• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1074 0

made me see how underneath me all the city, every building in it, was fouled by war, how everywhere lay the loads of corpses, how in every street groups of beasts fought each other, and now so crazed and weary were they that they fought within the species, without even the excuse of a difference in fur or hide or shape of muzzle or eye. They fought monkey with monkey, rat-beast with rat-beast. Fighting had become its own justification and they could not stop. And under every bush and in the corner of every house lay the wounded moaning and licking their wounds. Just as we came sweeping low in a final circuit, not twenty paces from my cliff’s edge, I saw a female Rat-dog, with its sleek brown hide all bloodied and gashed, sitting up with its back to a wall, snapping at a couple of male Rat-dogs, and at the same time she was giving birth. Puppies tumbled out of her scarlet slit in a spout of blood and tissue, while she fought for her life. The two round mounds on her chest which were her breasts, were swollen and had been torn, so that blood and milk poured out together. Her sharp muzzle had hairy flesh hanging from her teeth, and as she snapped and bit at the two tall staggering males who menaced her, she became so crazed with fear and the need to help her puppies’ birth, that even as she fought, she would give a deadly snap in front, at an antagonist, and then snap downwards at her young, and perhaps wound or kill one, and then another random desperate bite at an antagonist, and then snap downwards again, and then back at the pressing enemies, so that it looked as if she were fighting her puppies as much as the two males who were as mad with long fighting as she was, for notwithstanding they were trying to kill her (or at least acting in such a way that she had to defend herself) and indeed succeeding, for she sank down in her own blood as we swept past the group, their sexual organs were swollen with excitement, and one of them attempted to mate with her even as she died. She died in a spasm that was as much a birth- as a death-spasm.

On the cliff’s edge I tumbled off the bird’s warm strong back, and lay face down, weeping. Now I believed that everything was ended, and there was no hope anywhere for man or for the animals of the earth.

But at last, when I lifted myself up, the white bird was still there, and it was looking at me with its golden eyes, its straight yellow beak bent towards me, in its severe but kindly way. It seemed to want me to attend to it, and when I was properly recovered and standing up, it began walking in through the houses of the city to the centre. Now I looked up and saw that the moon must be near full, and I could see the sheet of silver stretching up into the sky over the sea where the moon would rise. I wanted the bird to stop, for I was afraid this marvellous creature might be killed by the warring beasts. But it seemed as if they were quieter. The war had worked itself to its end. Scuffling and sparring went on; couples or small groups fought. But packs of both Rat-dogs and monkeys sat licking themselves and whining and moaning. And although they had all been fighting each other to the death for days, now they seemed almost indifferent to each other’s presence, and monkeys licked the sores of Rat-dogs, and Rat-dogs accepted it as homage or submission.

The bird took to its wings and swooped low over the earth along the streets, inwards to the square. I followed. There the bird settled, folding its wings, and standing erect, its narrow yellow beak held stiffly down, with its usual effect of propriety. And just as my heart beat with terror that it would be killed, I saw that all the beasts were afraid of it. Everywhere over the great stone square, animals backed away, the monkeys gibbering and grimacing, and the Rat-dogs back on their feet again, retreating, squinting down one side of their faces and then the other—until they felt themselves safe, when they let themselves drop back on all fours and slunk away.

The bird stood quietly in the centre of the circle. And now I understood it was