Pete Presents: Wild Animals - Gizzle Edition.

This is a story I wrote in March 2008. It's being reposted for the masses to see.

It was during my time in Tanzania Africa recently that I came across a marvelous discovery. To preface, before I left I had discussed with my good and dear friend Michael Cannetti, the existence of a very special and very rare animal.

Mike had asked me, "So are you going to watch the Gizzle as it grazes in the open plain (Australian accent needed for this statement.)". I at first mistook his meaning for watching a Gazelle graze, but then I recalled having heard of a mysterious animal by that name. As we began to discuss, Mike at first suggested he thought it resembled something of a "dog-like" creature, a Dingo. But that wasn't it. I thought hard about it and remembered that it was known to be a very fast animal with some interesting facial features. Finally and triumphantly, Mike recalled that it was part Gazelle, part Ostrich, and part something far more sinister.

It was with great courage and ingenuity that I set out upon the plains of the Serengeti searching for this elusive beast. A promise was forged that I would bring home a photo of the animal in all its natural glory. A promise made to my dear, dear Cannetti. Many days were spent traversing long distances of nearly endless plains and nights were spent fending off Lions and Leopards as they viciously attacked our camps. Many brave men and women were lost. Time seemed to come to a crawl, each passing day another thousand Gazelle's but no Gizzle. Another flock of Ostriches, but none close to what I had traveled so far to find.

It is easy for one's mind to start playing tricks out in the plains. With the intense sun and heat, mirages form in the distance, drawing you near but only to find naught but your own blood, sweat and tears. Days became weeks. Weeks became months. And through it all, my hope prevailed. Though fading as I was in both physical health and sanity, I pushed ever on.

Disease swept me. The local peoples took me in, gave me care. I slowly returned back to my former health, but at such costs of time and resources it seemed my task would soon become impossible. It was with great desperation I decided to stay among them, hoping I could learn their ways.

A year went by, and then another and they thought me many things. They taught of tracking and the ways of the wild. They told me legends passed down for centuries by their ancestors, all brave warriors forged out of the very earth of the African plains. All the while, the great Gizzle eluded even their finest and most courageous; all but one that is. They told of a warrior chief, said to have been birthed of their gods, but made to walk the earth as a man. Each passing story of this ancient soul grew a fire in my heart, the flames of which would not be extinguished so easily again. At the end of my time there, my strength and hope renewed, I made another promise. To come back some day, if only by the grace of some higher power, and share my adventures with them. And to take all that they taught me and honor them by seeking out the Gizzle, even if it meant my certain death.

It was with new fervor I set out again through the jungles and across the plains. Swimming the widest deltas and climbing the highest of mountains. Surely nothing would get in my way. Time still was not kind, and the elements dropped upon me by the fates themselves broke and battered my body, but still I pressed on. With increased accuracy I found signs of the beast, now just barely escaping my grasp. Living off what sustenance I could find, and always moving. Neither rain nor raging fire could slow my speed. Animals both great and small cowered and ran as I rolled through their territory like the very lightning that lit up the sky; territory in which only one man had before tread. Earth shook, winds roared, kicking up great dust storms to blind me, and yet I pressed on. All the terrible beasts of the wild descended on me, and were left crippled in my trail.

It was on the final day that the entire world seemed to revert back to a cool and calm nature. I had walked through the fires of hell in the jungle, and had not been burned. It was this morning, sun shining and not a cloud in the sky that I knew I had overcome the creature that had only previously taunted me in my dreams. Through bushes and trees I tread, out into an open clearing. A clearing that the sharp eyes of an Eagle could not see across. Breath came shallow through my lungs, a light breeze in the air that smelled of spring born anew. Flocks of animals grazed in the tall grasses, numbered in the hundreds of thousands. A glorious sight for any tired eyes to come on. A true honor to solely witness such beauty. I set out, knowing that this day would be the day of reckoning. Time here did not change. Though hours passed, the sun stayed fixed in the sky.

What strength I had, what courage and power, now seemed drained of me despite all odds. Each passing step in this mystical place seemed like a thousand. Each breath was as heavy as an Elephant and as thin as a Butterfly's delicate wing. I was just short of my dieing breath. Cursing the ground I now crawled on, and the evil fates for having dragged me so far only to fail at the closest possible moment. My resolve all but extinct I pulled myself just one final foot farther, hoping, praying that that final step in this great and unending journey would land me my prize. In this very moment, and not one moment sooner, I collapsed, face in the dirt, to await my final demise.

It was then through the harsh and drumming sound echoing through my ears and brain that the light breeze still blowing, and taunting me, carried on it the slightest of sounds. A sound I had not heard since the night spent near the campfires of the local people who had changed my life. It was the sound of laughter. My mind reeled. I could not make sense of this sound, out here in this place, where no normal man could go. Where only one great god-like man had gone before. And yet, there it was all the same.

My muscles tightened as I turned my neck up, and felt as though they were snapping as rubber bands pulled too tight one too many times. My eyes, caked with dust, cracked and creaked slowly open once again as great steel and wooden doors from castles long ago. A blur of light flooded in, combined with the awful drumming in my head making me feel as though a great explosion were just milliseconds away from removing my head from its place on my shoulders. And the laughing, amongst everything else, prevailed. Closer it came, though I could not focus where. Closer and closer. Without a moments notice my eyes cleared, the ringing in my ears ceased and standing before me, as great and terrible as the legends had told, was the animal. This creature I had spent so many years of my life seeking out. This great omnipotent figment of man's imagination made real right before my eyes and shivering soul. The Gizzle stood, amongst the thousands of animals walking the endless mystical plain. Stood laughing. Like a banshee. Laughing at the futility of all my endeavors. Laughing I could feel from the tips of my toes to the end of the hairs on my head. Feeling that once again lit a fire. Kindling at first yes, but within seconds it became as large as any fire man had ever seen. Brighter and hotter than a thousand atomic bombs lighting up the night sky.

My arm flew with grace and precision to my side where my old trusty camera hung. Seemingly forged by some greater power, it hung, working miraculously as the day I had first placed it there. Like birds on the wind it came to my face. Lens cap off, focus locked. My eyes now pumping with furious blood and anger looked through the viewfinder, light and shape and color bending through the lens and into my very being. My finger flinched and SNAP!

It was all gone. I pulled the camera away from my face. No sounds existed anymore but that of a solitary cricket chirping away. It was dusk. In a moment of terror I tore around in a circle. Where was I? I came to grips. I breathed in the deep cool air. I waited. The last shimmering essence of light disappeared over the flat rolling plain in front of me. I reached down to find a hard shape at my side. From some small source of light nearby I could make out my camera, still hanging dutifully at my side. And then a voice…

"Time to go sir." A human voice? I turned to see my prior guide, long dead to me standing as plain as day not 3 meters away. I stepped awkwardly back. "Are you alright sir?" he asked. My voice slowly found its way out, but only above a peep. "Yes, I think so". Perplexed I followed after him. Into the Safari jeep I climbed. Had it all happened? What sort of trickery could this all be? We drove along through the early night, and I spent all the time re-running the events through my head. I couldn't understand what I had just experienced. I was certainly back where I had started. In fact, I knew it was the tenth and final day of my original trip. We were on our way to the airport where I would leave this place. Leave it all behind. All I had seen and experienced.

The thought made me happy. A dream, I thought. All of it. I allowed myself to relax and lean back in the dusty leather seat. We arrived at the airport. We wished me farewell, and I thanked him for his guidance. I waited a short while until being ushered onto the large 747 to head back to civilization and life as I knew it. The stewardess came by and greeted me with a nice cold drink. It seemed strange the taste of it, as if I had gone without for so long I could no longer remember the taste or feeling. I almost immediately slipped into a deep sleep. Darkness totally, and peace. Though it would not last.

A fire roared in front of me. I fell back, stunned by this change of events. I whipped my neck back and forth trying to figure out where I had now ended up. What was happening to me? Then a soft, but firm hand touched my shoulder. I was suddenly very calm and a familiar breeze seemed to hang in the air. The hand which led to an arm and a great hulking figure moved from behind me and sat down next to me. I knew his face without ever having seen it. Hundreds of stories of his greatness had etched this image into my mind like it was carved into solid stone. We sat for some time in quiet. Whether it was a lack of anything to say or a great mutual respect we felt, I can not say. It was I who finally spoke. "Why?" I asked. Simple a question as a man can ask. In this place it seemed to echo, like in a cave or great canyon. He did not answer immediately, but I was not in a rush to hear whatever answer he may have. My mind still raced, was it real? Was it all a dream? Finally his mouth opened.

"Believe.", he said. Before I could ask anything else my eyes popped open as the stewardess bumped into my arm. "Oh, I'm sorry sir. I hope I didn't damage it.", She quipped.  As she moved away, this thought perplexed me. Damaged what? I followed a path down my arm to my hand which hung loosely in the aisle. And in it was my camera. I nearly jumped out of my seat with horror. "Of course! Why didn't I check it sooner!?" The commotion caused a few other souls to wake and give lazy stares and mixed grumbling noises in my direction, but I didn't care. I flicked on the switch and pressed the review button. A single tear rolled down my face.

Believe…