The Mammoth Graveyard

The Mammoth Graveyard
June 25, 2014



By JC Collins




















Nearing the berm the man hesitates.  The forest edge bore down on him and its darkness threatened old comforts.  The boy was not visible from this angle and he would have to climb the berm in order to confirm what he hoped.

Using his gloved hands he grabbed the frozen roots meshed into the hard pile of muskeg and pulled himself to the top.  Peering down the other side he saw the boy squatting with his head in his hands.

The sound of the dozer was now distant, far away in thought but close at hand.  It was as if two realities were blended together here at the edge of the forest.

“I have come back for you,” said the man.



The man sat down on the cold ground beside the boy.  “I have made it safe for us.  Much has happened here,” he said.



“Yes. “



“Everywhere I needed to be.  We have learned much.”



“Being different is what makes you beautiful.  At a very young age we saw the world different than others.  The geometric patterns surrounded us and encompassed all of the things which supported us.  Others could not see what we saw.”

“I hid you from the outside world.  I’m sorry.  But now I’ve come back for you,” said the man.



“It was not safe.  You were innocent and pure.  The morning birds sang songs which could only be heard by you.  The sun washed over you and brought shimmering shapes of reality to life.  Life was savage for you, unbearable in its sudden and barbaric selfishness.”



“Yes.  And we avoided the pain by hiding.  At first there was make believe.  This served us well for many years.  But make believe worlds do not last and the savage things pulled us out into their world of hopeless abandon.  We were exposed at first but soon learned how to hide in the open.  Behind whiskey and fists we battered our way through the world, learning and waiting for the moments when opportunity gave way to reason.”

“We continued to grow and had sons of our own.  It was their strength which finally enabled me to come back for you.”



“They are themselves, the only thing they can be.  They are the dream which we once so desperately dreamed for ourselves. Now they are almost men themselves and forage in hidden lands of their own.”
“Never would I have given up, but there was much to do and learn.  We have traveled far from the place where I left you.  Along the way there have been many characters and lessons.  There was Johnny One Tooth, the native jester who taught us how to be grateful for all things in creation, even a stick of gum. “

“There was an old grey bearded man in a top hat who played the saxophone.  ‘We see what we want to see’ he told us.  The hardness of his life was visible in the crevices of his face and the yellow of his teeth.  And yet his eyes shined like happiness compounded.  Profound was his essence and subtle power.  I’m sure he has now left the land of the dead.  The world is less without him, and those like him.”

“A man called Happy selflessly helped us at the gym.  The lesson he had to teach was how to workout all parts equally.  Still today, I am pushed by his words to work my legs harder so I may stand firmer upon the earth.”



“No.  I have lived so you may live.  You are special beyond what you understand.  You will see things and patterns that very few are able too.  You will do amazing things when freed from me and the world I have created for us.”



“Yes.  Now come home with me.”

The man reached out his hand and the boy took it.  Together they climbed the berm and crawled down the other side.  Across the field the yells of the men could be heard.  They had uncovered another of the buried treasures.

The boy stared at the man and drifted inward upon all the yesterdays which still exist.

The dozer sat idle as the other men surrounded the rear of the machine.  The ripper tooth was fully penetrated into the ground.  Pick axes swung as the heaters were placed around the perimeter.  Slowly, inch by inch, chucks of frozen ground were removed.

The dozer, a machine weighing 100 tons, had been stopped dead in its tracks when the ripper, while tearing up the land, had hit another mammoth tusk frozen in the ground.  This area, once a sprawling field where the mighty mammoth grazed, was now the graveyard for the very same animals.

The ivory tusk, when frozen into the ground, was too hard for the dozer to break through.  The men worked hard to release the tusk and get the machine back to work.

The man, no longer thinking about the boy, reached down and lifted the tusk from its long grave.  The morning ice fog now parted and the sun heated the world of  a new day.  Somewhere in the distance the man could hear the laughter of children at play.

 - JC

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