The Words - An Autobiography

One Hundred Million Years

One Hundred Million years before my birth:

The reign of the dinosaurs was well established. Packs of massive, placid, long-necked beasts, submerged to their shoulders, pulled mouthfuls of plants along the water's edge and chewed like oddly shaped, oversized cows. The fact that the names of some of these fantastic beasts had been arbitrarily changed during my youth bothered me far more than that they'd initially placed the wrong head on one of the early skeletons they'd assembled. I grudgingly but gradually corrected my mental images of the animal, but I stubbornly continued to use the original name, wrong head or not.

Pluto was a planet, then not. Some of these basic facts were part of my youthful understanding of my world, and the unreliability of these facts continued to annoy me. At one-hundred-million years of age, I should have adjusted to facts and foundations that were knocked from beneath me in far more profound ways. But those still stood foremost in my mind. Granting Pluto's return to its original standing did nothing but further discredit the scientists who couldn't make up their minds while continuing to insist they knew it all.

I also had the image, still clear in my thoughts, of a Tyrannosaurus Rex tearing a great chunk of meat from the flank of some animal not yet quite dead. Again, my supposition was that this animal had been pursued and chased down, terrified for its life, or ambushed when this monster rushed from the trees; that it had felt the excruciating pain of those terrible teeth when pinned beneath the T-Rex's huge, clawed foot, it had been powerless as it felt its guts torn from its body. But Tyrannosaurus was not quite the Rex of my childhood nightmares, either. Nothing more than a huge, flightless vulture. The animal whose carcass Rex fed upon was likely already dead of natural causes or had been killed by some other horrible unnamed beast. Tyrannosaurus simply scented the rotting corpse and came ambling along for a free meal.

Once again, paleontologists provided me one of my most vivid childhood memories, then flippantly tossed it away. The fact they knew nothing wasn't what bothered me most. That was their insistence that they were right and everyone preceding them had been mistaken and incompetent. Then, once proven wrong, they argued they were not until vindicated by some newer publication claiming they were right after all. And they immediately proclaimed they had known it all along as a certainty, without ever entertaining a doubt. However, the newer publication contained a minor misprint, leaving out a single word, 'not.' 'Was not.' Wrong, wrong, triple wrong, without a hint of hesitation in their arrogance between them. Science, when you hear me decry the arrogance of religion, don't be the slightest bit smug. Just own up. You know nothing, either.

Life is an endless journey of discovery, where we continue to know nothing. Just enjoy the ride and be open to all the surprises along the way.

One-Hundred-Million years since my birth:

If a million years once seemed incomprehensible, I'd now lived a hundred of those, each feeling less than the last. For the first time, I thought I might be on my way to living a thousand of those million years - a number I was hesitant to allow myself to pronounce.

Mary and I had friends across the universe. For some, we'd once been, or still were, imaginary friends. Some we encountered as we'd zipped ethereally across the universe. In other instances, we'd been sitting in our gazebo while others were those ethereally zipping.

Physically, we'd never traveled beyond our solar system. A few loops out around Pluto and back was as far as we'd gone. I wasn't sure whether it qualified as a planet or not, but we had viewed it up close and personal. We'd planted our feet on Mars and wrote our initials in the red dirt. Another iconic location, where we could say we'd been there.

On our most recent trip to the farthest edge of our solar system, our nearest neighboring star came as close as it ever would, with the expanding universe and all. We were tempted to extend our trip. There was one planet orbiting it that we'd have liked to visit. But, physically, the damn speed of light remained an obstacle, and even given all the years we had to complete the trip, I still complained that it would take too long.

The evolution of new human species on Earth continued, with a few cultures taking new and interesting paths. But it was primarily the repetition of dominance and killing off the competition. And familiar social norms concerning sex; once again, with varying degrees of inflexibility or tolerance, and the recurring theme of male insistence that 'she's mine, even if she claims she's not,' followed by the violence associated with any such disputes over whose property she was, no matter what she had to say about the subject. It was the same for the evolving apes and dogs, even the smart ones. I doubt my mother would have ever agreed, but I suspected only the dolphins got it right.

As for the Earth itself, we'd seen nearly every inch of it multiple times. But the planet wasn't static, more a living thing, where there were continual changes that made it interesting enough to revisit various parts every thousand years or so. Even then, we realized that we'd only examined the surface. There was still so much above, beneath, and beyond.

The gift:

There wasn't much left for us to give one another, other than our continued love and companionship, physically, spiritually, and ethereally. We didn't need any material thing. In fact, 'need' was a word we'd agreed long ago that we should discontinue using. So, more correctly, we didn't want for or desired any material thing. We wanted to go to new places, have new experiences, and learn new things, even if the Earth was running out of those to offer. And we wanted to experience it together - to share it all.

Still, Mary wanted to have some token gift to give me. Since we'd ceased wanting anything for longer than either of us could remember, gag gifts had become our favorites. We had the technology to conjure up anything we imagined, and both had excellent imaginations. The challenge was to surprise one another when we continually shared nearly every thought, experience, and emotion.

Mary handed me a small box wrapped in gift paper, like those we'd received as children. I opened it cautiously, aware that the size of the box provided no indication of the size of its contents. I wasn't sure a full-size, living T-Rex wouldn't be what popped out. As it turned out, it was a T-Rex, but only a small remote-controlled plastic toy, which walked around, made awful noises and could bend down and grab things in its plastic teeth.

I told Mary, "Thank you. I wanted one of these so badly when I was a little kid. Hard to fathom now, but we couldn't afford one."

She gave me a look that reminded me again; there was nearly nothing that she didn't already know. I put my T-Rex on the floor and had it chase her around the room until a much larger dinosaur appeared out of nowhere and swallowed it. She gave me her 'who's funny now' grin. The larger dinosaur dissipated, but not before shitting mine out on the floor. I expected to find a bloody chunk torn from its side, but it was undamaged. Just buried in an awful-smelling mess. I got the message.

One hundred million, as requested, was a quiet night at home without regrets or disappointment. My wife didn't pay a visit, as she had so many times in the past. Anytime Mary sensed the pain of my loss had grown especially acute again, she did her best to ease it. Since I wouldn't agree to clone my wife, Mary had returned her to me in ways I could accept.

Instead of my wife, my visitors that evening included half a dozen women about whom I'd once fantasized. Some from magazines or movies, and some I'd once known, including the girl from high school with whom I'd had such a disastrous date and the broken heart that followed. I recalled seeing her as an old woman and couldn't shake that image, so if she hadn't walked into our bedroom naked, she'd never have gotten out of her clothes. As it was, all I did was to cop a feel of her naked breast, which would have been well beyond anything I'd ever have dared back in high school. Although, I had dared to dream far more. My date to the prom, I kissed as I once had, then I could only apologize for being such a socially inept ass. But I finally fucked the brains out of the green-eyed, red-headed, red-pubed woman of my first wet dream.

I told her, "That was a long time coming."

Then Mary was present again, smiling at me with the repartee, "It didn't take that long. But I didn't expect it would. Like to do her again, or should I surprise you?"

"You know how I love surprises."