Proof

Proof

“The future is lost! Gone, I tell you!” George stood at the edge of the cliff. His cries echoed down the canyon.

“Get back from the edge or you’ll fall.” I inched to the edge, yep, a drop that’d kill.

He grabbed me, pushed me back to the rock face. “All that work! Gone in a moment!” Then George ran down the trail.

I followed him, but slowly, keeping my feet firmly against the edge of the rocks. I could see my demise as well if I slipped. “George! Wait for me!”

It was useless, he was probably out of the canyon, down by the river by now. Probably looking for the project. A hopeless cause. He’d never find it. Like looking for a needle in a haystack.

It’d happened so fast. As we stopped for a moment, the lion startled us. It jumped over George, he dropped the specimen, I screamed, the lion’s prey ran off down the trail with that huge mountain lion in pursuit.

While I stood thanking God for not being lion lunch, George cursed losing the bone fragment he had just worried out of the rock face. The fragment that could prove a theory for his doctoral thesis was now at the bottom of the river.

When I made my way to George, he was knee deep in the river, searching for his beloved bone fragment.

“Any luck?” I joined him in the river, not sure what to look for but wanting to be supportive.

“Ah, here it is!” He pulled a small bone out of the water. It was no bigger than a chicken bone. “The missing link.”

“To what?” I questioned.

“Proof aliens killed the dinosaurs.”

I rolled my eyes, held my tongue. Tried not to laugh.

W/C 294