Rough Draft: Humane
I.
Ronald sat cross-legged in the middle of the coliseum on a floor of sand and blood, bone and tattered clothing. Above him stretched a black night pinpricked with tiny yellow-white twinkles.
‘Around one of those twinkles spins Earth,’ he thought. Around the top of the coliseum, a set of mellowed lights hummed a low intensity blue providing just enough illumination to show a crowd of humanoids of various shapes and sizes. They rumbled in a foreign language, something Ronald believed to be a hybrid of Chinese and bear. In addition to the language, they all shared similar skin tone, a pale yellow akin to sun-bleached daisy petal, large eyes which fell deep into their misshapen skulls, and long thin digits attached to a pair of meaty palms. Although most of the beings had hair, it grew in odd places and in odd ways. Some had long tails, for that is the way that Ronald thought of them, growing from the hollowed cheeks and from the thin arms. The hue of the tails varied in every shade of color.
Upon noticing the sea of colored tailed, Ronald smiled at the image of a number of these beings sitting in a hair dressing salon waiting for their turn to have their tails dyed.
In the seats closest to the coliseum floor sat the more intense of the crowd, their deep gaze pushing up against Ronald, a set of tusk-like teeth bared, some kind of bodily fluid being flung about as the deep growl-like melody jutted from their heads.
The level intensity lessened the farther up the stands. At the top of the stands best illuminated by the pale blue lights Ronald could see small creatures, no doubt mere children, running around playing tag-like games or watching some technological device. Below them, other beings were engaged in a kind of game of their own, wherein one moved their mouth and made some of their bear-like Chinese noise and the other repeated the same.
At one part of the coliseum, Ronald had noticed a group of beings beating on wooden things and playing various metal and wooden instruments in odd ways. Some of the instruments were so large and long that it required two and even three beings to manipulate the instrument. The sound emitted simulated a noise which Ronald suspected sounded like their heart beat, probably after having been provoked by something excited.
At the far end of the coliseum, a mammoth creature had entered into the coliseum with thick skin like a rhino or elephant and a large head filled with sharp teeth. Behind it, a thick tail fell to the dirt floor and several feet behind it which it moved back and forth, snake-like.
Ronald admitted to himself that he ought to have been scared or really terrified. Adrenaline ought to have been flowing through his body, kicking his mind into a more primitive mode, gearing him up to put up a fight or to search for an exit for what he suspected was his early doom.
He ought to have been terrified, but instead, he found himself situated in a serene joy, a happy peace which presented itself in a large grin wiped across his face.
II.
Ronald had been lazing on the beach, the ocean hissing as rolls of sea water came crashing onto the shore. He sat underneath a large colorful umbrella he had lugged with him which he spent several sandy minutes setting up even though the sun had hidden itself behind a set of thick gray clouds. The beach was mostly vacated except the occasional couple walking by.
Ronald couldn’t help play a game of comparison, measuring up their physique, deducting points for the amount of fat gathered at the waist and for the thinness of the arms and the legs. He ran himself up against the men, especially those clearly younger than him and those walking with younger women wearing bare bikinis, imaging a contest in which the female was placed mid-point between the Ronald and the other male, each beckoning her like a pet, to see who she might run to.
When the more muscular, leaner men walked by, he sat up a little straighter, sucking in his gut. Inevitably, it led him to the realization that Ronald had already wasted his youth, and that he should allow the young to be young and in love without his imaginary meddling. In the water, Sophie, his on-again, off-again girlfriend, frolicked in the sea water. Although they were getting along, it had been a quiet hour and a half ride to the beach.
Sophie had just lost her mother to cancer a few months back, had lost the will to worry about weight, to worry about a lot of things. Hence, she had accumulated a small pouch around her midsection which rolled over the bikini bottom she wore. As he watched her, he noticed how much he knew about her and that he had lost interest about finding anything more about her. She had become to him a book he had read only halfway before moving on to another, but always keeping the original on the side of the bed to occasionally peruse.
He recalled when he first had encountered Sophie, at college, her exotic look capturing his attention, the ebony hair with bangs falling straight across her face right above her eyes, framing her pale face and green eyes. She wore black lipstick then and black nail polish, and large rings on her fingers. She had a little nose which grew like a mushroom.
They met in group settings initially but immediately established a separation between themselves and their peers. She harbored a deep pain within her which she tried to exorcise by spending several months in a treatment facility. He had permitted her the right to that pain and to her special place in the world as a result of that pain.
She had been older by a year, more mature. Perhaps that was what attracted her to him then.
He recalled she punched in the arm when he suggested they go out. She watched as other girls had gotten their hooks into him, only to set him loose when he failed to show the kind of interest they wanted. But she was always there.
She turned and waved at him, beckoning him to come into the water with her. She had barely missed him staring at a pair of younger girls walking the beach, tattooed in the right places, top heavy and full lipped.
Ronald waved her off. She threw up her arms and continued to walk out into the ocean.
Ronald picked up his tablet and began reading another book he recently bought, a tome on the power of positive thinking. He bought it one day after dwelling too long on how frustrated he had become with his work especially his co-workers.
He had racked up his employment troubles to the awkwardness he felt around people. Conversations, especially at work, always felt odd to him as if he were taking an essay exam, as if he were being graded on the way he put the words together, the logic of the ideas, the flow of the thoughts.
That was one thing Sophie never did, she never graded him.
An older man, sixty perhaps, walked by with a women clearly younger than him, thirty maybe. The old man’s stomach flapped over his Speedo. His torso was barely supported by his skinny white legs. On the other hand, the woman had smooth skin, a roundness without excess. She was virility to his impotence.
Ronald tried to decipher the relationship. She didn’t look like him. Yet, Ronald could sense no real affection between them. He would win that one.
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