The Pill Bugs of Time by Angel Martinez

Author:Angel Martinez [Martinez, Angel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Erotic Romance Fiction
Publisher: Pride Publishing
Published: 2016-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

* * * *

Sunlight tinged the insides of Vikash’s eyelids. He struggled to wake, expecting hospital sheets and antiseptic smells. A deep breath brought him strong body odor and grass.

What the hell?

He scrambled upright before his eyes were fully focused and hit his head on a support branch. The Pleistocene settlement still surrounded him. Why was he still here? He was supposed to be back now.

“No,” he whispered, sitting down with a thump. “No, no, no.”

Maybe it was a cumulative venom effect, but he was still stuck in the past. Going to sleep hadn’t solved anything. It might be that nothing would wake him. His heart thudded hard as panic dug icy needles into his chest. He wasn’t going to make it home this time.

The young people sharing the shelter with him were scooting away with sideways glances. One of the older girls actually fled the shelter and Vikash forced a deep breath into his lungs. He was scaring the kids.

Wild-hair arrived within seconds, shooed the kids out and took Vikash in his arms. His meaningless words still soothed Vikash’s frayed nerves and he finished pulling himself together. Whether he would wake in the correct time that day, the next or never again, he still had to deal with what was in front of him in a calm, sensible way.

Calm. Yes. At least the face he showed the world, as it had always been. His features slipped back into his customary placidness, what Kyle called his statue face. Stop. No worrying about Kyle right now. Just try to make yourself useful.

Being useful to a prehistoric community proved harder than Vikash could have imagined. The adult males gathered up weapons and snares to go out for the day’s hunting—and Wild-hair made it clear that Vikash wasn’t to go with them. Eldest Mother sat Vikash down with her to try to show him how to weave the simple baskets the older children made. His fingers were suddenly so clumsy he couldn’t even begin. Claw-necklace set him to grinding rough grains in a stone bowl, but apparently he sucked at that too since she soon took the stone pounder away.

Two of the older women took pity on Vikash, whose humiliation threatened to melt him into a messy globular puddle, and handed him a basket. He was puzzled until the mid-age children, the tribe of perhaps five to eight year olds, tugged him toward the woods and a patch of berry bushes. Good. He could pick berries with the kids and watch out for them. Being an adult male was overrated, anyway.

Still, he proceeded carefully, watching the little ones expertly picking only the deepest purple berries. Only when he was certain he wouldn’t also screw up berry picking, he started filling his basket methodically, plucking the berries the little ones couldn’t reach. The day was warm enough, though his fingers were chilled, and the kids around him chattered happily to him, not at all bothered when he couldn’t answer them.

His continued presence in this time still bothered him, but the berry picking pushed the anxious gnawing further back in his brain.

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