Colossus

by Gary Mark Lee

a while, “some of them were okay I think”.

  “Just talking apes” the warrior laughed, “howler monkeys in tailor made suits”.

  “Give them time” the old man said, “a million years is just a second from the viewpoint of eternity”.

  “Yeah well I guess time ran out for them” the soldier laughed as he checked over his weapon hand.

  “There may be some left” the aged philosopher smiled, “they may be few in hiding and there are some that left for other spinning globes long ago, they may return someday”.

  “And I’ll be ready for them” the one arm man leveled his metal appendage and took aim at a phantom enemy, “BAM! Situation under control”.

  The naked man came over to the soldier and looked him in the eye, “You’re an evil man” he said coldly.

  Again the warrior laughed, “evil, good, what’s the difference, I killed a million of them and the ones that I didn’t kill said I did good because they were evil, then somebody else comes along and says that I did evil because the ones that I killed first were good, after a while you find out that the whole lot of them didn’t know a dam thing”.

  “You don’t really care about anything do you?” the naked man said.

  “I follow orders”.

  “If you follow somebody long enough you end up leading” the old man commented, “An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind”.

  The soldier pointed his weapon at the old man, “you know I’ve had just about enough of you gramps!” a spray of energy shot out from the end of his arm and filled the chamber with a brilliant light, and all the while the combat man laughed and laughed, then as the bolt of death ended he stopped laughing for standing there unharmed was the old man without so much as a hair destroyed.

  “Holograms don’t die” the ancient Wiseman said.

  The sun burned hot now, the metal skin of the fallen giant glittered sending out beams of light that danced upon the nearby water like happy fairies, the air smelled of living things and the wind continued to raise curving the waves of the sea and lapping the shore like caressing hands. In the distance the broken mountains shook off their frozen cloaks and ice sheets tumbled from the uppermost peaks.

  Inside the chamber things were also changing, the metal grate on the control room floor shifted as the massive machinery under it began to turn, great wheels and cogs spun round and round, circuits opened and closed, fluids raced through piping, energy flowed.

  “What’s happening?” the naked man said as the walls of the chamber began to transform.

  Then he and his companions watched as their surroundings melted like wax before their eyes, the barrier that enclosed them dissolved like a mist on a summer’s day and suddenly they were suspended in nothingness with only a faint glow to hold them.

  “WHAT DID YOU DO!!?” the soldier screamed pointing his weapon at the old man.

  The glowing light began to grown stronger and turned into a blazing sun in a cool blue sky, the sky filled with clouds and the clouds moved over the dome of the heavens ending in a distant landscape of towering trees and granite mountains, and those mountains moved down to an emerald jungle where dagger toothed lions and sharp clawed leopards kept careful eye on herds of graceful antelopes and stripped suited zebra, skyscraper giraffes nibbled at treetop dinners and listened to angry monkeys who didn’t want to share. Giant grey skinned elephants trumpeted a warning to anything in their way as armor plated rhino’s grunted their disapproval, long face wildebeests rubbed shoulders with loud mouth hippos as dagger toothed crocodiles drifted lazily through camouflaged water.

  The jungle turned to grasslands filled with a mirrored lake and endless fields of wildflowers. And moving over those Elysian fields where speckled deer sipped from crystal brooks, lumbering bison in the hundreds feasting on the sweet grasses, racing horses of white and brown and black running not from danger but to feel the free wind in their faces, ducks and geese floating on silent ponds filled with darting fish and sleepy turtles, birds, butterflies, crickets and ants, all their to behold, all the forgotten creatures of the earth alive once more.

  And with those Noah’s ark of survivors were structures out of time, pyramids of find cut stone, ivory temples to endless Gods, castles that Kings called home, palaces of gold and silver, towers of concrete and steel, the Eiffel tower, the Coliseum, the Arc de triumph, the Great wall of china snaking it way in the distance and away, the walls of Babylon, and the faces of Mount Rushmore with the presidents, Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Jefferson, McGregor and Sánchez, Big Ben sounded the hour as Notre Dame cathedral chimed along, monuments that had once covered the earth and now were gone, they were all there again, returned from the ashes, lifted from the past.

  And standing in the middle were three holograms that now felt very human.

  “What the hell is this?” the soldier said swinging his rifle arm around him and bracing his feet for an attack.

  “This is what you helped to destroy” the old man said sadly, “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent” then he looked over at his less ferocious companion, “you’ve changed” he said with a smile.

  It was true, the naked man was no longer naked, he stood there dressed in a pressed suit of fine white linen complete with a wide brimmed straw hat and a gold pocket watch and twisted chain, his face was clean as were his hands, but best of all was the fact that he could smell the sweet summer air.

  “I feel” he said softly, “I feel…everything”, he lifted his head so that the warm rays of the sun touched his cheeks, it felt wonderful, he looked into the sun and it burned his eyes but he didn’t care, he only laughed, “I’m alive again, I’m alive!” he lifted his hand to his face and touched his tongue to his fingers tasting the life in them, “alive, alive!” he reached out and touched the shoulder of the old man and this time his hand didn’t pass through him like before. “You’re alive too” and without thinking he grasped the elder and drew him to his chest, “alive”.

  They parted and the old man smiled at him, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, rounded with a little sleep”.

  But while his companions were happy the soldier wasn’t, he stood there nervously aiming his appendage weapon at his unfamiliar surroundings and gnashing his teeth in anger, he didn’t like the air or the grass or the sky, for the air didn’t smell of death and the ground wasn’t covered in rubble and the sky wasn’t filled with smoke and fire, there was no enemy to kill and no bombs falling from the sky.

  “This is some kind of trick” he said as a small white rabbit hopped past him, “yeah that’s it, I’ve been hit by a mind-bender” and he reached into his carry belt and took out a small vile filled with a blue liquid, he popped the top with his thumb and drank down the contents quickly then tossed away the container, “now all I got to do is wait till the brain-bugs pass”, and he moved to a small bolder and sat down.

  The now white suited man continued to revel in the summer sun, he walked slowly across the grass felling the softness under his shoes and smelling the fresh aroma of the land, unlike the soldier he felt content with the land and the living creatures surrounding him, it all seemed so familiar, like a dream within a dream, a Never land of reality that he wished could go on and on and on, then he stopped and looked down at his feet, there lifting its head above the grass was a unimportant mushroom, white, innocent and small.

  “I hate mushrooms” the man said under his breath and lifting his foot he brought it down hard on the tiny vegetation, then he heard a voice in the distance, a faraway voice that filled his heart with more remembering, he lifted his hand to cover his eyes for the glare of the harsh sunlight and listened again, and again he heard a voice and squinting he saw a small figure take form across the grass, a tiny creature that called out to him.

  “Daddy” it said.

  For a moment the man just stood looking at the small child racing towards him, at first he didn’t remember her then as she
drew closer a sudden feeling of knowing filled his mind.

  “Pumpkin?” he said softly, “Is that you?”

  The little girl continued to cry out and wave her tiny arms as she leaped into the outstretched arms of her father, she laughed and giggled, all pink satin ruffles, golden hair and blue eyes, “daddy, daddy,” she screamed, “oh I missed you so much”.

  “And I missed you baby” he said with tears in his eyes.

  “Where were you daddy?” the golden child said, “Mommy and I looked for you everywhere, where did you go?”

  “I was…? That doesn’t matter now baby, I’m here and I’ll never leave you and mommy again, never”.

  “You promise?”

  “I promise baby”.

  “Cross your heart and hope to die?”

  The man continued to hold his lost child, clutching her close and feeling his heart racing, then he looked into her face, he saw her loving eyes and her loving smile and he wondered how he could have ever forgotten her? Then as he wiped the tears from his eyes he saw another figure moving towards him, but this time he didn’t have to ask who it was, he knew instantly that it was the woman he loved. He watched her walk slowly over the grass; he saw her pale blue summer dress swirl in the hot air, her long brown hair bounce and turn as she moved, he saw her beckoning eyes, her soft crimson lips and the