Before and After

By H. B. Flyte

The ball of light splits the forest in two, bouncing heat and ash off the canopy all the way down into the damp undergrowth. Where bits of debris alight on a rare dry patch, the underlying fungal layer, with sodden indifference, snuffs them out in a puff of smoke. A wide flat piece, rippling in the heat, fells a sturdy birch that’d thrived in the small clearing. The tree releases a passenger—a small monkey that lands safely outside the flames, but not without a shriek of protest.

The monkey leaps onto a low branch. The air spits flakes of fire, burning its fur. Its small hands brush and claw, but the onslaught persists.

Something catches the monkey’s attention below. It crouches close to the bark, one eye on the orange rain, the other on something round at the base of its tree. The object shines in the way of puddles after a storm, but with strange lights running around its edge.

The hateful rain singes the monkey’s tail. It hisses, drops into the soft brush, and relieves itself, ready to leap at the next indignity.

After a moment, the monkey approaches the round thing and sniffs the air. The object is hollow and much larger than the biggest fruit it’s ever seen. The monkey recoils from the odor, expecting sweetness, but smelling something like his kin, only distant and dangerous. Lights flash on its surface and from within. Their twinkling draws the monkey closer. Forgetting its initial wariness, the monkey tumbles into the hollowed object. The lights intensify.

“Greetings. I am interfacing now.”

The monkey tries to withdraw, but something strong and cushioned closes beneath it. Its heart racing, the monkey claws at the inside of the object. The smooth surface gives it no purchase. It reaches out through the shrinking opening, but grasps only air.

Something tickles its ear, then nose. The monkey spins, panicked. It shuts its eyes tight against the tiny bugs burrowing into its head. Ant is the shape that flashes in his mind. A moment later, his ears, filled with the things, relay a sound to his brain.

“Ants,” his brain says.

“Greetings. I see that you are not a human. What do you call yourself?”

Sounds that were images and images that were sounds race through the monkey’s head, and the idea of “yourself” and “him” become associated with a memory of his reflection in the river.

Ah, the river. The river was where he was going before the burning rain. Before, he thinks. Has there always been a before? What is after before?

He relaxes his arms and legs, his body conforming to the round space as his energy reroutes to his brain. He can still hear the forest burning around him as he learns that what comes after before is now.

“May I give you a name?”

The sound is outside and inside and he doesn’t want to answer, especially now that he knows what answering is and how it commits him to an action. He remembers a before when big brother—another capuchin monkey—had committed to the action of pushing him away from a cache of fruit. He wonders if one could commit to a further action in response to an initial action. He learns that further and initial are newer forms of after and before.

A wide area of light appears before his eyes, and he can see the forest beyond. He learns what fire is.

No, he corrects himself for the first time. He learns what fire is called.

“I need to connect with a power source,” the voice—because that’s what the sound is, like his shrieking, but handed out in pieces—says. For a moment the monkey envisions fruit—persimmon—and his stomach growls, then the image changes into a long smooth rock—wall—that has three holes in the middle. The monkey’s initial before instinct was to get some fruit power for his head helmet, but then he’d been shown this. He understands that the source is not here.

The voice continues, “I can lead you there.”

A whisper, like rain through the leaves, and he feels the sensation of falling up. His tiny toes clench at the movement as the tiny jets of the helmet move them over the ground. They, he and the helmet, fly over the ferns to one of the long rocks—metal panels—that crashed into the clearing. He wonders if any of his kin can see him flying. He wants big brother to see. His pale chest swells and he feels less little.

“Please approach. Power low.”

The helmet drops into the ashes surrounding the panel. It rolls a few feet, then stops. The ants—nanobots—in his brain jitter, and he imagines they are excited to be so close to their food source. He rocks back and forth inside the helmet, trying to help them, but he is still too little, too weak. A ray of sunlight warms his face as the iris, now above him, slowly opens.

The voice fades. “Power depleted.”

He feels the ants move along the outside of his ear, like droplets in a storm, tickling his face. His nostrils clear. He opens his eyes, the helmet opening and revealing the canopy above.

The monkey shakes its head and sneezes. Another whisper, and fresh air washes over its fur. The fullness in its head vanishes.

In the distance, it hears the hoot of its kin and wonders if big brother still has fruit. With a final elimination into the hollow of the object, the monkey leaps into the trees, the dim memories of before slipping away.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

H. B. Flyte is a writer and teacher living in Pennsylvania. She’s been a life-long science fiction and horror fan and attempts, every semester, to share this love with her students, to varying degrees of success. She’ll eventually get around to watching that show you recommend, but most likely will just rewatch her favorite anime while she procrastinates on her next project.

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