out of my world, where probably I have died and have been reincarnated in the past rather than the future. Weird.

“I’d like to get up and go to the toilet… You have something for toilets, haven’t you?” A couple of men come out of the shadows, untie me and lift me up. I can hardly stand up. My legs are weak. I try to take a deep breath, but the cold air nearly makes me vomit.

The cave is deep. One cannot see the sun nor the sky nor any landscape. It could be nighttime. There are paintings on the walls. I remember some like these from shows on tele. Some where in Spain and another lot in the middle of France. I nearly faint. the two men carry me slowly towards what I think is the entrance of the cave, but it seems to become more like a narrow passage going deeper and deeper into darkness. I am allowed to relieve myself and one of the men takes some sand from a pile and throw it over. We go back towards the fire and I am tied up again to the thin trunk along the ground, and they cover me with a furry skin. 

I am hungry and fall asleep. Or do I?.

… 

I am confused, anxious and serene at a fate I cannot control but I feel I need to adapt. But to what?

Robert Urbanoski — CONTINUED....

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         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

         RABID ATHEIST.

         WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….

Did I see from the corner of my eyes an advert for Pexona indicating a change of personnel with numbers on a board? Is this a Muckdunold Hydration Break? 

I am thirsty. I remember falling asleep watching the soccer world cup. Then I woke up chez les Neanderthals. Thirst can make you delirious.

Some women arrive carrying various items: leaves, roots and dead wood for the fire. They’re not as rough looking as the other mob, the Neanderthal females. One of them is helped to the floor by a couple of others. Shouting in pain, she’s in labour. I am intrigue, nearly entranced. The men place a screen of bear skins supported by sticks planted in the sand of the cave, around her. Everyone waits while the cries are getting louder. There is intermittent calm between shouts. I don’t have a sense of time here but it seems that the birthing is happening over hours. I remember one needs a lot of warm water for this. I’m not an expert. I wait. We all wait.

The cries of a baby resonate inside the cave. A new individual has come to life precariously in a precarious world that these humans will conquer. I know. I know. I hear commotion and the women are cleaning up the mess. Births are a messy business. 

Can I make it my mission here to stop humans from inventing the atom bomb? There is a long way to go, including a big melt. I have no idea if I will live another 20,000 years to see the ice vanish.

Some of the women place some raw old meat on stick near the fire. I quietly say: “can I have something to drink, please?” Someone understood and bring me a small hollow shell filled with melted snow. it’s so cold it could freeze my brains. A much bigger shell is placed on the fireside. It is filled with roots and leaves brought to the boil in water. Smart. 

The drink restores some of my sparkle. I ask to be untied. They guess I’m no threat. I’m puny and white like a cloud. They are muscular, toned and tough. A man comes and unleash the ropes, if one can call these things made of strong dried reeds knotted together. I feel stiff sitting up and can hardly move a muscle. I look around and a fear of the present is starting to haunt me. This is really happening. If I am not mistaken, the meat is from the loot taken from my previous hosts who are now dead or raped.

This is the way the world works. We need to steal proteins from something. We steal from nature by killing beasts or from other beings by stealing their catch. The bears catch salmons in rivers. We kill the bears and the salmons. I think.

My day used to be spent in an office thinking about clever ways to use words and images to twist sentiments and impulses to make people buy something they did not need. In this cave, there is little wants. Everything seems to be measured to provide basic needs. Yet, there is a sense of something beyond survival. A monotone song. A drawing on the wall. The mesmerising fire-god which seems to belong to them. 

Everyone has their place of designated choice in a hierarchy of power and wisdom. “Grandpa” seems to be looked after like a priest of an arcane future, which may not even stretch to the next day. He looks old but is he? He would have finished his stints as a warrior and hunter, though I would lose if we fought each other. No, he does not wear glasses, though for a split second, I though he did. Tricks of memory. The cave fills with smoke. The dinner was like a royal tucker, I was so starved. The singed meat was tender medium-rare and the boiled roots were deliciously salted. They talk. Words are grunts are words. Meanings are elusive to me like the smoke. They talk about the ancestors, the weather and where to find the best stones for axes and spears, I think. I think. Atom bombs are not that bad if they are not madly used, like a mutual assured destruction keeping the peace. Unfortunately, those who do not have the bomb get hammered by the big boys who have. The Neanderthals will become extinct. Knowing this future makes me sad. Knowing the future makes me sad. The smoke talks to me: why sad? After having spent a lot of my life trying to make people buy stuff, I see a strange personal discontinuum. We’re born, we live, we do things and we die. Others carry the torch for the species towards an indefinite wave of protein-exchange that may become more and more structured until it is surpassed by the virtual imagination of artificial intelligence. We invent gods. I guess I know too much or too little and, if I joined the conversation with what I know, I would not make any sense, would I? I’d be like a monkey trying to tell a conference of philosophers about the art of choice. I wonder which side of our brains is for peace or war. Which side decides we want to live cowardly or die courageously. Heroism is for fools, especially if one commands other fools. The smoke is twirling with bright cinders like little drones that have escaped control. 

The baby cries. A few kids I had not noticed before come and go like dancing screaming leprechauns. The wolf-dogs eat the scraps. the rats eat the crumbs. The kids fall asleep. One of them was looking at me, as if I was a ghost. He could be right. 

Everyone except one man fall asleep. I dream.

Do I have a wife and kids? Do these humans sanctify sex with marriage or is it an open for all business? Why is life so complicated? I am seduced by a beautiful woman who I never met before. All the landscapes we travel through are gloriously lit by the eternal sun. Rocks along rivieras, Rivers of gold, Forests of flowers… Our hands touch like silk. The baby cries again but he’s soon breast-fed and our dreams continue as the fire is stoked once more. If bliss was a reality, this would fit my state of mind. A ghost. I could be a ghost. White like a cloud of silk.

Robert Urbanoski — CONTINUED....

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

         RABID ATHEIST.

         WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….

Long hair and beards. This is what I notice now. I must be looking weird to these people, especially the men. I have short hair, cut sides, I am bald on top and had a five o’clock shadow that now would look like a brown field of stubs in a mirror. I have blue eyes, but theirs are piercing like shiny sapphires. 

The women hair is long and straight, with a few of them having tentative plats on the sides. 

I still don’t know what is going to happen here. 

After eating a strange morning mix of herbs, grains and meat I feel out of place. I should be because I am out of place. I am amongst savages. Or are they? Or am I? They don’t seem to philosophise about their world, which is mine presently. I remember too much. My memory is stupidly not connecting to the situation. I think. To be or not to be. It’s irrelevant unless I challenge the synergy and start a losing fight. The men seem to be preparing something. There is the tinge of blood in the cold fresh air. I can feel it. The women are looking after a couple of the young girls. They seem to be pubescent. To be or not to be. To be or not to be. This repeat is all I know, yet more verses come into my mind like an alien thought: To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep, No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub: For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause—there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life.For who would bear the whips and scorns of time… My mind stops.

Some newcomers arrive. From what I can make out they are a different tribe or family. They come from afar. I remember in Africa, the natives used a word to measure distances. the sound of the word was stretched to indicate how far. A short sound meant sort of next door. a long long sound meant around 100 kilometres. Of course these tribes/families do not measure with a metric system, but a rudimentary innate subconscious appreciation of number of steps. They would not even be able to count from one to three though, but they would feel equivalence. One of their girls for one of ours. I understand perfectly the grunts mixed with gestures. It’s a trade of the gene pool. These mongrels seem to know that incest and inbreeding is a catastrophe for the wellbeing of the tribe. Survival is iffy if one has children with one’s sister. It is fascinating to watch the negotiation of the acceptable barbaric values. The other tribe seems to come from a day’s walk. They would have travelled till the sun came down, found shelter and started walking again at day break. 

They are offered food. there is some kind of unscripted ritual here. This is not the first time this trade has happened. 

Sitting against a wall, I am somewhat tied up with reeds with one free hand so I could eat. By now the bear skins that were hiding the woman giving birth have fallen on the sandy floor. She seems to be a half-way between a Neanderthal and these arguing sapiens. 

One of the new men points a finger at me and points to a youngish looking adult. I guess I am part of the trade. The young adult will stay here. I will be carried away or walked off with the other family. 

Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th'unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of?

Should I freak? The said new man comes towards me and cuts a short wound in one of my fingers with a very sharp stone. I shudder but the pain is manageable. He cuts a wound in one of his fingers too and joins our two wounds. I know. I know…. We are now blood brothers. I belong to him and he belongs to me. We have to look after one another. I saw the process in Kenya. It is an unbreakable bond. It is an unbreakable philosophy of care. I have to live. I have to be. He would be prepared to die for me...

Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action.

I shiver. I fear. I care. I faint. 

Robert Urbanoski — CONTINUED....

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

         RABID ATHEIST.

         WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….

I cannot find where I live, because the street names are in Russian. The city looks wonderful, full of vantage point overlooking the impressive canals and the wide streets lined with trees of greens and lovely parks. In the distance, I can see the bell-fray of the town where I was born. I am back where I live, but everything is out of place. I am looking for an address on the North Shore to visit some friends I don’t know yet, but I can’t go further than the ornate front of a pretty train station and I find a Made in the USA location. There, in semi-darkness, in many little factories, well-dressed men in suit and tie are busy making unfinished items I have no idea what they would be used for. They are stamped and bent plates destined to be shiny with chromes and nickels. Their sleeping dogs are full pedigreed and tame. Even the smiling Dobermans are decorated with pink bows. As I wait, a big truck glistening with horsepower passes by the cross-walk with a bumper notice to give an unemployed person a job. The avenues, the boulevards, the Parisian yellow ochre buildings are bathed in a summer light coming from all sides. Elegant people are walking everywhere and the unregistered revolutionary artists of the spray-can brigade have been eradicated. The balmy temperature cannot have been more than perfect. I am in between two worlds, one where my past has been the future and the present is now in the past. It is very pleasant despite being lost. 

I wake up. I’m freezing.

I am bobbling along tied to a stretcher made of a couple of long sticks and a weave of reeds. They have not invented the wheel. I laugh aloud at the thought. My new mob stops and they all look at me, except I can’t see the brutes who have been dragging me along. Then we all move again for a while in silence.

It’s sunset. Either they are a bunch of serious philosophers or brutes with no sense of irony. The fellow who has been carrying the cindering ashes inside a hollow stone starts a fire. With only a few words, the other men had collected leaves and small branches into a space between a few stones. It looks like they’ve stopped here before, on their way to the other tribe to exchange women. They can see I am shivering and, after untying me, except my feet, they place me near the fire, side on to it. Something is cooking. This time, the young girls seem to have organised something. A couple of dead birds have been dropped on the fire. The smell of burning feathers fills the air. I would suggest they are wild chickens being roasted alla prehistory: whole. The little beasts are turned over the flames with a stick. The tribe needs cooking lessons. I would laugh again but I do not dare. 

I forgot the name of the nuclear physicist who said sometimes it’s better not to know too much. I know too much. I have tears.

The taste is like bitter venison. The wolf-dogs eat the offals and the bones. The night is cold but still. the humidity is low. the night sky is moonless cloudless thus full of stars. If I had paid attention to some geography lessons I would be able to point to the northern star. I can’t but the twinkles are magic. Imagine not knowing about the impossible vast distances of space. Imagine that the sun is a god married to the moon goddess that only appears to be a mysterious companion which hides with a clockwork regularity and appears with a growing crescent until being in full bloom. You would be dancing and you would know that when one dies one joins the stars of the night. You would make this eventuality a ritual, of course.

I wonder what Judy is doing tonight. Judy is my wife. Was my wife. Will be my wife. In another world or other time. I remember one night we tried to see the stars and the only thing we could faintly see was Venus. The city lights were too bright. We made love nonetheless. 

Weird. I do not have a vehicle than can travel at 88 miles per hour through a wormhole and go back to the future. I’m stuck and strangely I feel grateful than these prehistoric humans have not killed me. My guess is they have a plan about what to do with me. Are they cannibals? 

We all should fall asleep under the millions of stars, except one man. One sentry. They know the woods are full of wild beasts. Bears. Wild boars. Snakes? One of the wolf-dogs sits by his side. The mutt will bark should there be any trouble coming. I can dream now. 

But I stay awake. Can I do a simple magic trick that will make them believe I’m a god or something?

I am in a position of inferiority. It’s not an inferiority complex. It’s distressingly situational. 

It’s a nightmare. Suddenly I think why would anyone wish to survive in such a hostile world? A cold that would kill you unless you kill something to get another animal skin for protection? And having to hunt very dangerous beasts to eat a badly cooked meal? Why? 

How do they know about not having kids with one’s sister or siblings? Do the have a secret codification of the process? My mind wanders. before I got drunk, before I left the modern world, there was a controversy about AI, artificial intelligence. Would it destroy humanity? Would our kids become dumber? Would my work as an advertising executive disappear? 

I see a shooting star. then another one in the sky above. A weird answer to my questions followed. Artificial intelligence may actually create brighter and cleverer minds. 

Lies plus force is the synergy used by our moronic deceitful leaders to control the masses. In advertising we don’t control people, but we do our best to corral them into thinking that a particular product will make them more attractive, more styled, more healthy, have more joy. The majority of people will stay under the spell of a better offer. Price. Politics are sold as offers for a better ideal of being controlled together, while promoting the idea of greed. You guess my drift. More truly intelligent people cannot be controlled with lies and deceit, thus artificial intelligence creating better thinkers is a bad thing for the systems. All sorts of conflicts between uneducated and smarter minds can become unmanageable by the systems of controls, our governments. 

The incongruity of being stuck amongst early humans and thinking of intelligence makes me cry. I am intelligent, I think. But I'm not super intelligent yet. I see another shooting star and a glimmer of hope enters my thoughts. Hope of what? Survival is the next. Hang in there, Roger. My name is Roger.

A male wolf-dog may have sensed my confusion and comes to lay flat next to me. He looks at me. His eyes seem to also question being here, like a reflection of my own turmoil. He has become a travelling companion for easy food and a pat. Tomorrow we carry on towards what I hope is a resting place. A cave. A haven. A haven so warm it would feel like heaven. Hell can wait. 

Robert Urbanoski — CONTINUED....

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

         RABID ATHEIST.

         WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….