Sit Down, Young Stranger
As we embarked on the final leg of our journey, I had a hard time figuring out exactly what I was feeling. There was just so much that had happened in the last few days! So much that had happened to all of us. So much that was still happening, too; it seemed that it was now Kim's turn to be stuck in norm form for a while. I had caught myself watching her out of the corner of my eye several times already, nervous and worried.
And then I realized that I was worried about her primarily for her sake, and not out of my own fear of her condition this time. I knew what being stuck in norm form for long periods could do to a person; some of those in Morrisville that Reimer had stuck in sheep form had continued to slip deeper into animalistic behavior patterns, though we hadn't completely 'lost' anyone to that effect yet. Dr. Samuel had no idea whether it was a direct effect of Reimer's old suggestions, a natural response to being stuck in animal form, or simply a response to the mental anguish they had suffered. Whatever the case, I was worried about Kim.
That realization made me feel very good about myself, probably the first time I'd felt that good since I had caused Reimer's death. And it was only a few days after I had failed Brian so badly, too. I hadn't forgiven myself for that yet, I still swore I would make it up to him somehow, but Jon's forgiveness had really helped.
I frowned slightly. I was a little worried about Jon, too; I had always thought he was speaking figuratively when he talked about hearing his deer instincts 'talking' to him. Now that I'd heard them too I knew it was real, and hearing voices wasn't a good sign at all... at least, it hadn't been before the Change. Now, who knew? All I knew was that I had found peace in accepting that I was a single whole person, not a sheep and a human stuck in the same body, and this seemed at odds with that. But Jon seemed to be at ease with having two separate sides like that, so I decided I had absolutely no business prying.
It did, however, set me thinking more about my own situation. Jon's fight with the other buck had been extremely cathartic for him; my own recent experience with full sheephood had had similar effects for me. Just as remaining in norm form for too long might possibly have adverse mental effects, I wondered if there might also be problems with remaining in morphic form for too long. I had spent a long time denying my own sheepish nature, and I hadn't exactly had an easy time of it. Perhaps I should let it out more...
We passed a billboard advertising the world-renowned Tyrell dinosaur museum, located in Drumheller. I had visited it before the Change, but now there was something new announced on the advertisement; "Meet the genuine dinomorphs on staff!"
Jon saw the billboard too. "Oh, dinomorphs!" He exclaimed, pointing. I was glad for the distraction.
"You like dinosaurs?" Jack asked in a strained voice, grinning like a maniac for some unknown reason and struggling to keep laughter in check.
"Yeah! I met a Tyrannosaurus rex a while ago, but I was fascinated by them even before the Change."
I checked my watch and the map, doing a quick calculation in my head. "You know, it's a slight detour, but I think we have plenty of time for a stop there. If we go right on the trans-Canada highway instead of heading west through Calgary..."
"That gets my vote," Jack immediately replied. "Dinosaurs. Yeah."
Jon's vote was obvious, and Brian and Kim both solemnly nodded agreement with the proposal as well. "All right then, the museum it is," I confirmed. To tell the truth, I was pretty fascinated with the idea myself. I had spent the last month with nothing but other sheep around me, and I'd missed out on a lot of the diversity that the Change had wrought as a result. I would love to see a real live dinosaur, or at least as real a dinosaur as I was a Dall sheep.
I grinned. It would take my mind off of all this deep stuff for a while and give me a chance to just have fun. And I could also avoid a little guilt this way, too; the thought of Calgary reminded me of Vincent, the sheep morph I had met there briefly on my way to Morrisville and who I had inadvertently implanted a lot of opinions in. I knew we couldn't take the time to stop there and search for him and still reach Edmonton at a reasonable hour, and I didn't want to delay the others that much because of something that was purely my responsibility. I would search for Vincent another time, perhaps on my own.
It was still before noon when we reached the Tyrell museum, early enough that we could spend several hours here and still make it to Edmonton before suppertime. We all piled out of the car, Kim riding securely on Brian's shoulder, and we headed for the entrance as a group. The place was fairly busy already, it surprised me to see so many people at a recreational site like this so soon after the Change screwed everything up. On the other hand, the museum was hyping their new exhibits and employees quite widely. Many of the visitors might just be locals who wanted to check out the changes, too.
The cashier was only a robin, which I suppose shouldn't have surprised me. The majority of the staff would still be 'conventional', after all, and I'm sure the dinomorphs had better things to do than man the front desk. We began working our way through the galleries of fossil displays, chatting idly amongst ourselves; Jack almost burst out in laughter again as we passed a raptor exhibit, and I almost gave in to curiosity and asked him what was up. I just shook my head, however, and went along with the rest. Even though they were tens of millions of years dead, those things looked impressive.
As we admired the mighty T. rex skeleton, I couldn't help but think of the poor goat in 'Jurassic Park'. "Sheep, goat - something that size probably wouldn't see much difference," I commented with mock concern. Jon assured me that the T. rex he'd met had actually been quite civil. Then our attention was pulled away from the ancient fossils in front of us as a living, breathing dinosaur entered the room. It was bipedal and about as tall as a human, with brilliant emerald scales and a somewhat darker underbelly. Most surprisingly, it had a bright purple mane running down the crest of its neck and partway down its back.
"Oh wow," A kid that looked to be about ten piped up, "uh... Oviraptor?" The female canine morph next to him, probably his mother, grimaced in embarrassment.
"Not sure," Jon muttered under his breath, "Could be an ornithopod..." A few other people in the room made guesses too, some so much farther off that even I could tell they were wrong. The dinomorph, for his (her?) part, just stood proudly for a moment with a hint of a grin on his reptilian face. Finally, as the crowd finished gathering, he shifted out of norm form and into a surprisingly moderate-degree morph form. I saw that he was wearing a sort of loincloth that I hadn't noticed before.
"Actually, some of those guesses might be pretty close," he told us. It sounded like he was launching into a very familiar speech, but it also sounded like he was enjoying it. I guess some people just loved getting attention, and he was getting it in spades. "But I'm afraid I can't confirm any of them; even the experts haven't been able to pin me down to a specific species yet. That just goes to show how palentologists have only scratched the surface of the full fossil record, the ecology of the age of the dinosaurs may have been even more complex than that of today's Earth..." The speech was straightforward and not very informative, but he injected a lot of enthusiasm into it.
"What's that purple stuff on your neck?" The kid who had ventured the first guess as to his species called out. His mother cringed, even more embarrassed, but the man just grinned even wider. He twisted around to display his back.
"Feathers," he explained. "Apparently dinosaurs invented them first. That's not really confirmed either, there are some who think I just wound up with an errant bit of avian DNA mixed in with my dino DNA. But I don't think I look much like a bird, do you?" He winked at the kid, who grinned back. I chuckled quietly myself; I suspected that this guy's enthusiasm for his role might be a bit bigger than his knowledge of genetics was. The questions moved on to even less scientific topics, such as what "life was like back then", and although I give the guy credit for not going too far over the top I was still left shaking my head by the time we moved on.
"You didn't agree with his presentation?" Jack asked, as if reading my mind.
I laughed. "Just because he's physically a dinosaur doesn't make him an expert on them," I explained. "I'm not too knowledgeable myself, but I know when to be sceptical. He couldn't have worked here before the Change, after all."
"Like a certain Dall sheep I happen to know," Brian interjected good-naturedly. I nodded. I was still kind of amazed by the mistake I had made about that.
"Still," Jack countered, "I have it on good authority that some dinomorphs experience what seem to be racial memories of some sort. He might actually know whereof he speaks."
I shook my head again. "That's amazing. To think how hard it's been to tease just a little information out of fossils, and then one day we can just interview the real thing..." Racial memory. Why not?
We spent about two hours total at the museum, and saw two more extinct morphs giving presentations. One was actually a mastodon, not a dinosaur, but that wasn't a big problem for the visitors. The other was a low-degree Troodon, the first low-degree dinomorph I had seen even counting those on television. She actually looked more alien to me than the higher-degree dinomorphs, they at least looked like relatively familiar animals whereas she looked more like she could have stepped out of some reptilian flying saucer. She couldn't change into norm form either. I actually got a chance to talk to her myself for a moment, and she seemed pretty philosophical about the whole thing.
There had been an extinct predatory land bird called an "Axe Beak" there too, but he was just a visitor.
As we got back on the road, Jon drove for a while; he wanted to make up for some of the time he'd spent as an eagle and unable to take his turn up front. I took the opportunity to try to figure out what was up with Jack and dinosaurs, but to no avail; he was a very friendly guy, but when he had a secret he wanted to keep the man was a cipher. It was times like this that I realized just how little I knew about him. But that was a subject for another time.
We were soon approaching Edmonton. It was amazing how familiar the highway felt, even though there was nothing uniquely "Edmonton" about it just yet, and on our final stop before hitting the city I switched back to the driver's seat again. We were in my home range, as it were. I was very silent as we drove into town, and the others were fairly subdued as well.
East on Whitemud drive. South on 111th street. Turn left at 38th avenue, then right on 108th street. Totally familiar. I pulled to the side of the road at the top of the hill and stopped. I was home.
We all piled out of the car and headed up to the front door, with me in the lead. I rang the doorbell, and a moment later dad opened the door. It later struck me as a little odd how thoroughly I associated that rhinoceros' visage with my father, considering how I'd been away from home for much longer now than I'd spent at home after the change, but I guess that didn't really matter much at a gut level. "Bryan!" He exclaimed happily. "Come in, come in! Oh, and you've brought a wildlife refuge with you. Are you going to introduce us?"
"Dad" I replied, slightly choked up. I cleared my throat and continued normally, covering the emotional slip. "Ah, it's really great to be back! This is Jon, Jack, Brian, and on his shoulder there is Kim." They each murmured or nodded greetings as I mentioned them, Kim giving a little bow from her perch. Dad didn't comment on her bandaged wing or the fact that she was in norm form, for which I was a little relieved; I'd explain it somewhere in amongst the million and a half other things I needed to tell him about. I had no idea where to start, and I didn't want to start babbling in front of everyone...
Princess saved the day, coming barrelling down the stairs like a streak of furry black lightening to see who the new people were. Then, upon seeing the strange crowd packing the landing, she crouched down and started having the standard nervous breakdown she had when confronted with too much for her little brain to handle at once. I laughed. "And this is Princess. Don't worry, Kim, she's a total wimp." I was slightly concerned that Princess might want to play with Kim if she got the chance, but considering that Collin's pet rabbit could drive Princess out of her own basket if she wanted to she wasn't exactly the most dangerous of dogs...
I knelt down. "Hey, Princess," I said soothingly. "Remember me?" Princess looked at me with an expression of total confusion. But when I patted my thigh she jumped up and rushed over to be petted, tail wagging like crazy. I think she did recognize me, somehow. That felt good.
"Well, come on in everyone, let's not stand around in the doorway all day," dad resumed. I got up, Princess toppling over without my support to lean against, and we all began wiping our hooves and filing into the house.
"So this is where you live," Jon commented. "Nice."
The conversation went on like that for a while, with dad becoming acquainted with everyone and vice versa. We had a fun time unpacking and arranging sleeping accommodations, too; after all was said and done only Jack wanted the foldaway bed downstairs, Brian and Kim were content to perch for the night in norm form and Jon said he wanted to sleep in the back yard to soak up the "Edmonton environment." I, of course, got my old bed.
It was quite an experience to go back up to my old room, I must say; it had only been two months since I'd left here, but it seemed like years. As the others continued settling in downstairs, the basement family room having been declared the "guest room" since even Jon needed a place to stow his stuff, I tried to refamiliarize myself with the relics my old life.
I was blowing dust off of my collection of books, most of them transformation-related stories that now seemed quite mundane next to the recent events of my own life, dad quietly knocked on the door and came in. "Dad!" I exclaimed, once again very glad to see him. "Uh..."
Dad grinned. "I know what you mean, it's kind of hard to know what to say after all this. Hello?"
I grinned back. "I'm glad to be home," I told him. "I missed you."
Dad nodded. "I did too."
"So where's Collin, anyway?" I asked. He had normally stayed up in his room when visitors came, so I hadn't been too curious when he hadn't greeted us at the door, but I had checked and he wasn't in there.
Dad grinned wider. "He's at work. Got a job at Safeway, food sales have become a lot more complicated recently..."
My jaw dropped. "A job? Collin?" A lot had happened recently, but I still wouldn't have expected something like that of him right now.
"He's changed, of course. We all have to some degree. I think you have, too..."
I nodded solemnly. "I guess I have changed. A lot. What I've gone through... I don't know if you'll like..." I trailed off.
"You are my son," dad said simply. With that great new James Earl Jones voice of his, I couldn't help but picture the Lion King for an instant. I let out a muffled snort of laughter.
"Oh, dad..." I sighed.
Dad sat down on the edge of my bed, its frame creaking ominously but holding up. He patted the mattress next to him, and quoted a line from a favorite Gordon Lightfoot song of his; "Sit down, young stranger, and tell us who you are."
I closed the door before I burst into tears and disturbed the others downstairs, and then sat next to him. "I'll fill in the details later," I told him hoarsely just before my voice gave out; sufficiently high levels of emotional stress always did that to me. Fortunately, words weren't really necessary right then. Or even sufficient.
Copyright 1997, Bryan Derksen
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