Bag Serials: Adam #3

How does anyone go anywhere? It was all so complicated. First there’s the feet, taught and then relaxed alternating right to left and back again. And they move in ellipses, oblong cycling into the air with legs following, arms balancing with elbows pistoning like the whistling wind; rise and fall and rise in periodic time. He always trailed the pack. There was just too much to consider. He couldn’t understand the effortless flow of the others, their bodies seeming to fall forward through trees. Most of the time he ended up tripping over his elbows or smacking headlong into a tree or having his ear snagged and twisted by a passing elder hurrying him along.

Such a comfort to run alone now. He walked at dawn every morning, washing in river and grabbing a fig from a nearby tree before venturing out into the forest.  Each day he went bit a farther. Sometimes he strolled, taking in the sounds, eyeing the scattering animals and noting landmarks for later investigation. In other times, remembering the shame of his lack of coordination, he ran, flat out and with his eyes closed as far as he dared to go.

Once such time, while hurrying back home in the face of impending night, he found himself just finding his stride when his right foot planted itself at the heel unmovable. Cradled under his instep, a delicate and smooth thing not quiet a stone. It felt damp against his foot. Leaning back off balanced half falling, he lined his eye with the round white thing and confirmed his suspensions. It was an egg; the color of sand; shell almost translucent and full of subtle raised waves when he rubbed it against his finger. He fell silent considering it.

After a little while, a faint night chill blew against him and he stirred. The night he was fleeing was upon him. And yet here he was sitting, his hand caressing the egg, staring into the specks of dusk sky shining through the near-black canopy. The last time he saw a sight like this he was back with his family,  nesseled between his mother’s chest and forearm after a large meal. Most times the pack moved to a clearing to camp, but the night was clear and lit bright by the moon and they where all too satisfied to move. Exhaling back into reality, he carefully scooped the egg into his right hand and starting walking back towards the river. It was not as far away as it seemed.

He thought of eating it for a time. Eggs where often stolen from nests and gobbled as snacks when the hunt was particularly long. He even tried one once. He didn’t remember where and when exactly, but wherever it was, he definitely did not like it at the time. There was something about the thick consistence of the yoke that made him shake his head wildly and let his tongue flap in the air to the laughter of everyone around him. Still, he was much older now. Perhaps times had changed. And so one mid-afternoon in a clearing filled with blue, he sat posed to tap the egg on a stone when he saw a burst of yellow just ahead and above. The yellow broke into 3 parts, each moving loosely together as if attached to the other by a slack vine. They recollected on a tree, preening each other’s backs and scanning the sky. He had seen birds of this type several times before, but never as a pack. Perhaps they where a family. They flew off again just as quickly as they came, but not before he noticed one among them wandering a bit off course, a bit behind, and smaller, it seemed, in frame. And then they where gone. The egg lay unbroken in his lap.

From then on everything was up. Short vines where gripped and swung on to the sides of stubby trees grasped with ragged fingernails and up. His head was locked backward while he jogged through the brush and each evening he knelled fetally under a nearby cascade letting the pouring water workout the kinks in his neck. He ignored the pain. He had a mission. Somewhere there was a home for his egg. On walks, he saw small scurrying insects made of pine needles and dried husks of seed herd tiny copies into hollowed out logs. And young antelope, so long nothing but a meal, here reared up on hind legs swatting each other much like he and his brothers use to do. Once he saw even saw a ragged skinned hyena pack tumbling through a field and thought, for once, maybe their laugh was not the worst of sounds. And just like for them, somewhere there was home for this egg, he thought while chasing birds through the jungle in search of a perfect nest.

Finally, on a day filled with a dense fog, he saw a small red bird tend to a scribble of brown and then bolt to the sky. He had been tracking it for an hour. He climbed up the tree quickly and scurried over to the nest with careful, but eager steps. There it was. A sharp tangle of branch and grass and stem and slimy green vines and strange furry leaves dusted with white and bright colored pebbles and more. It was made of everything. All this set against 3 small sand-colored eggs lying scattered across the bottom perfectly placed. He could not bring himself to touch them.

Weary of bring too much attention to himself, he brushed a days’ worth of dirt off his egg and careful placed it in an unoccupied corner. As he let go, a lingering fingerprint clung to the side, fully in sight. He wondered if it would taint the egg’s chances of being accepted. Who knew, for that matter, if the mother bird would accept a new orphan any way? Hearing a rumble, he left these thoughts behind him, hurrying down the tree and back towards home. He was uncomfortably aware of empty space in his hand.

Walking towards the waterfall that night, staring into the dusk night backlit canopy, he thought again of the warmth of his mother chest. He had not thought of home in a long time. Hopefully his egg had found home. Hopefully mothers are the same everywhere.