When Darkness Falls (17 page)

“So they aren't Spirits after all,” he thought, “but some sort of animal feeding in the grass.”

Now he knew he was not chasing ghosts, but some intelligent, timid animal.

For the next few days he floated in the paddock of waving grass, seeing passing shapes on the periphery of his watery vision. Days passed to weeks; the shapes became used to him and accepted his presence now and browsed idly beneath him. When he slowly sank to their level in the grass fields, they ignored him and went on with their feeding. Then he
went up to them, it was as if he were one of them. He searched amongst the grass roots for rough-backed cockles so that he had something to do when he swam in their midst. With the coming of the early rains, he noticed a change come over the waving fields of grass. New growth began to emerge; spring had come to this underwater field of green.

During the nights he lay at peace with the world. His mind would roam over the highlights of his wanderings, then move into the future and ponder on what might be. That he had not sighted any human habitation didn't bother him in the least, he was happy with the friends that he had made.

As spring blossomed in the underwater fields, he noticed that some of the young mammals that had been his closest friends were slowly drifting away from him. Some had developed closer friendships with individuals from a group that swum and fed closely together. Yet when he had tried to approach this group they swam off at his approach. There now appeared in the midst of the herds strangers he had never seen before; his friends were girding themselves, grunting in their heat for a fight. In the days that followed the sea-grass paddock turned murky from the raised mud of battle; many times Ningaloo was nearly run down by some fleeing antagonist ... and all the while the new group that swam and fed together seemed oblivious to the activity, the heated grunts and bellows. As the battles raged and waned, the number of the passive group, as he had come to call it, was fast dwindling, until at last only one remained. It was, Ningaloo realised, the smallest of the group, never really accepted by the others.

It never occurred to him that the passive group were females, and that those that had sought his friendship were males. It wasn't until he witnessed the most intimate of
relationships that he began to comprehend the strange behaviour that had been going on around him.

The oppressively hot days and nights had made sleep impossible until the first wisp of a sea breeze came ashore. This evening he walked down to the beach and sat in the warm water. Sitting quietly, watching the play of light on the water as the sun reached for the horizon, he felt rather than heard the resonance of movement, and slipped deeper into the still, clear water.

He was shocked into stillness; he couldn't have moved even if he had wanted to. There, no further than the length of his body away was one of his friends. He was belly to belly with the mate of his choosing, her back cradled in the sand, and he was pumping into her belly for all he was worth, with no awareness that an intruder was watching. Ningaloo heard their grunts, her squeals of pleasure, then surfaced to take in more air. He returned to witness the final thrust and watched as his friend slipped sideways, to reveal his manthing slipping out.

Ningaloo surfaced, awed and enlightened at what he had just witnessed. He understood now what his mother had told him long ago, when he had asked where he had come from, and she had answered from the union of his parents. This then was the union, this was what his manthing was really intended for, the act of procreation.

He sat in the shallows and thought on what he had seen. Questions flooded through his mind. What was this thing? How did it come about? What bought it on? Was there no stopping it? Did it have to end? Ningaloo had never heard of the word “love”, but he surely knew the depth of its meaning, and its effect on animal nature.

He remembered the female that had been rejected not only by the other females, but by the males as well. He speculated
on the possibility of a union and rejected it; the thought was nauseous. If this was to happen to him, it would have to be with his own kind.

He knew he must find his own kind, and then discover this thing called “love”. It was time to get on with his life...

“And That' my Grandson is what ‘Love' is all about!”

“BUT Grandad! What about Ningaloo?”

“What about him?”

“You can't leave the story hanging in the air like that! What happened to Ningaloo?”

“Ahhh! I see ... Well that is a story for another time. As I recall, we stopped to have a cuppa, and a smoke. What I was trying to tell you was that if mammals in those times long gone, experienced ‘love', then, it must have started with them.”

“Bother with the beginning of love. “What happened to Ningaloo?”

“Another day Grandson ... The day grows long and we have still many miles to travel, we must be on our way ... I think this is going to be a very quiet ride for me for the rest of the way.”

“Will you make me a promise Grandad? Will you finish the rest of the Ningaloo story for me one day?”

“Yes my Grandson, when the time and place is right, and when we have stacks of time, for the telling is very long.”

“Thanks Grandad, you're a real sport ... Guess I'll just have to dream till then.”

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