James Herbert - Fluke

Now I was afraid to run.

‘Chase him away, chase him away! I don’t like him!’ the sow urged.

‘Be quiet!’ the boar said quietly but firmly. ‘You go on about your hunting. Leave a good trail for me to follow — I’ll join you later.’

The sow knew better than to argue and huffed her way rudely past me, emitting a vile odour from her anal glands as a comment.

‘Come closer,’ the boar said when his mate had gone. ‘Come where I can see you better.’ His enormous body had shrunk and I realised his hair must have become erectile on seeing me and had now returned to its normal smoothness. ‘Tell me why you’re here. Do you belong to a man?’

I shuffled forward, ready to flee.

‘No, I don’t belong to anyone. I used to, but don’t any more.’

‘Have you been mistreated?’

‘It’s a lucky dog who hasn’t.’

He nodded at this. ‘It would be a fortunate animal or man who hasn’t,’ he said.

It was my turn to regard him curiously. What did he know of man?

The badger settled himself into a comfortable position on the ground and invited me to do the same and, after a moment’s hesitation, I did.

‘Tell me about yourself. Do you have a man name?’ he asked.

‘Fluke,’ I told him, puzzled by his knowledge. He seemed very human for a badger. ‘What’s yours?’

The badger chuckled dryly. ‘Wild animals don’t have names, we know who we are. It’s only men who give animals names.’

‘How do you know about that? About men, I mean.’

He laughed aloud then. ‘I used to be one,’ he said.

I sat there stunned. Had I heard right? My jaw dropped open.

The badger laughed again, and the sound of a badger laughing is enough to unnerve anyone. Fighting the urge to run I managed to stammer, ‘Y-you used…’

‘Yes. And you were too. And so were all animals.’

‘But… but I know I was. I thought I was the only one! I…"

He stayed my words with a grin. ‘Hush now. I knew you weren’t like the others at my first whiff of you. I’ve met some who have been similar, but there’s something very different about you. Calm down and let me hear your story, then I’ll tell you a few things about yourself — about us.’

I tried to still my pounding heart and began to tell the badger about my life: my first recollections in the market, my first owner, the dogs’ home, the breaker’s yard, the Guvnor, Rumbo, the old lady, and my episode with sly old fox. I told him where I was going, of my man memories and, as I went on, my nerves settled, although an excitement remained. It was wonderful to talk in this way, to tell someone who would listen, who understood the things I said, how I felt. The badger remained quiet throughout, nodding his head from time to time, shaking it in sympathy at others. When I had finished, I felt drained, drained yet strangely elated. It seemed as though a weight had been lifted. I was no longer alone — there was another who knew what I knew! I looked eagerly at the badger.

‘Why do you want to go to this town — this Edenbridge?’ he asked before I could question him.

‘To see my family, of course! My wife, my daughter — to let them know I’m not dead!’

He was silent for a moment, then he said, ‘But you are dead.’

The shock almost stopped my racing heart. ‘I’m not. How can you say that? I’m alive — not as a man, but as a dog. I’m in a dog’s body!’

‘No. The man you were is dead. The man your wife and daughter knew is dead. You’d only be a dog to them.’

‘Why?’ I howled. ‘How did I become like this? Why am I a dog?’

‘A dog? You could have become any one of a multitude of creatures — it depended largely on your former life.’

I shook my body in frustration and moaned, ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Do you believe in reincarnation, Fluke?’ the badger asked.

‘Reincarnation? Living again as someone else, in another time? I don’t know. I don’t think I do.’

‘You’re living proof to yourself.’

‘No, there must be another explanation.’

‘Such as?’

‘I’ve no idea. But why should we come back as someone or something — else?

‘What would be the point of just one existence on this earth?’

‘What would be the point of two?’ I countered.

‘Or three, or four? Man has to learn, Fluke, and he could never learn in one lifetime. Many man religions advocate this, and many accept reincarnation in the form of animals. Man has to learn from all levels.’

‘Learn what?’

‘Acceptance.’

‘Why? Why should he learn acceptance? What for?’

‘So he can go on to the next stage.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘I don’t know, I haven’t reached it. It’s good, I believe. I feel that.’

‘So how do you know this much? What makes you special?’

‘I’ve been around for a long time, Fluke. I’ve observed, I’ve learned, I’ve lived many lives. And I think I’m here to help those like you.’

His words were soft and strangely comforting, but I fought against them. ‘Look,’ I said, Tm confused. Are you saying I have to accept being a dog?’

‘You have to accept whatever life gives you — and I mean accept. You have to learn humility, Fluke, and that comes only with acceptance. Then will you be ready for the next level.’

‘Wait a minute,’ I said, taking on a new tact out of desperation. ‘We all become animals when we die?’

He nodded. ‘Nearly all. Birds, fishes, mammals, insects — there are no rules as to which species we’re born into.’

‘But there must be billions upon billions of living creatures in the world today. They can’t all be reincarnated humans, our civilisation just hasn’t been going that long.’

The badger chuckled. ‘Yes, you’re right. There are at least a million known animal species, over three quarters of which are insects — the more advanced of us.’

‘Insects are the more advanced?’ I asked in a flat tone.

‘That’s right. But let me answer your first point. This planet of ours is very old and it’s been washed clean many times so that life can start all over again, a constant cycle of evolvement which allows us to learn a little more each time. Our civilisation, as you call it, has not been the first by any means.’

‘And these… these people are still coming back, still… learning?’

‘Oh yes. Much of our progress owes itself to race memory, not inspiration.’

‘But no matter how long ago it all began, man evolved from animals, didn’t he? How could animals have been reincarnated humans if they were here first?’

He just laughed at that.

You can imagine the state I was in by now: half of me wanted to believe him because I needed answers (and he spoke in such a soothing, matter-of-fact way), and the other half wondered if he was demented.

‘You said insects were more advanced… ‘ I prompted.

‘Yes, they accept their lives, which are shorter and perhaps more arduous. A female fruit-fly completes her whole lifecycle in ten days, whereas a turtle, for instance, can live for three hundred years.’

‘I dread to think of what the turtle has been up to in his previous life to deserve such a long penance,’ I said dryly.

‘Penance. Yes, that’s a good way of putting it,’ he said thoughtfully.

I groaned inwardly and was startled when the badger laughed out loud. ‘All too much for you, is it?’ he said. ‘Well, that’s understandable. But think about it: Why are certain creatures so repugnant to man? Why are they trodden on, mistreated or killed, or just plain reviled? Could these creatures have been so vile in their past lives that the malignancy lingers on? Is this their punishment for past crimes? The snake spends his life crawling on his belly, the spider is invariably crushed whenever he comes into contact with man. The worm is despised, the slug makes humans shudder. Even the poor old lobster is boiled alive. But their death comes as a blessing, a relief from their horrible existence. It’s nature’s way that their lives should be short, and man’s instinct that makes him want to crush these creatures. It’s not just abhorrence of them, you see, but compassion also, a desire to put an end to their misery. These creatures have paid their price.