General Fiction posted October 5, 2022 |
We are not always as we are percieved
The Last Violent Man
by DeboraDyess
He cowered, hoping that the cover of darkness would be enough. The idea of hiding had been foreign to him only a few years before. But what choice did he have now.
Cowering like a rat, he thought. Cowering... Coward. That says it all.
He was the last. He was as sure of that as he was of his own name. The Nates had tried to erase that, too, but he knew it. To them, he was the last violent man. But he knew better. He was Isoph Smi. And, until they forced his hand, he wasn't violent. He was simply the last man.
When the spacecraft carrying his people landed on this strange planet, they'd been welcomed by the natives, fondly dubbed the 'Naties' by those first human explorers. They'd lived in peace for two centuries, each embracing the other as equals. The planet's original inhabitants encouraged Man to grow and become strong, recognizing that their unique approach to life and problem-solving would enhance their own culture. For the Humans, the Naties offered new ideas and technologies that greatly enabled them to increase in knowledge and numbers. Together, they'd both thrived.
But, Istoph thought with a bitterness that no longer surprised him, that had been then.
He scanned the underbrush, tensing at the sound of twigs breaking near him. A head peeked through the leaves and Istoph released a held breath. Not one of his Natie pursuers he saw, but a prang. The deer-like animal stared at him for a brief moment with inquisitive turquoise eyes but dropped its gaze back to the grass, uninterested in anything it couldn't nibble. It grazed as it passed on. Istoph inched back, careful not to allow the creature to touch him with its long fur. The Natie could detect the scent of humans on anything and were excellent trackers. If the prang brushed against him with the smallest patch of fur, that, together with the animal's whereabouts, would be enough. He didn't need anything to help them narrow their search.
Two generations ago, about the time Istoph was born, new Natie rulers came into power. For no apparent reason, they identified Man as violent. "Look at their history," became a popular phrase. "They destroyed their own planet and now are attempting to take ours."
That had been partly true, and Isoph had to acknowledge that. Earth had been shattered by irresponsible uses of resources, devastated by the phenomena of global warming seasons and, finally, destroyed in a war for the few remaining, survivable places on the planet's surface. In the last hundred years of the planet's life, survival ships had been sent in various directions across the galaxy hoping to find inhabitable planets and save at least a remnant of the species. One held Isoph's ancestors. It landed here.
"Man is unpredictable. They are ignorant. They have no place in our banks, in our places of worship, or restuarants. They have no place in our shops or streets," he'd heard one Natie speak passionately on a street corner as he headed into class at the University. He'd ducked into a doorway to avoid the crowd of agitated Naties, peering out only after that crowd had dispersed.
But the violence the new leaders referred to was so far in the past that even many of the Naties originally rolled their eyes at the claims.
"Don't worry, Isoph," his professor at the university assured him with a wry smile. "This is a passing fad. It's not the first time this conversation has occurred. It won't be the last. The last time, I was a boy not much younger than you are now, and look." He patted the broad expanse of his waistline, what seemed to be a commonality among his age-group. "These politicians... They're trying to hide their own incompetence by shifting the populace's attention to others. No one with any intelligence will believe this. All, Natie and Man alike, will see through their ploy."
The professor, the son of a human father and Natie mother, was part of an experiment - a Man-Nate hybrid. He'd been one of the first to be arrested, herded into a sports arena, and publicly executed. When Isoph heard the news, his mouth went dry and he began to prepare.
When his new bride looked at him with questions in her eyes, he'd shrugged and resumed target practice, using the antiquated weapon called a 'bow and arrows'. "I'll only use it to hunt prang and opousi, should the need arise. It is far better to prepare and not need it, Terwa, than to need it and be ill-prepared."
The Man-hunting began in earnest two years later. Isoph took his sweet Terwa and their new son to a spot he'd purchased in a private transaction and prepared as a long-term hiding place. They lived there for another two years, hunting and farming, before they were betrayed by the human who sold them the land.
With Natie approaching from every direction, Terwa shoved Cojun into Isoph's arms and pushed him into an escape hatch in their cabin. He braced himself against her tiny hands, refusing to move.
"You take him," he'd whispered, urgency making his voice harsh and raspy. "I can hold them off until you're --"
"No," she'd hissed through gritted teeth, tears staining her face. "Hide and save our son, Isoph. You know you give him a better chance of survival than I ever could."
Isoph shook his head, grabbed her hand and pulled. "No! I won't leave you here. We need you... The baby needs you. I do." His voice broke on that last word. He knew she was right.
"I can't save him, Isoph. But you might. And they already know someone is here. If they find the cabin empty..." Then she turned and yelled, "I'm coming out! Please don't shoot me! I'm alone."
Isoph grabbed Terwa's face in both hands and kissed her. He could have forced her to take the child, shoved her into the hidden entrance to the tunnel, and made her go. But she was right. "I'll keep him alive," he promised, his eyes filling with salty tears as he ducked into the hole that led to freedom.
Freedom. He snorted and shook his head, sorrow filling his chest until there was no room for breath or heart. Freedom was as extinct as his people. As his family.
He'd found a group of Undergrounders, a loosely organized group of Man that had evaded capture. They took him in, helped him with his son, and concocted flawed plan after flawed plan to escape the planet.
"We can go to one of the moons," Praul argued with him one night.
"Which moon? Which one has the atmosphere to support our lives without transformation and machinery? Which one of those hasn't already been colonized by the Natie? We have neither the ability to get to a moon nor the ability to survive when we do."
Praul leaned close to him. "Then come up with something else, Isoph. Because we're running out of time." He pointed to Cojun, finally asleep on a mat on the floor near a heating unit they'd managed to steal. "He's running out of time, Isoph."
Prophecy, Isoph thought now. Foreshadowing. And he cursed the thought of Praul and his words.
Cojun awoke the next morning with a cough. It was a little thing at first, but it never went away. And, with each passing day, it grew deeper. Longer. More intense. It took more of his energy and left him pale and fragile within a month. They buried the little boy six weeks later and Isoph, inconsolable, stayed by his son's tiny grave as the others returned to their hiding-hovel.
Praul hesitated as he left. "Come with us, Isoph," he urged. "There is nothing for you here. Cojun is gone."
Isoph didn't look away from the freshly turned earth. "There is nothing for me there."
"Isoph," Praul began but stopped when he received a curt shake of the head and a stare that would bore holes through the side of a spacecraft.
"Leave me," he ordered. "My wife gave her life so he could live. And now he is gone, as well. I promised her. I owe her for her sacrifice. There is nothing left for me." He returned his gaze to the grave.
Praul turned to go. Over his shoulder, he said, "You owe your life to all Man. We are being wiped from this planet, Isoph. You owe it to all of us to live." He ducked his head to pass beneath a thick group of branches hanging low over the animal path they'd used, and disappeared.
Isoph sat with Cojun until dawn. Then, shaking the dirt from his worn pants, he rose. "I will live, Cojun,," he promised quietly. "I will honor you and your mother by living." But as he turned to go, he heard the Natie's Searcher Craft swoop low overhead. He ducked down, taking cover beneath the grove of trees next to him. A blast of its high-intensity beam, its HIB, glowed over the hiding place he'd called home since losing Terwa. The ground beneath his feet shuddered as if showing its reluctance to give way to the weapon and then stilled. Isoph crashed to his knees again.
They're gone, he thought, screaming inside his head. They're all gone... He pictured Praul's face as they lay the small blanket holding Cojun's little body into the hole they'd dug. He pictured the faces of all of them - the women who'd taken care of Cojun until there was no more to do, the old man who taught them all to farm, the children who had been his son's friends. All gone.
He'd searched for more Man but never found one. And he'd been safe, or at least as safe as a lone survivor of geneoside could be. He'd stolen clothes from disposal bins, eating roots and bugs when nothing else presented itself. One early evening while foraging, he heard the announcement.
"The threat that was Man has been eliminated," the voice assured the listening Naties . "Those attempting to hide and rebuild their numbers have been eliminated. The final three hives were destroyed this morning and the vermin called Himan are no more."
A huge volley of cheers rose, completely covering the sound of Isoph's heart breaking. He covered his mouth with a filthy hand and buried his face in the dirt as he fell.
As the sun began to peer over the edge of the planet's curve, highlighting the Morning Moon, Isoph felt a shoe nudge his side. He didn't move.
"It's dead," a small voice whispered. "I think it's dead."
"Back away. I hear they carry diseases that can take a Native's life in less than a day." Another whispered voice, very young, very anxious.
"That's not true," the first child insisted. "My father --"
Isoph sprang to his feet. "Your father was wrong!" he bellowed.
He laughed as the children screamed and disappeared. It was foolishness, Isoph knew. He should have waited for them to leave and then slipped off into the fields of wobil that grew thickly along the sides of the path. But as the children transported themselves away, he laughed. It sounded mad, even to his own ears.
And it sounded like a death bell, ringing in his head.
Now, he cowered. Darkness began to gather around him as he thought of all the people he'd loved and lost. Hopelessness filled him. When the Searcher Craft neared again, he tried to inch closer to the thick trunk of the tree beside him but that movement gave him away.
A HIB shot down on him and, as the high-intensity beam did its work, two Natie Eliminators descended from the craft hovering above him.
As Isoph fell to the dirt, feeling his skin and blood bake, tasting the soil's metallic bite, he thought he saw Terwa and Cojun in the underbrush. A smile forced its way onto his lips as he heard one of the Naties speak into his mi com-link.
"The last violent man is eliminated."
And then all went dark.
Science Fiction Writing contest entry
He cowered, hoping that the cover of darkness would be enough. The idea of hiding had been foreign to him only a few years before. But what choice did he have now.
Cowering like a rat, he thought. Cowering... Coward. That says it all.
He was the last. He was as sure of that as he was of his own name. The Nates had tried to erase that, too, but he knew it. To them, he was the last violent man. But he knew better. He was Isoph Smi. And, until they forced his hand, he wasn't violent. He was simply the last man.
When the spacecraft carrying his people landed on this strange planet, they'd been welcomed by the natives, fondly dubbed the 'Naties' by those first human explorers. They'd lived in peace for two centuries, each embracing the other as equals. The planet's original inhabitants encouraged Man to grow and become strong, recognizing that their unique approach to life and problem-solving would enhance their own culture. For the Humans, the Naties offered new ideas and technologies that greatly enabled them to increase in knowledge and numbers. Together, they'd both thrived.
But, Istoph thought with a bitterness that no longer surprised him, that had been then.
He scanned the underbrush, tensing at the sound of twigs breaking near him. A head peeked through the leaves and Istoph released a held breath. Not one of his Natie pursuers he saw, but a prang. The deer-like animal stared at him for a brief moment with inquisitive turquoise eyes but dropped its gaze back to the grass, uninterested in anything it couldn't nibble. It grazed as it passed on. Istoph inched back, careful not to allow the creature to touch him with its long fur. The Natie could detect the scent of humans on anything and were excellent trackers. If the prang brushed against him with the smallest patch of fur, that, together with the animal's whereabouts, would be enough. He didn't need anything to help them narrow their search.
Two generations ago, about the time Istoph was born, new Natie rulers came into power. For no apparent reason, they identified Man as violent. "Look at their history," became a popular phrase. "They destroyed their own planet and now are attempting to take ours."
That had been partly true, and Isoph had to acknowledge that. Earth had been shattered by irresponsible uses of resources, devastated by the phenomena of global warming seasons and, finally, destroyed in a war for the few remaining, survivable places on the planet's surface. In the last hundred years of the planet's life, survival ships had been sent in various directions across the galaxy hoping to find inhabitable planets and save at least a remnant of the species. One held Isoph's ancestors. It landed here.
"Man is unpredictable. They are ignorant. They have no place in our banks, in our places of worship, or restuarants. They have no place in our shops or streets," he'd heard one Natie speak passionately on a street corner as he headed into class at the University. He'd ducked into a doorway to avoid the crowd of agitated Naties, peering out only after that crowd had dispersed.
But the violence the new leaders referred to was so far in the past that even many of the Naties originally rolled their eyes at the claims.
"Don't worry, Isoph," his professor at the university assured him with a wry smile. "This is a passing fad. It's not the first time this conversation has occurred. It won't be the last. The last time, I was a boy not much younger than you are now, and look." He patted the broad expanse of his waistline, what seemed to be a commonality among his age-group. "These politicians... They're trying to hide their own incompetence by shifting the populace's attention to others. No one with any intelligence will believe this. All, Natie and Man alike, will see through their ploy."
The professor, the son of a human father and Natie mother, was part of an experiment - a Man-Nate hybrid. He'd been one of the first to be arrested, herded into a sports arena, and publicly executed. When Isoph heard the news, his mouth went dry and he began to prepare.
When his new bride looked at him with questions in her eyes, he'd shrugged and resumed target practice, using the antiquated weapon called a 'bow and arrows'. "I'll only use it to hunt prang and opousi, should the need arise. It is far better to prepare and not need it, Terwa, than to need it and be ill-prepared."
The Man-hunting began in earnest two years later. Isoph took his sweet Terwa and their new son to a spot he'd purchased in a private transaction and prepared as a long-term hiding place. They lived there for another two years, hunting and farming, before they were betrayed by the human who sold them the land.
With Natie approaching from every direction, Terwa shoved Cojun into Isoph's arms and pushed him into an escape hatch in their cabin. He braced himself against her tiny hands, refusing to move.
"You take him," he'd whispered, urgency making his voice harsh and raspy. "I can hold them off until you're --"
"No," she'd hissed through gritted teeth, tears staining her face. "Hide and save our son, Isoph. You know you give him a better chance of survival than I ever could."
Isoph shook his head, grabbed her hand and pulled. "No! I won't leave you here. We need you... The baby needs you. I do." His voice broke on that last word. He knew she was right.
"I can't save him, Isoph. But you might. And they already know someone is here. If they find the cabin empty..." Then she turned and yelled, "I'm coming out! Please don't shoot me! I'm alone."
Isoph grabbed Terwa's face in both hands and kissed her. He could have forced her to take the child, shoved her into the hidden entrance to the tunnel, and made her go. But she was right. "I'll keep him alive," he promised, his eyes filling with salty tears as he ducked into the hole that led to freedom.
Freedom. He snorted and shook his head, sorrow filling his chest until there was no room for breath or heart. Freedom was as extinct as his people. As his family.
He'd found a group of Undergrounders, a loosely organized group of Man that had evaded capture. They took him in, helped him with his son, and concocted flawed plan after flawed plan to escape the planet.
"We can go to one of the moons," Praul argued with him one night.
"Which moon? Which one has the atmosphere to support our lives without transformation and machinery? Which one of those hasn't already been colonized by the Natie? We have neither the ability to get to a moon nor the ability to survive when we do."
Praul leaned close to him. "Then come up with something else, Isoph. Because we're running out of time." He pointed to Cojun, finally asleep on a mat on the floor near a heating unit they'd managed to steal. "He's running out of time, Isoph."
Prophecy, Isoph thought now. Foreshadowing. And he cursed the thought of Praul and his words.
Cojun awoke the next morning with a cough. It was a little thing at first, but it never went away. And, with each passing day, it grew deeper. Longer. More intense. It took more of his energy and left him pale and fragile within a month. They buried the little boy six weeks later and Isoph, inconsolable, stayed by his son's tiny grave as the others returned to their hiding-hovel.
Praul hesitated as he left. "Come with us, Isoph," he urged. "There is nothing for you here. Cojun is gone."
Isoph didn't look away from the freshly turned earth. "There is nothing for me there."
"Isoph," Praul began but stopped when he received a curt shake of the head and a stare that would bore holes through the side of a spacecraft.
"Leave me," he ordered. "My wife gave her life so he could live. And now he is gone, as well. I promised her. I owe her for her sacrifice. There is nothing left for me." He returned his gaze to the grave.
Praul turned to go. Over his shoulder, he said, "You owe your life to all Man. We are being wiped from this planet, Isoph. You owe it to all of us to live." He ducked his head to pass beneath a thick group of branches hanging low over the animal path they'd used, and disappeared.
Isoph sat with Cojun until dawn. Then, shaking the dirt from his worn pants, he rose. "I will live, Cojun,," he promised quietly. "I will honor you and your mother by living." But as he turned to go, he heard the Natie's Searcher Craft swoop low overhead. He ducked down, taking cover beneath the grove of trees next to him. A blast of its high-intensity beam, its HIB, glowed over the hiding place he'd called home since losing Terwa. The ground beneath his feet shuddered as if showing its reluctance to give way to the weapon and then stilled. Isoph crashed to his knees again.
They're gone, he thought, screaming inside his head. They're all gone... He pictured Praul's face as they lay the small blanket holding Cojun's little body into the hole they'd dug. He pictured the faces of all of them - the women who'd taken care of Cojun until there was no more to do, the old man who taught them all to farm, the children who had been his son's friends. All gone.
He'd searched for more Man but never found one. And he'd been safe, or at least as safe as a lone survivor of geneoside could be. He'd stolen clothes from disposal bins, eating roots and bugs when nothing else presented itself. One early evening while foraging, he heard the announcement.
"The threat that was Man has been eliminated," the voice assured the listening Naties . "Those attempting to hide and rebuild their numbers have been eliminated. The final three hives were destroyed this morning and the vermin called Himan are no more."
A huge volley of cheers rose, completely covering the sound of Isoph's heart breaking. He covered his mouth with a filthy hand and buried his face in the dirt as he fell.
As the sun began to peer over the edge of the planet's curve, highlighting the Morning Moon, Isoph felt a shoe nudge his side. He didn't move.
"It's dead," a small voice whispered. "I think it's dead."
"Back away. I hear they carry diseases that can take a Native's life in less than a day." Another whispered voice, very young, very anxious.
"That's not true," the first child insisted. "My father --"
Isoph sprang to his feet. "Your father was wrong!" he bellowed.
He laughed as the children screamed and disappeared. It was foolishness, Isoph knew. He should have waited for them to leave and then slipped off into the fields of wobil that grew thickly along the sides of the path. But as the children transported themselves away, he laughed. It sounded mad, even to his own ears.
And it sounded like a death bell, ringing in his head.
Now, he cowered. Darkness began to gather around him as he thought of all the people he'd loved and lost. Hopelessness filled him. When the Searcher Craft neared again, he tried to inch closer to the thick trunk of the tree beside him but that movement gave him away.
A HIB shot down on him and, as the high-intensity beam did its work, two Natie Eliminators descended from the craft hovering above him.
As Isoph fell to the dirt, feeling his skin and blood bake, tasting the soil's metallic bite, he thought he saw Terwa and Cojun in the underbrush. A smile forced its way onto his lips as he heard one of the Naties speak into his mi com-link.
"The last violent man is eliminated."
And then all went dark.
This isn't a feel-good story. But we're living in times that concern me.
I heard a woman make a statement that started this story. She said something like, "Members of MAGA (Make America Great Again) shouldn't be allowed in our banks, in our restaurants, in our stores or shops. They are a gang. They should be treated like any other gang. They are nothing but a lot of uneducated white people." (Yes, she was white.)
I was horrified. No matter what your political leanings, to make such a statement goes against our Constitution, not to mention human decency. It reminded me of Nazi Germany blaming its Jewish citizens for cultural issues before and during WWll.
Then I heard of a young man who was run down and killed by a man who called 911, stating, "I ran him over. I think he's MAGA."
Folks! We cannot heal our divide, either nationally or worldwide, with this hatred. I don't expect us to all join hands and sing a rousing round of Kumbi Ya, but if we don't start listening to each other and finding a way to interact and love what parts of the other we can, we are all doomed, just as Isoph was in this short story.
And now the sermon is almost over...
John 4:16 says 'God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.'
I know people outside of God can and do love richly and deeply. They can be the best of all of us (although that should not be true, Christ-followers!). But I believe we are entering a period where we need to start seeking God with all of our being.
Love you all, regardless of political agendas! We are Writing Brothers and Sisters.
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. I heard a woman make a statement that started this story. She said something like, "Members of MAGA (Make America Great Again) shouldn't be allowed in our banks, in our restaurants, in our stores or shops. They are a gang. They should be treated like any other gang. They are nothing but a lot of uneducated white people." (Yes, she was white.)
I was horrified. No matter what your political leanings, to make such a statement goes against our Constitution, not to mention human decency. It reminded me of Nazi Germany blaming its Jewish citizens for cultural issues before and during WWll.
Then I heard of a young man who was run down and killed by a man who called 911, stating, "I ran him over. I think he's MAGA."
Folks! We cannot heal our divide, either nationally or worldwide, with this hatred. I don't expect us to all join hands and sing a rousing round of Kumbi Ya, but if we don't start listening to each other and finding a way to interact and love what parts of the other we can, we are all doomed, just as Isoph was in this short story.
And now the sermon is almost over...
John 4:16 says 'God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.'
I know people outside of God can and do love richly and deeply. They can be the best of all of us (although that should not be true, Christ-followers!). But I believe we are entering a period where we need to start seeking God with all of our being.
Love you all, regardless of political agendas! We are Writing Brothers and Sisters.
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