echoes from the ANTEDILUVIAN

Fiction inspired by images of ancient times. All prose by the blogger, Benjamin Chandler; some images are my own, though most are the works of very talented others. (If you see some art of yours that needs crediting, or that you would rather not be here, please let me know.) Benjamin Chandler is also the author of Lasturia, a dinosaur-filled adventure novel which can be found here.

[antediluvianechoes]

Mammoths in a Snowstorm, Zdeněk Burian, 1961

The calf was nervous. The wind howled, burned her eyes, and pushed sharply on her face. She ducked against her mother, rubbing her chilled head against those shaggy haunches. Trees bent. There was a frightening crack and an old, dry birch split in half—a mass of its branches spiraling on the ground like a giant, menacing tumbleweed. Eventually it caught against some of the pines and stopped, and members of the herd who’d sought shelter in the woods moved away.

Snow piled on the mother’s back. She had been in worse storms, though this was her calf’s first. She moved close to her, reaching her trunk around to pat her baby’s rump. If the wind wasn’t so loud, the calf could lean in and hear her mother’s deep, slow heartbeat.

[antediluvianechoes]

Proailurus by RAPHTOR

Do you remember that time you rode the city bus a little later than you’d planned when you’d went out? The sickly blue lights of the bus’s interior contrasted uneasily with the sulphur lamps that lined the street. 

And several stops before yours, a group of young men clambered aboard and plopped themselves in the front of the bus. They were loud, but not obnoxious, their jokes more goofy memories than rude observations, and one of them, the stout one with too much product in his spiky hair, sat smiling, arms crossed, observing his chums like a benevolent king who went slumming for a night. He wore glasses with thick white frames and a blue and ivory striped sweater. His jeans were faded in the knees; his shoes, shiny and black. And for a few minutes you thought, “Here’s a man with nerdy style—maybe gifted with a quick wit; someone who isn’t scared to give his opinion. Given the opportunity, I bet we could be friends.”

(Did you think that because he looked a little like your friend’s friend who, years ago, over pizza and brandy old fashioneds, announced to the group that he disliked the Harry Potter books. And—although you yourself were indifferent on J. K. Rowling, being more of a Robert E. Howard kind of fantasy reader—you admired his brazenness at a table of otherwise Potterheads? Pity, you only ever saw him that one time.)

But then, at your stop, the Cool Nerd King and his buddies exited the bus before you in a rush, and you thought you might catch a bon mot to polish your minutes of perhaps unearned admiration, but while his buddies hooted and hollered down the street, he stood against the stone wall outside your building and, groaning with relief, urinated.

Yeah, Proailurus was that kind of guy.

[antediluvianechoes]

Brontotheres, Zdeněk Burian

Light lunged from both sides of the world. The earth tore itself open and bled flame; a fountain of molten rock hissed from the wound. Cascades of burning rocks thumped against the ground in sudden, erratic rhythms. Streaks of blue fire reached down like witches’ fingers, cracking against the water-filled air. There was no sky—instead a blanket of ash and cloud hung so low the brontotheres feared they would soon feel it on their backs. The baby cried; the mother lowed, and corralled it with the fear-hiding patience mothers do best. The sounds and blinding flashes were disorienting. The bull snorted rain out of his nose as sheets of water ran off his hide and swelled into puddles at his feet. The family moved in search of safety, but the truth was the ground and the sky had betrayed them, and they trusted nowhere while sandwiched between a rupturing earth and panicking heavens. 

[antediluvianechoes]

Typothorax, Doug Henderson, for the Petrified Forest Museum

Smoldering under the wildfire’s last flames, the forest had been transformed from verdant green to soot and ash. Older trees stood, licked black by fire, branches scourged away, just dead columns of charcoal. Others had fallen, embers still crackling on their undersides. Few of the saplings remained—brittle, sad things, skeletons of trees that might have been. The earth had been baked gray; the sky choked with the same.

The ground was still hot. Typothorax moved through the smoking wasteland quickly so that its feet wouldn’t burn. Occasionally it rooted in the cinders and dust with its hog’s nose, hoping to find something succulent, but found nothing and sneezed ash. Finally it came upon the creek, winding cool and clear, the sand in its thin bed still yellow, unscorched, unsinged, and the reptile dipped its snout in the trickle and drank deep, its feet dancing to prevent them from blistering.

[antediluvianechoes]

I'm very pleased that my short story "The Perseid" is in the anthology "Of Gods & Globes 3". Inspired by Greek mythology, it's a story about art, duty, and isolation. You can get a copy of the book here.

[antediluvianechoes]

I'm very pleased that my short story "The Perseid" is in the anthology "Of Gods & Globes 3". Inspired by Greek mythology, it's a story about art, duty, and isolation. You can get a copy of the book here.

[antediluvianechoes]

Benjamin Chandler Interview • The Showbear Family Circus

Lancelot Schaubert — Hey there Benjamin Chandler. When was the first time you imagined another world or the implications of a new tech?

I'll have a short story published in the upcoming anthology Of Gods & Globes 3. Here is my interview with its editor, Lancelot Schaubert.

[antediluvianechoes]

Anchisaurus, Brian Franczak

The forest is home and the forest is horror to Anchisaurus. Some scents mean life, and some mean death. Some sounds are friendly, others chill the dinosaur's heart. The softness of the mud under its feet delights, while the sucking bogs of certain haunts bring panic. The forest is all yin and yang and Anchisaurus is its philosopher.

[antediluvianechoes]

Edmontosaurus, Ely Kish

The smell of a swamp is rich and thick. It hangs in the air like the morning mists, but lingers far longer than any fog. Edmontosaurus loves the smell. It smells like home. She wades deep through the soup, scooping up fallen vegetation, letting the water pour from her bill. The sound of the little splashes is so satisfying. Once a snail was in a mouthful of weeds, but its shell crunching in her mouth didn't even startle her—that's how pleased she is in the bogs. When the sun is high and bakes the swamp, she rests in the shade of the taller trees, shakes gnats from her hide, and dozes to the songs of birds and small pterosaurs. When evening comes she always manages to find her herd in the drier places and sleeps in their company. But when the sky lightens before dawn, she moseys off to enjoy the swamps alone again.

[antediluvianechoes]

Teleoceras, Charles R. Knight, 1878

Teleoceras has a cold. His nose is gobbled up with mucous and a bitter taste coats the walls of his mouth. None of the grass tastes sweet. He sneezes and litters the reeds with a cloud of germs and snot particles. His eyes are puffy. The world looks as if it's in a haze. He blinks, tries to clear his vision, feels thick tears leak from the corners of his eyes. A cough shakes his body, brings up a wad of phlegm that he instinctively swallows down with a moan. If any predator were to stalk him, they would turn away in disgust.

[antediluvianechoes]

Cretaceous scene, Joel Snyder, 1982

The smell of each volcano is unique. Some are sulfuric, boiling brimstone that turns the air rank. Others are more like burning wood, a choking, smoky stink that crawls close to the ground. And then there are those that belch acridity into the sky, making the air as sour as vomit. There is little that dinosaurs can do against any of these, save flee or tolerate. The first action is preferred.

[antediluvianechoes]

Viatkosuchus sumini Upper Permian of Kotelnich by MaximSinitsa

Mist pools between trees but allows gray threads of light to settle on the muddy bank and the therapsid sitting there. Everything is still. It’s Christmas morning in the Permian.

[antediluvianechoes]

Dying Mammoth, Zdeněk Burian, c. 1962

The world felt ripped apart during the avalanche. The floor moved, the hillside was the sky, everything was white, and trees snapped like pencils. Instincts were useless. There was no way to fight or flee; the mammoth could only be swept up with the chunks of mountain and forest. A thick, broken branch punctured the mammoth's haunch. A boulder slammed into its ribs. Snow filled the animal's nostrils and ears. It was better that way.

When it was all over, and the world stilled, the mammoth was just a lump among all the other refuse. It could not move; it did not want to, really. Breaths were difficult under the blanket of tossed trees and snow. The ice darkened where the branch stabbed it. The stillness of the valley was eerie, especially after the roar of the avalanche. The only sounds were of the mammoth's labored inhalations. When the wolves found it, those breaths had already stopped.

[antediluvianechoes]

Late Carboniferous scene, G. B. Bertelli

When the air is still, soaked in the swamp's humidity, the only sound is that of the meganeurids' wings beating against it. It is like the gentle noise of paper rattling in the wind, or breaths shivering against the throat.

But to the swamp's the smaller insects, the beat of those wings is like the roar of thunder, a buzzsaw that warns them to retreat under leaves, under logs, under water. Bugs freeze, flies flee, and silverfish slither into shadows when the meganeurids pound the skies with those French chapel wings. Those who ignore the warning are snatched and devoured before they know they are dead.

[antediluvianechoes]

Passenger pigeon, Charley Harper

Do living things know when the end is coming? Do they see the oncoming failure and accept it with a morose indifference? Is extinction an option or an inevitability? Can behaviors be curtailed to prevent it, or is every new existence just one life closer to the closing of the book?

[antediluvianechoes]

Pteranodon, artist unknown, from Dinosaurs: Prehistoric Animals, a collectable sticker book by Panini, 1986

Fishing is a game within the waves. The sea hurls itself into mountains and valleys, which Pteranodon must navigate. Lunch lies beneath those heaving hills. Canyons open between waves, and the flier dives within them, plucking sardines from the foam. Then it lifts into the sky just before the waves clap over it, like the Red Sea swallowing Pharaoh's army.

[antediluvianechoes]

Dromaeosaurus/Chasmosaurus, Ely Kish, 1974–75

One must be a seeker at the end of the world. Far from any green, Dromaeosaurus hunts for scraps of goodness, a last morsel of meat, a damp swallow of marrow, a tender leaf of skin. The rest of the desert has abandoned life, forgotten about it, but Dromaeosaurus has not. It appreciates the Chasmosaurus more than the rest of the world, sees the value in a withered mummy. There are treasures in the dust.