Everglades
Everglades
“It could have knocked me out, or killed me.
Instead, it sent me jackknifing to the ground, the backs of my eyes strobing with firework colors, cascading reds, greens, golds, my brain deafened by the boom of leather on bone. For an instant, I teetered on the brink of unconsciousness.
There is an ancient mammalian instinct which my forebrain inspected, then rejected: When overpowered by someone or something unknown, play dead. Remain motionless. Maybe it’ll go away. Opossums are more strongly cod...ed, but that survival instinct remains within most vertebrates.
As if through a tube, I could hear Tomlinson’s voice saying, “Doc . . . Doc . . . are you okay?” And to biceps: “You idiot! Why’d you hit him so damn hard!”
Then I was on my knees, eyes open, watching biceps swing the sap at Tomlinson who, to my surprise, parried the blow with a delicate, dancelike movement of his hands. I watched him deflect a second, then a third attack, using biceps’ own momentum to turn him away.
I remembered Tomlinson saying something about being a master of t’ai chi—but he was not sufficiently masterful, because biceps finally caught him with a solid blow to the shoulder that sent Tomlinson backpedaling into the little group of onlookers.MoreLess
Instead, it sent me jackknifing to the ground, the backs of my eyes strobing with firework colors, cascading reds, greens, golds, my brain deafened by the boom of leather on bone. For an instant, I teetered on the brink of unconsciousness.
There is an ancient mammalian instinct which my forebrain inspected, then rejected: When overpowered by someone or something unknown, play dead. Remain motionless. Maybe it’ll go away. Opossums are more strongly cod...ed, but that survival instinct remains within most vertebrates.
As if through a tube, I could hear Tomlinson’s voice saying, “Doc . . . Doc . . . are you okay?” And to biceps: “You idiot! Why’d you hit him so damn hard!”
Then I was on my knees, eyes open, watching biceps swing the sap at Tomlinson who, to my surprise, parried the blow with a delicate, dancelike movement of his hands. I watched him deflect a second, then a third attack, using biceps’ own momentum to turn him away.
I remembered Tomlinson saying something about being a master of t’ai chi—but he was not sufficiently masterful, because biceps finally caught him with a solid blow to the shoulder that sent Tomlinson backpedaling into the little group of onlookers.MoreLess
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