Games of the Future

At first it seemed strange, flinging things, including other animals from an abandoned building to try and see if we could hit scavenging coyotes. But it was challenging sport and I soon got into it. Our stadium was a bombed out skyscraper in the middle of what was at one time a major city. It was now in the middle of nowhere. The surrounding countryside was overgrown with a tangle of vegetation. What remained of the building that we used as our launching platform was an empty shell, crumbling concrete and twisted steel. There was nothing of value left inside. Everything had been looted or trashed many years ago.

We were on one of the uppermost floors where we had a good view; plus the empty window frames were large and could accommodate a good-sized catapult. Some of the inventions were ingenious and could handle some pretty large and heavy objects. Others were small with competitors tossing mice with snare loops attached, hoping to lasso a coyote around the neck. Then what; I don’t know. I figured the mouse would just end up as a snack for a coyote.

I was new at the game so I didn’t have my own catapult yet; so I watched, intent on learning as much about the sport as possible, including which methods seemed to be the most effective.

The sky was dark except for an occasional shaft of orange light that found a hole through the radioactive clouds that still mostly blotted out the red orb of a sun. I wondered how long it would take for the last ugly clouds to finally disappear. Lots of people no longer thought much about it, but I did. I always marveled at how quickly people adapted to their environment. We are a resilient species. Demented in many ways, yes, but adaptable – just like the coyotes far below us that we were entertaining ourselves with now, trying to capture them “remotely”. The clouds made seeing the coyotes a challenge in itself. We scanned the hillsides and scrubland openings with old pairs of binoculars, paying particular attention to the places illuminated by the occasional beam of light provided by a gap in the clouds.

Someone tossed a live monkey from their catapult. Everyone watched with bated breath to see how close it would land to a small pack of coyotes, three or four from what I could see, that were milling around in a little meadow. I guessed they were hunting mice themselves. As the flying primate got closer to the ground I couldn’t help but tense up inside, fearing that it would splat when it hit the ground. But those around me assured me that people had thrown monkeys before and that “they always land upright – like a cat always lands on its four feet when dropped…”

“Yeah, but not from ten flights up,” I argued.

“Uh-huh,” the guy doing the flinging said. “Done it a bunch of times. They hit and take off running right away. It’s real cool. Watch. He’s gonna hit in a second.”

We’d been chatting the entire time the chimp had been sailing through the air, so you know we were a long ways off and very high up in the old building. There was some ooohs and aaahs from the crowd just as the monkey was nearing touchdown. It was kind of weird, and reminded me of the old days when people watched Fourth of July fireworks displays. There wasn’t much of that anymore. People didn’t waste gunpowder on anything. It was used for hunting and protection. Maybe that’s why some of these bizarre games were invented to capture animals like these coyotes. People were always inventing things. They were survivors.

A roar went up from the crowd as the monkey literally landed on top of one of the coyote’s backs. Naturally, the coyote went berserk and took off running. I was amazed. It looked like the chimp knew exactly what it was doing, like it had been able to adjust its flight mid-air so that it could land squarely on the coyote’s back. The chimp took the coyote down quickly. It reached forward and wrapped one hairy hand around the coyote’s head and jerked it to one side. The coyote started to tumble and the monkey leapt dexterously off its back. The coyote ended up in a heap, spooking and scattering the other coyotes in all directions. The chimp jumped back on the coyote and bit it in the back of the neck, killing it instantly. It was pretty ghastly, but the onlookers liked it.

I turned and looked at the catapulter in surprise and asked, “Have you thrown that monkey before?”

“Uh-huh, lots of times. He’s good.”

“One of the best,” said somebody else.

“I can see that.” I nodded. “Others can do that?”

“Yep. He likes the game. Maybe its because he likes the fresh meat, too. I don’t know, but he’s a smart bugger.”

Just then the ground began to rumble and the building shook. Near the top we could really feel it. This must have been one of those old buildings not built on rollers. Being rigid, and us near the top and farther away from the ground where the quake shook, the vibrations were magnified. Loose concrete started to fall from the ceiling and chaos ensued. People scrambled for the stairwell. Of course the elevator didn’t work. In fact, it probably wouldn’t have worked even when the building was still inhabited. But with no electricity we were at the mercy of nature and had to rely on our own steam to get out.

I joined the frenzied group fleeing the scene but found myself wanting to stop and watch and see what the monkey would do next. Would the other coyotes stop and go back to see what became of their pack member? I doubted it. They were all such survivors themselves. It was every coyote for himself. Just like it was every man for himself after the war.

Then it hit me. What was I running for? I didn’t need to run. I stopped; a sense of calm came over me. I walked over to one of the big open windows and peered out. Somehow the sky looked beautiful to me, all dark and foreboding, yes, but beautiful as well. It reminded me of a Thomas Moran or Albert Bierstadt landscape painting. The dark sepia and indigo tones had splashes of light going through them giving them tremendous depth and feeling.

I looked down and saw that most of the catapulters were out of the building and running to put some distance between themselves and the falling debris. It could fall down, I told myself. I stepped to the sill and took a deep breath. The air tasted good these days. With all the plant life, the air smelled and tasted of rich oxygen. It was true, fewer and fewer people were getting sick these days. I was sure that it had something to do with all the plants. The Earth was healing.
Below me several people had stopped running and were looking up at me standing on the edge of window with a thousand feet of nothing between me and the ground. They waved their arms at me, signaling me, trying to get my attention. I thought I could hear them yelling at me not to jump. I smiled and jumped.

The screams from far below me were considerably more audible than the admonitions had been. Then came the gasps of incredulity when I stopped plummeting straight down and instead began to soar out over the hills. I circled back and waved to see people’s reactions after they realized that I was not going to die in a splat on the ground. Some of them waved slowly back. I could imagine their surprise at seeing a person fly unaided by any mechanical contrivance. And then I thought of the chimp. What if he could fly, too? Not only was our species evolving, but so were all the other plants and animals.