With just a cursory review of my journal, it appears I have been witness to thousands of events that have redefined civilization, bending the history of man, altering the very thread of reality. In hindsight, I may have slightly overstated some of these events—those brown slacks I bought last year didn’t have as much impact as I foresaw, for instance—but I write this today, as I would carve commandments into stone. The man I saved, the one running hysterically around whirling a gas can around his head, will end up saving me, humanity, and the entire universe. His name is Jiménez or something.
He lay unconscious for most of the day as the fires up on the ridge dwindled to nothing. Though covered with soot and some minor 3rd degree burns, I could see he was a glorious specimen. Of Spanish decent, he was tall, trim, dashing. And he displayed more passion while unconscious than most do while awake and running for their lives.
Late afternoon, he started to stir. Even his stirring was filled with robust passion. I was entranced when suddenly he leapt to his feet, wild-eyed and manic. He shouted tongues at me, then lunged at my neck, attempting to strangle me. I was in no danger as I stood and coolly flexed my neck muscles, waiting for him to tire. Who hasn't woken up and strangled the person closest to them? I wasn’t going to fault him on this.
He strengthened his grip, attempting to crush my hyoid and our eyes locked. We peered as deep as we could, each trying to out-hypnotize the other.
And then I swallowed powerfully, busting his grip in two. He fell backwards, clutching his thumb in pain, catching his breath. I asked him if he was hungry and he nodded fiercely. I told him I was hungry too and we should stop this nonsense if we wanted to eat. As my cache of food was depleted, we were forced to hunt the local fauna. The variety was limited, but what there was, there was an abundance of. Over the next hour or so we gathered and bashed as many snakes as we could, quickly devising a teamwork scheme of “spook and stomp” which is pretty self-explanatory.
Obvious from our success was that we worked well together. Tonight we ate snakes by the handful and talked over matters both inane and profound. We’re of a similar stock.
To my original point, why do I bestow this man with such importance? Because by the end of the night, the man I was talking to was now a giant snake. So slow was his transformation that it went unnoticed by me until we bid goodnight. I extended a hand to shake on our new friendship and to my surprise saw he was now handless. And a snake. This is a man of great power. He curled his body around my leg and squeezed. He’s still there, as I write this in fact.
Something just occurred to me... Are my thoughts clouded from all the venom I just ate? Perhaps. Time will tell. In the meantime, I shall paint until I sleep.