Quietly, the night wind walked through in the earth and stilled itself in the ground and once in a while jumped out of the bushes and back into them, playing alone with itself. It laughed every once in a while, picked its pace and came running through the trees and greenery and touched the flaps of the tent. The rough material groaned as the wind touched it and moved it wildly, delighted in its movement, and swayed from side to side. Not listened. Not heard.

"Quite a morbid little scene out there," The tall man said to himself. He turned away from the opening the wind has caused on his tent, angered that the flaps were causing such a stir, enough to wake him up. The rough material hit the sides of the tent repeatedly, louder each time. Cecil Clayton rubbed his chin. "Rather too much noise, blast it."

Moving his hand out from his bed covers quietly, he took the silver cup on top of the table next to his bed. He half closed his eyes, glaring at the outside and the wind and the darkness. And the tent flap going crazy.
 
 
 

The wind woke him up as it picked up the lower part of the tent flaps where he slept. The noise they made as they rubbed against each other startled him. He was still growing used to the fact the strange noises the tents made in the night. The light lamps would shift and stir in the dark making inaudible squeaking, the wooden furniture would creak ever so often, and the bags and travelling gear would shift every now and then. From his own tent, Dr. Porter would snore and, when one least expected it, would talk in his dreams. It was all too strange for him.

Blinking, he stared up at the flaps. He blushed as he suddenly realized that he had somehow ended up sleeping in the floor again. Frowning, he pulled his legs beneath him and sat, and felt the edges of the metallic frame of his bed against his back. Sighing silently, he stared at the thin, greyish mattress. He wanted to sleep in the bed like the rest of the camp. None of them ever slept on the floor, or even sat there much, but somehow he always ended up sleeping in the floor. The mattress felt too squishy, too smooth for comfort. The whole place felt too weird to him.

She slept in a bed. That was the reason why he began to try to see if he could do it. They all slept in beds. Closing his eyes, he let his head drop back into the mattress. The cold iron frame graced his neck. It was hard to sleep here. Everything woke him up and everything kept him from going to sleep. The edge of the flap lifted itself higher each time and he could see outside into the darkness, into the trees and wines and bushes covered with the mantel of the dark. He could feel the ground beneath him, the bags and trunks half open and closed beside him, the maps and compasses and guns left on top of the table, the many rulers and pencils lying some chair or another. The clothes and shoes, the folded bed covers and stashed silver plates and forks left from yesterday's dinner. He didn't know what anyone of those things were or what words the people used for them. He could feel the tent around him, the bodies of the sleeping people and the sounds of their sleeping. He was feeling too much. And it didn't feel too good.

Hoping no one could see him, he bent forwards and crawled out through the tent opening. Quietly, he leapt through the bushes and up the nearest tree, without much thinking. It was when he was up in the tree branch with his legs tucked underneath him, that he looked back to the tent where he had been sleeping. It looked tiny and dark from up where he was, and entirely like another reality. It was as if it wasn't him who had been inside next to all those strange objects and listening to the noises. It was someone else, and he had always been up in the tree he was sitting in now, looking down at it.

But, not every tent was dark, he could see. To the furthest right of the campsite a small light shone through the rough material. He turned his head to the left and stared at it attentively. It was her tent, and that was the lamp she had brought in her trunk. Sometimes at night he would lay awake and stare at the top of the tent in the darkness and he could hear the sounds coming from her tent. They weren't like the sounds that came from anywhere else. They weren't like the sounds in his own.

He jumped through the trees and made his way to the light, moving slowly so he could not be heard. Any moment now he would realize what he was doing, or at least realize that he must look stupid, and he would stop. But, not before he was right beside the lit tent, looking down with narrowed eyes.

The shadow moved inside and dark against the canvas wall. She must be writing or drawing or getting ready to sleep. Humans kept strange rituals when they went to sleep. They almost always take a bath and always put on special clothes they only wear when they are about to get into the squishy place where they sleep. They rub their mouths with a funny tasting jelly as well. Those were things he had considered doing, but he had not seen them long enough to quite catch the trick of their nuances. She did these things as well, but he believed she had already done so and was now in her bed. Stretching his neck so he could see through the tent opening, he saw her tucked into the bed with her large paper pad before her. She was bent over what she was doing and grossly involved in the lines and arches she was doing in the paper.

He leaned back into the tree. She might be drawing the animals again, the gorillas that Dr. Porter had wanted to see so much and had finally been able to see. She could be drawing one of the pots with flowers inside her room. Humans seemed to like drawings of those since he had seen a few in the people's belongings. It was a strange fascination, to look down at her from the top of the tree where he sat, and even though he sensed that maybe he should not be there, he didn't want to go. He looked down at the other tents and wondered what it would be like to be just like any of the other person in the camp, like her father, and have the freedom to walk up to that tent flap and ask to enter. He'd seen them do it tons of times. It was like one of their rituals. They'd sit for hours into the night and talk about the things. Many things. The places they had visited that day and the animals they had met. She'd talk about her drawings and about the things she wrote. They talk about their house in London and the people they had left behind. Many things. He could hear them even after all the lights had been turned off. Talking into the night and laughing about things he didn't know about, but they had many words to describe. That's what he wanted. He wanted to drop down from the tree branch and walk up to her tent. But, he had no words to say; didn't know any things to talk about like the professor. He knew so much about the animals that she was so excited about, but he didn't know how to tell her.

The wind rustled his hair and blew strands of it into his face. She had finished her work and was now holding it out to inspect it like she always did to make sure she had got the lines right. She and the tent and the light were in a dream like the ones that he had in his head. He could never make her understand. He didn't have the words. He couldn't walk like the people did. If he walked up to that tent, he'd look like an idiot on his hands and toes. And he'd have no words to tell her. It was like the noises and objects he could not understand inside the tent that they had given him. He frowned and stared down at his hands. Slowly, he unfolded his fingers and stretched his hands the way the people did, looking down at them.

"J- j- jj…" He didn't like the sound of his voice. It was too high, too much like the scream of a bird and nothing like the way the people sounded. He frowned deeper and lifted his head. "J-Jane…"

She smiled at the picture and ran her hands lovingly over its surface. Carefully, she tucked all the drawings together and placed them inside the paper carrier she used to keep them safe, tying the strings that closed it.

"J- Jane… talk. Talk. Me … talk…"

She banged at the small pillow in the bed, smashing it into the shaped she wanted to put her head into. Satisfied, she pulled the covers up tighter around her, and lay her head back into the pillow.

"Talk, Jane… me. Me talk… night…. Talk, Jane, animals…"

"Jane…"

"Me talk Jane."

He couldn't understand the emotion he felt pounding in his chest. He couldn't tell her, couldn't ask her. Couldn't even tell her that he wanted to talk to her. All he could do was talk at her, toss out guttural sounds shaped like hers and watch them fall and hit the ground, knowing that his probably meant nothing. It was strange, just like everything down in the ground, just like everything in his tent. And he was just watching, watching from the trees and knowing that he could never climb down and be a part of it.

The light in her tent went out and her shadow melted into the rest of the dark. Silently, he dropped down into the ground, and made his way back to the tent they had given him. He heard the wind laugh and hop through the bushes and climb up the canvas of the tent. It rushed up into the leaves and made the trees laugh and sway. It caught the flaps of the tents and made them grunt and rub on each other.

That's what he was, like the wind, like the trees, like the tent flaps. Merely the sound of nothing.
 
 
 
 

Author's Note

This story was written on May 21, 1999 when I was waiting to Disney's Tarzan with impatience, longing to see it. I hope you liked it, even if it's just a short silly thing I wrote. The ideas of the rituals of humans before bed were borrowed from a long discussion my best friend (Jane!) and me had one night.
 

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