Konsk: The Great Takeover of the Place
1. Unexpected Wilderness Arrival
Wild, Wilderness: derived from will, as in, 'having a will of its own'.
From Konsk: Appendices- '10,000 definitions of True Forest'1
There was a screaming that was not screaming, rather, the spontaneous discharge of retinal cells, causing flashes and sparks to appear on the inside of closed eyelids. The curve of green and grey that had loomed so menacingly, like the straining jaws of a vast hippo, became the booming of a heart, thundering in a dark sea. Out of rushing, splashing water, cascading from a great height, striking lichen covered boulders of grey granite, re-formed a trembling physical form. All the senses reordered themselves, back into a human body.
He let out a long-withheld breath; it seemed he was not going to die after all, or was not dead already. With that released breath came a little groan that sounded most strange. Then, he drew a shuddering inspiration and the eyes opened.
The new body was kneeling, surrounded by dense vegetation. A low, closed canopy of trees all but cut out the sky, a few flickers of light penetrating the leaf cover, sparkled off glowing, humming insects, dancing in the faintest breeze. Green clambered over fallen trunks, filling the spaces with mosses, fronds of ferns, trailing bramble, tangles of honeysuckle and ivy. Birds twittered and cheeped and flitted within the branches. The smell of damp earth and leaf mould, the air heavy with moisture.
Trueman could not quite believe it. Had that bizarre pair, the drugged up motor-bycyclist and the paranoid schizophrenic, had they then been right all along?
He allowed the first glint of realisation to dawn in his mind and the heart, the new heart began to race. He tried to enforce control. Let's be rational about this, he first thought, then vocalised.
“Let’th be rath'onal about thith.”
The sound of the voice made him start and for a moment he wondered who had spoken. Then, it's me, he realised, or rather, me speaking through a new body. He tried again, more carefully.
“Let’th be rational about thith, this!”
Better but the voice seemed constricted, tight, coming out with a bit of a squeak to it.
He examined the hands. They’re not my hands, he thought, the fingers shorter, much stronger, the wrists thicker, hairless, no watch or ring. Turning the palms upward, they looked sore, blistered, as if scorched and stained with something, something that had a dark reddish tone to it. He quickly turned his attention to the muscled, brown arms, marvelling. Yes, he possessed a different body, a powerful body!
The body laughed, more deep and resonant than the voice. He liked it and made it laugh again. He stood upright, examined the naked form, the solidity of the legs, the muscles, the thick veins like ropes.
It was rather badly scratched, he observed, quite deeply in places, some particularly dark, purply marks on one bulging thigh. No matter, it was a strong, healthy body and surely would heal rapidly.
It dawned upon him again, that he had done it! This most definitely was not 1984. He, Harold H. Trueman2, the intellectual giant, had successfully travelled backward in time over ten thousand years! The laughter grew, the pitch rising. From the vantage of his own mind he noted a certain lack of control.
“Get a grip!” He spoke out loud and repeated his mantra, “Let’th be rath'onal about thith, this!”
The control of the tongue was decidedly clumsy. This will take some getting used to, he thought and stood more stiffly erect, folding the unfamiliar arms right over left, then raising the right forearm, placing the index finger of the hand along the side of the nose in his old posture.
Or at least intending to- the finger poked the right eye sharply and the body yelped. The change in physical dimensions and geometries, he reasoned, rubbing the offended eye, feeling the orbit, the cheek, nose. There were rough areas, possibly lines in the skin, perhaps tribal markings and some sort of lump on the left side of his jaw.
This would take some getting used to, he repeated to himself- better to be careful at first, until he could get used to it, this new body.
“Let’th be rational,” he began, again, “And th-start from th-somewhere.”
The more conscious control of the tongue helped but it was still not easy to speak. Of course, he acknowledged, the patterns of movement of the mouth, lips and tongue will be completely unfamiliar and require the shaping of new volumetric spaces and hence the use of new sets of muscle groups. No wonder it was not easy.
He paused, musing, then continued.
“Presumably thith body was going th- somewhere when I... arrived,” he reasoned.
Moving very carefully and slowly he turned, first to the right, then to the left and constructed a panorama of his location. To Trueman, the only differences that could be remarked in all that mad tangle of vegetation were two darker patches in the undergrowth, one before, the other behind.
Not unlike tunnels, he considered, thoughtfully; the one behind leading down the slope, the other uphill. Possible made by people? No, the tunnels were roughly circular, large but not sufficiently large that a human might walk upright along them without stooping low. So possibly not people but animals. What species of animal might make tunnels through such dense, thorny undergrowth?
He made the body stand more erect again, folded the arms as before, slowly raised the right forearm and this time successfully laid the index finger along the side of the nose. He allowed a small smile of satisfaction. Just a matter of time, he thought, pleased with himself, just a matter of thinking rationally and moving slowly.
“Tho, what specieth of animal might create tunnels through denth, thorny undergrowth?” he spoke aloud, the voice still resisting his attempts to enunciate clearly.
A loud crashing followed almost immediately and before he could frame a valid hypothesis the new body sprang into sudden action of its own volition. The world spun and he found himself clinging upside down to a low branch of a tree, possibly a birch, he reckoned, face pressed close to the silvery bark.
"Let's think rationally about thith," he quavered, voice muffled somewhat by lichens.
There came a fearsome squealing cry from the darkness of the lower tunnel, disturbingly close. Any sense of recognition was lost to Trueman who, sparked by a further hit of adrenaline, swung upright on the branch and clung to the trunk. The branch sagged worryingly.
A beast thrust its way out of the brambles, all bristly and brown with a long, questing snout. It grunted, smelling the air in an inquisitive manner. Trueman’s new body reacted to his panic by clambering still higher into the young birch tree, setting the branches waving and crashing wildly.
The wild pig collapsed its haunches and scratched at its neck with a back foot. Then It stopped, blinked and looked up at Trueman. He stared back. The pig out-stared him.
From the new, higher vantage in his tree, Trueman became aware of partial views of the surrounding landscape, momentarily revealed then concealed as he swayed gently, back and forth. Trees and undergrowth and green, forest covered hills, rolling away into a misty distance. It did little to reassure him.
Further shrieks and squeals came from below and then the eruption of a band of piglets, stripes along their backs. The pig, sow, he now saw, grunted possessively then collapsed on her side and her offspring leaped, jostling for the neat, double row of bulging, milky nipples. A contented blur of sucking and snorting, coupled with the occasionally wet sneeze, rose up to him. The sow closed a lazy eye and sighed.
Trueman observed, blankly, for a long moment.
Disturbing questions begin to arise; what on earth had he been thinking of? Was he now stuck here, in the distant past, in the middle of a trackless forest, or rather, a track filled forest, where wild beasts roamed? The motor-biker, Spicer's mad ramblings had already been confirmed in their most unbelievable aspects, for he had spoken of wild animals, dangerous, wild animals.
He tried to get a grip on his thoughts. Let's be rational, he postulated, surely the combination of a decent body, reared from birth on healthy, organic food in a clean environment, plus a rational, highly developed, modern mind should be capable of anything here? This sounded encouraging.
So, he continued, lets make use of my advanced, educated mind; given this specific situation, what is my best option?
Swaying gently in his tree top perch, Harold H. Trueman, the self-proclaimed scientific genius, began to imagine weapons.
Intrigued? Baffled? More Konsk or longer pieces, or more The Real Coed Y Brenin? Or what? Here’s your chance to say and help steer the work! Just click on the comment box below-
Many thanks for reading and to those of you who commented or mailed me about the last piece, particularly Loyal Subscriber Sandy who is currently laid up nursing a broken leg- here's hoping for a speedy recovery, Sandy! Please feel free to share and pass on widely. Ta very much. Next time, more from Konsk. Hwyl! Chris
In fact lifted from Rev. Walter. W. Skeat, Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. Oxford, Clarendon House 1897. A warning is in order; Skeat was often denounced by later etymologists as being prone to speculation and invention rather than rigorous comparative analysis. However it is of no matter here as the sentiment is highly appropriate; it is as if Wilderness has a will of its own and most easily usurps the ignorant and overconfident, as so demonstrated here.
Although most of the names of people and places that appear in this text have been changed, some, including Trueman, insisted on the use of their own. In truth, Harold H. Trueman was merely the current alias, of which he has many.
A stock photo, I regret to say. Having kept so-called Iron Age Pigs (Tamworth cross Wild boar), I would rather have used pictures of them but as that was some time ago, in the pre digital camera age, I have been unable to find any of the prints I have of the pigs, Jig and Barcus and their stripy piglets. They are no doubt buried amongst hundreds of other ancient prints in a rusting biscuit tin somewhere in the loft or a shed.