“There we go.” Brick finished making the fire that had taken him a couple of hours to ignite and light. He probably should have paid more attention when his training officers in the Army were instructing them how to start fires. Taking the fresh fish he and Humphrey had caught, he put them on a spit over the fire (since he seemed to show a disdain for “Hunchie,” “Cyback,” and “Hunchclops,” so much so that he wouldn’t interact with Brick the second half of the day, he redubbed him Humphrey).
“Ah, Humphrey. Such a nice view out here tonight. You can’t get views like this of the stars in many places back in the states.” Humphrey did his usual sort of nod that Brick would take for him sort of understanding him. Brick was beginning to feel a kinship with Humphrey. Not so much for the fact that he alone controlled the elephants, their preferred method of jungle transportation. Or that he knew the jungle like the back of his hand, essentially being like a GPS without that annoying “Make the next available u-turn…” bitch squawking in his ear. Nor was it because he had been the only thing standing between safety and the flesh being eaten off his bones by potentially cannibalistic half-naked rich natives...even though it really helped.
No, it was because for some reason Humphrey was the closest thing he’d had to a brother since his own kin’s sudden unexplainable disappearance. He’d spent years trying to find his brother. The last thing he’d ever heard from him was that he was joining a secret government program, and that he didn’t know how long it would be until they would hear from him again. But that was twenty years ago, and Brick sort of gave up hope looking for him. Still, there was always that little bit inside of him that hoped beyond hope that one day he’d see him again.
For right now though he couldn’t be thinking like that. He had to feed his hero that had helped him for the past week from being cooked like the rainbow fish in front of him. It seemed pretty cooked by now. He took it off the spit and gave it to his pal. Humphrey took one bite and just by the look on his face, it probably wasn’t cooked enough. But Humphrey seemed to have a really high tolerance for things that most other people would not stand. Brick sort of felt bad for the guy. So before he was done eating his fish, Brick offered Humphrey his whole uneaten fish. Humphrey began to push it away, sort of indicating he would feel horrible for eating both fish, but Brick was stubborn. Humphrey reluctantly ate it while Brick stared at the stars.
“You see those stars right there, Humphrey? Those all together make up Scorpio, you see? S-C-O-R-P-I-O.”
At first Humphrey looked at him blankly and then with a questioning look. Brick took this as his cue to explain again. Slowly.
“S-C-O-R-P-I-O. THOSE STARS ARE S-C-O-R-P-I-O.” The next thing that happened made Brick more surprised than he had ever felt in his life, even more so than when he found out his great grandfather stole Teddy Roosevelt’s elephant gun, when he figured out his dad was actually gay, and when he learned that his “mom” was actually a dad, combined.
In the most eloquent British accent Brick had ever heard in his entire life, Humphrey said, “My dear lad. I do believe you are mistaken. That is actually Orion’s Belt and part of The Big Dipper.” Brick was left speechless.
No comments:
Post a Comment