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Page 10
Chapter Five: Babylon
 I came onto a road, which was offset by houses and driveways on either side.
Gradually, that road led to a wider one, almost a highway, which led into a city of tall buildings, with great bridges over a river, and soaring domes and spires.
Amid the darkness and the fog, what I most heard was a constant mournful howling like that of air raid sirens warning of an impending bomb attack or other catastrophe.
You ask: so did people see you and laugh in the city?
No, to my surprise, half-crazed as I was, because they streets were empty. The city itself, whose buildings were dotted with thousands of points of light, was shrouded in a mist like a marine layer at the sea. A brooding, oppressive, damp shroud of fog lay over the streets and strangled the bottom stories of skyscrapers. I ran, unchallenged and unopposed, down the middle of deserted streets. There were a few cars, mostly parked at the curbs as if suddenly abandoned by terrified drivers. In a few places I hopped over a car or motorcycle left in the middle of the street.
Always there was that constant howling all around of rising and falling sirens…
As I ran, I realized that this entire city and its culture were manifestations of our human territorial tyranny. Everything had to do with territory, ;possession, property. It was all: this is mine and you can't have it, or else. It's all about who owns what. Those who own a lot allow those who don't to work for them, without ever owning the store or business where the work is done. Payment (sharing) is in artificial, symbolic food scraps known as money.
This whole place, Babylon, was really the imprinted yard, inversion of the Eden myth, implanted in the human mind, a memory maybe of some dinosaurian swamp a quarter billion years ago. Mammals did not exist yet, but DNA and RNA did, in tiny wriggling virus or bacteria life forms that would eventually grow bigger and more complex and successful, some of them to be modeled on the early-birds swooshing around those deadly swamps looking for lunch…
I stood in the middle of the city, in a green plaza, and raised my head up to roar with open mouth into the sky.
It was my turn to roar.
My voice echoed for miles. I could hear it bouncing back on itself as it reached my ears on the return. Power is everything.
I joined the sirens howling, and my voice rose above theirs.
I was The Woman, and I was hunting.
Grab your ass with both hands and run for your life, because I am coming down the street looking for you, Mr. Swastika.
I had gone from being a terrified woman standing in a suddenly transformed garden at the time share by the lake—to being the most powerful predator in this city of ancient name.
Catching a scent in the air, I sniffled curiously.
I stopped howling long enough to assess the situation.
I bowed my massive head and sniffed more energetically.
Deep inside, I felt a thrill of rage and revenge.
I began trotting, then running, along the streets of the city toward a river.
At first, the river was a black ribbon shining with moonlight.
As I drew near, I saw that there were a few men standing around a car.
They had a stereo playing from multiple speakers, and hopped about dancing and laughing.
As I drew near, I began to sniff their scent, and it seemed familiar.
I was so fast they did not see me coming.
I ran silently and purposefully, like an express train on its gleaming tracks.
The men were dancing about, triumphantly, and laughing.
Their sound was cold, cruel, and merciless.
One of them had a partially shaved head with a swastika. The other three had tattoos on their necks, which I recognized from my fleeting, deeply buried memories of that wonderful bar, which they ruined by poisoning me with date rape drugs.
They saw me coming, and froze in terror. Their leader, like the rest of them, instantly lost all of his arrogance and became a simpering, helpless coward.
In seconds, I snapped my powerful jaws around them. I tossed my head and threw bits and bloody pieces of them in all directions. As I shredded and pulped them, I roared so that the city echoed with my rage and triumph.
Finally breathless, and there was so little of them to begin with, I ambled down to the river and thrust my entire head into its cool waters to clean myself of their filth.
I left their car sitting where it was, but only after I stomped on it a few times to silence that obnoxious music.
From there, I felt deflated, as if all purpose had gone out of me.
Certainly, my rage was spent. I was tired.
So I started walking back the way I had come through that ever darker, deep-brown mist…
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