A Message

[Phoenix]

Good day everyone.

I was contracted to leave this message on this board over a year ago. The allotted time has elapsed so now I do my job.

The payment in this case was the forgiving of a very old debt to one that was ancient when the most distant ancestor I know of was born. While this individual has never threatened me and indeed always been quite kind, I am still relieved to be released the burden of this debt.

Remember always, no matter how a benevolent an ancient may seem, in their long existence, they have been many things. Now if only I manage to pay off all my debts so easily.

Good day,

This message will make no sense to most of you, a little sense to a few more and those to whom it is directed will understand it best.

I am very old.

How old?

I do not know.

I remember hunting what are now called mammoths though we had a different name for them of course. In fact, I have forgotten many names that there once were for them.

While I wasn't there for it, I remember the fall of Atlantis. I knew nothing of that land but we all felt the changes that came when that land was washed away. The details I would learn from a group fleeing that destruction.

But my tale begins long before even that ancient myth though it is tied to the people of that lost island.

I was a strong hunter among my people. The spirits were with me, or so said our elders and wise folk. When a cursed stranger came to our midst from a far off land, I was the one who drove him off.

But on the night of the full moon he returned, howling and filled with murderous rage. Again I drove him off though we fought until dawn and I was bitten many times.

I was my tribes salvation but also their doom for the stranger, who was an exile of Atlantis and traveler to distant parts of the world passed his curse onto me. When next the full moon came around, it was I who slaughtered my village and lapped up their blood in the twilight.

Cursed and shamed, I wandered the land for I don't know how long. Shunning other people for their own sake and howling at every full moon. I don't know how long I was wild and feral. A hundred years? A thousand? It doesn't matter.

By the time I encountered the distant descendants of the one who cursed me as they fled from the loss of their homeland, I had long since mastered the curse and tamed the wolf.

Oh, the wolves don't like it when you talk about taming them, I know. They don't like to be reminded where dogs come from but I remember.

I am older than you are. I am older than the oldest among you. Older even than the names of the tribes. As I remember the rise and fall Atlantis, I also remember the rise and fall of many other civilizations. Including yours.

Yours ended in blood.

In those days your people tried to drag me into your conflicts but I would have none of it. But I learned nonetheless. I learned about your progenitors. I learned about your goddess and the paradise lost to you. I learned all your old stories.

When the wars finally ended and you discovered that all of you had lost, you made laws. Those laws were made to save you for you realized that the world you lived in was not paradise and it was not yours. So you made the laws so that you could survive.

Those of you who knew of me tried to make me follow the laws as well. But I would have none of that as well. Know this. I am older than your law and not bound by it. I survived the curse, the wildlust and the time before you. I survived your wars and I have survived being outside your law.

But every thousand years or so, you forget about me. Then looking for others of your kind who are outside the tribes and your law, sometimes you stumble on me again. And the cycles start all over again. The invitations, the coercion and the threats. I want none of it. I want only to be left alone and for those under my care and protection to also be left alone. If you can manage that then there can be peace.

If you feel you must harass me however... well, I'll survive you as well.

So leave me be and do now draw others close to me or my family again. My claws and fangs are sharper than yours and my muscles larger and I've been using them longer!

Before I disappear from world of civilization again, I think I will leave you with some wisdom which you may recognize to your profit or disdain at your folly.

The goddess forbade the development of technology, the use of tools. The Apes did so anyway. They made tools because of you. You created that need with your mocking. This tale is included in your lore not so you can blame the apes as you do, but to warn you against creating a need for them to create more tools. Despite this warning, most of you find new and ingenious ways to encourage them to create new and ingenious ways to kill you.

There is another warning you have failed to take heed of.

You lost your place in paradise for how you treated others. You did not accept them as your equals when you had a chance. So you have been thrown out of paradise and live in world dominated by them.

In the thousands of years since, you have learned so little. You still blame the apes for you sins and what you have lost. When you have put aside the old vendetta's, hatreds and inequities, only then will you have a chance to prosper.

Until then, you are truly called children.
Until then, like your goddess, I shall have nothing to do with you.

-John Black

P.S. The last time you really pissed me off, I taught a small group of humans just a fraction of what I knew in the lands of the north where once I hunted. I believe they hunt you still.

Imagine what I could do by releasing or having one of the many who owe me favors release a greater portion of what I know to a larger audience. This is the information age, after all.

How will you change and adapt to survive into the future?

However it is, I want none of it. Leave me alone!

This is the last time I will warn you.

[Lord Shakar]

A very intriguing tale if true. I am not doubting that you were given said message but I know of these 'children' referred to within the message. I find it well intriguing.

[Kermode]

John, here's hoping I never find you again.

Good luck.

[Nemesis]

I thought it might be him too but I didn't want to say anything. Sometimes it's better to leave sleeping dogs lie, as it were.

[Cybermancer]

We may never see him again but after these posts, I expect I haven't heard the last of this.

[Kermode]

Never seeing him again would be a good thing.

[Nemesis]

Why would you say that, Kermode?

[Kermode]

Some folks deserve to be left alone. If he resurfaces it's because someone really didn't understand this.

[Nemesis]

That did seem to be the gist of his message. He just wanted to be left alone. Maybe people will listen.

[Kermode]

I doubt it, which will probably be their funeral.

[Nemesis]

Never met him myself but from what I've heard, you're probably right.