Faceless
A jungle. The jungle. Africa. As easily as I knew I was inside looking out, I was aware I was in Africa. The clues around me from dense vegetation to animals indigenous to no where else further convincing me of where I was. Nothing offered a clue as to how I got here. How I flew from a location near onto the other side of the Earth all the way here in an eyeblink. But here I was. At least my conscious self. The body as I have said was not mine.
While the body was indeed male, as was my own, this one was browned and muscular. It was as naked as the day born and seemed to find great joy in the long strides and great strength it possesed. And around it it had companions. Many hairy shaggy companions. Apes. The great apes. Gorillas. The body moved with them and through them and around them. The body belonged to the group in the same way any other ape born into the group would have belonged. It was one with them and part of them. And now I was also a part, albeit only that of an observer.
For hours I moved along with them entirely captivated with the sights and wonders of a world I would have never have known if it weren't for this suden transition. I watched as the group fed. Let my mind wander when they napped. Saw the little ones at play and the older males look all too important for the benefit of themselves alone. I felt a respect for their life and a longing to experience more. But as has been said many a time before, be careful for what you wish for.
A sound ripped the quiet afternoon. A terrible scream followed by a booming echo that could only have been a gunshot. I felt the body I was in rise and spring toward the noise. The smells in the air tickling the nose to declare what was around and ahead and behind. The body finding hidden trails through the dense vegetation as easily as I would have walked down a sidewalk at home we were soon near the edge of the densest of jungle and upon a clearing. An acid smell rose into the nose I shared. A sharp metallic smell. Blood and cordite. There in the darkness at the edge of the jungle the body I shared stopped. There in the shadows it looked toward the sounds and smells at what had caused all the excitement.
In the clearing were some dark brown men. As dark brown as the blackest of coffee. Smiling and laughing as they went about their work. Hustling and bustling busy at the task at hand. But what a task. What a work. There on the ground between them stood a mound of gorilla skins. Off to the side a smaller mound of hands and feet. Another a mound of heads. Nearest the fire meat was being cut into chunks and packed into large leaves much like banana leaves. And still the men chattered and talked amongst themselves. Their laughter a goad to he I inhabited. I could feel, actually feel, the hatred and rage that rose with the chest of the body I was in. Then suddenly with a primal scream I felt the legs spring forward and place the body I was in right in the midle of the camp.
After the first neck was broken. After the first screams of pain from the hunters. It was all a blur. I knew I was still there. I could see the flailing of arms and legs. I could see the blood of the hunters. I could hear their screams. But I could no longer see anything. It was all covered with a veil. Like looking through silk colored red. I could hear and smell and knew so much was going on but I could see nothing. Then I heard a shot. Felt a pressure that pushed me up and out of the body. Then there I was floating above it all. Looking down upon it all. Looking down on the body I had just been in. Laid out it was. Looking now alot more helpless than it had been when it ran through the trees and glided through jungle trails.
Taking in all that lay before me I saw several of the dark skinned men laying motionless. I took them for dead and was most likely right. The skins during the scuffle had been tossed into the fire. There they smoldered and burned. I knew they smelled horrid as only burning hair can but being without a body could not really smell them. Those still standing were cautious as they approached the still form laying on the ground.
I watched in some horror as one of the coffee dark men stepped forward and raised the head from the ground by the hair. Then puzzled over why I was able to understand his speech. For I knew his words as sure as I know my own. He tightly grasped the hair of the fallen warrior, a trickle of blood flowed down the warrior's scalp from a furrow dug through the scalp by a bullet. Then looking around at the mess at his feet, at the dead bodies of his friends, at the smoking remains of the skins, he raised his head to the skys and laughed. "The Gods having taken away our skins today and saw fit to provide us with another." With that he quickly and cleanly made a circular cut around the warriors neck and just as quickly and cleanly pulled all the skin away leaving only flesh and bone beneath. With horror I realized the warrior yet breathed and was so torn that I disappeared. Poof. I was gone. Back in my own body, my own place, my own time, my own town. No where near Africa. No where near the slaughter of a hunt.
I forgot all this over time, some months actually, as the day to day worries of work and bills pushed it further and further into my memory so it became as but a dream. Just a fleeting fantasy during a quick nod at the office. It wasn't until the day I visited the museum. Visited the African anthropological convention. There with my wife and friends we listened to the lectures of scientist who had just returned from classifying new plant and animal species. It was there we heard the story of a man who had been living with the great apes for some time. A scientist who had gone in to study and had disappeared not to be heard from for many years. Until the day some poachers got to drinking and told the wrong person of the white demon they had skinned and left for dead in the jungle. How the scientist had found the still breathing form of what was once a man. And then proceeded to wheel the poor soul out for all to see.
Gone was all the hair and skin on the head. Where eyelids had once been now were two round orbits in which the eyes rolled in the most distasteful fashion. Where once were ears and nose now were but holes in heavily scarred tissue. Where once were lips now was a leering smile forever destined to remind all of a horrible death. Atop the head was a crown of sorts. We were told it pumped liquid around the scalp so as to keep the head cool since the sweat glands and heat exchanges a scalp provides were no longer there. And we each stood when the lecture ended and walked by the monstrous form one by one and offered a hand shake. When my turn came I to offered my hand. What else could I do? To tell this poor form of all I had saw would change nothing and most probably would have assured me a place in the asylum. So I shook his hand. And with a firm grip that showed some of the strength this body once held he whispered to me, "Never forget." And I never shall.
