A Novella in installments, tracing the intermingling autobiographies of a boy and a violin, spanning over a century. The previous episode is right here. To find any episode, look here.

(The protagonist posing with some old friends: a Japanese shakuhachi, A Zimbabwean mbira, and a good ol’ American jaw harp.)

(10) – His Huge Nostrils Flared Wide With Menace, NJ, 1962

“Holy crap”, I realized it in a silent flash. He has the thing memorized! Johnny’s voice began sounding, like the way a teacher would say a poem out loud, or how we exaggerated a freshly learnt prayer in Religion:

Emerging from the seclusion of the tall trees into a vast clearing, the lone T-Rex scanned his domain with vision and his keen sense of smell. He paused to erect further, lifting his massive head up as high as the smaller trees, revealing the powerful force of his enormous thigh muscles. Fumes spewed upwards in drifting curls from the always angry volcano at a great distance. He presented a towering regal sight, and all the landscape within earshot seemed to transform into an eerie silence of fear and respect. Even gliding pteranodons at a considerable remove lifted themselves to higher altitudes on the warm and moist tropical air currents, to give the apex predator a wider berth.

T-Rex sampled the late morning warm breeze, feeling for something faint yet distinctive against the cloying sweetness of the manifold ferns. His huge nostrils flared wide with menace. Perhaps today he would consume alive meat. His unusually short forearms, terminating in savage sharp claws, gestured bluntly to and fro as he worked to identify what attracted him. Just then, a commotion of rustling foliage became evident across the prehistoric glade, signalling the arrival or something significant. First the intimidating bony-plated three-pronged head and then the stocky powerful body of a mature Triceratops ambled out of the forest. It was looking downwards at first, gathering an ample clump of fern plants into its mouth.

Its momentum carried the sturdy herbivore into the open sunlight of a peaceful morning a few meters before its dull eyes and sensitive nostrils looked up to assess the new terrain. Weighing almost as much as a T-Rex and stretching nearly as long, the beast lifted its massive head in recognition of danger. The three lance-like granite-hard horns adorning the top of its face constituted a formidable defensive weapon system, which gave Triceratops a certain unflinching confidence. Behind these, the bulk of its huge head which amounted to the entire front third of its body, was shielded behind a thick hard bony plate, extending two feet above it’s scalp. It stood tank-like, staring at the T-Rex a mere fifty meters away, a gap it knew its adversary could eradicate in but a few long predatory strides. No use trying to turn around and flee the hunter into the dense underbrush. Too slow! It knew now that the only important thing was to keep it’s massive cranial armament between its body and the T-Rex.

Johnny paused artistically, then picked up the volume and intensity of his monologue for this next part.

The undisputed king of the dinosaurs assessed its prey. The beast looked healthy and muscular, almost as bulky as T-Rex, but he stood much lower to the ground. On four very sturdy leg trunks. It looked difficult to knock down in order to get a killing bite at its softer underbelly. Because he was lower. it might be possible to attack over the top of its deadly horns, But at all costs, their savage points had to be avoided. T-Rex stamped its thunderous hind leg to the earth and roared. Nothing would stop his charge. He had to use the advantage of his swiftness. He approached at first indirectly, from the left, testing if he could get his lowered teeth and massive jaws near Triceratops’ vulnerable flank. But the wily prey shifted with surprising agility and bellowing grunts angling its legs and horns directly at the flesh of charging T-Rex’s abdomen. The great lizard roared in anger and lept sideways at the last instant before crashing into those piercing spears.

(Cretaceous Period Smackdown, North America, circa 70 million B.C. — snippet from recent BBC Earth broadcast)

Both creatures howled ferociously at each other, now only ten meters apart. Triceratops lowered its head and armament preparing to charge at any exposed flesh of his opponent. It thundered forward in several short steps but T-Rex reacted again just in time, raising one enormous hind leg forward to help block the deadly spears while also raising its head swiftly around and over the top of them and clamping his gargantuan jaws upon the thick bony cowl jutting out from his rival’s crown. They vied viciously, T-Rex unable to locate and remove any satisfying chunks of meat from the bone mass while Triceratops sturdied himself to try and push his head closer to T-Rex’s underside. They were locked in a standoff, roaring and thumping. Then T-Rex twisted his massive head to try and rip off a great chunk of his quarry’s headpiece, but only a dissatisfying slice less than a foot long yielded way and tore off. T-Rex screamed in anger, realizing no meat or blood had been drawn. But just then, Triceratops, instead of retreating moved quickly adjacent to his enemy and while nearly past him towards its wildly lashing tail, he turned his massive skull sideways at a slight angle. Enough so the his nearest protruding horn gashed the side of the sinewy thigh of T-Rex deeply, resulting in a meter long scrape instantly oozing scarlet. The T-Rex let out an unearthly roar which filled the valley with terror, and then fell to a knee and side, his wounded leg muscle suddenly incapable of supporting him erect. The earth thundered and Triceratops looked on for the briefest of moments. He then wasted no time hustling off into the forest growth, for a wounded T-Rex is far worse than a healthy one, its reckless abandon capable of anything.

Triceratops did not stop moving for a very long time, until needing rest and water. Its bony crown would grow back in to fill out the missing bitten segment. But it knew it must never encounter the wounded T-Rex again. Meanwhile, the T-Rex writhed in pain until it could weakly slither off. It’s leg gash would take longer to heal, and would limit its speed and stealth for many months. It thought of a place it might likely be able to scrounge some Ankylosaurus eggs which likely hadn’t hatched just yet. The sun baked the landscape as the moist air began to smell more like afternoon. And after one hour faint sounds of surrounding life resumed filling the place where the titans had battled inconclusively.

Johnny looked up after a moment. I could see it wasn’t so much a performance to his way of thinking. It was more like a heroic effort to make himself, and me, be there. Millions of years ago. In that wild Cretaceous glade.

From this moment an understanding, wordless, vibrated between me and Johnny. We would be good friends for the next several years, until one day near the beginning of secondary school, my family would move a couple of miles away to a different part of town. But several years is forever during childhood. We played outside in the magnificent gravel piles, enacting various imagined dramas with all of Johnny’s dinosaurs. He showed me each one, how on the bottom of their belly where the two sides of the plastic mold met, their names and stats were stenciled into the plastic. Stegosaurus – 120 million years ago – 22 feet long; Dimetrodon – 215 million years ago – 18 feet long. Till finally we heard the mournful call of the town’s 5 O’Clock whistle wailing over the streets and ball fields and avenues. The signal, I knew, to head home. For 5 was when the fathers came home from work, and the mothers were busy getting dinner ready. The unchanging naive rhythm of innocent suburban America. To be sorely disrupted within ten years at most. But for now, all was well.

As I said my good-byes and ran up the pathway, I saw Angel stick her head out the patio door calling a question to her mother who was hanging clothes to dry on a rope line between two trees. “Ma — When is Daddy coming home”? “He’s going to be an hour late tonight, sweetheart. For Jo-jo needs a ride to the supermarket”. Angel seemed satisfied at this and her head receded from view. I thought about that — sweetheart — half the way running back home. Till for the rest of the way, I wondered what was for dinner.

_______RS

NOTE: The next episode, if it exists yet, is right here. To find any episode, look here.

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