Z is for Zig Zags

There is nothing new under the sun. Although the brief episode known as Mankind may have seemed like an aberration or an experiment, it was not unique. For two million years after the demise of humans, the world buzzed and hummed in a perpetual food chain, but no one species returned to dominance. Then it zig-zagged back again.

The climatic crisis of the 21st Century had been a mere blip in the rise and fall of the earth. It only took a few thousands of years for the carbon to retreat. In the overall history of the planet, it would pale into insignificance compared to the radiation explosions of the sun before its eventual demise that would boil the oceans and waste any flora and fauna that remained. That happy event was still hundreds of millions of years away. The next people to dominate the world were a species of lizard called the Karnika. On the face of it, they were unprepossessing. Their eyes were overlarge and oozed blue gunk night and day. They had four legs but, like man, later stood up. Even this was not a pretty sight because the Karnika had one scaly leg that was longer than the other, making it difficult to escape from their enemies. Due to their vulnerability, they used their cunning to make up for their lack of athleticism.

In a Karnika village on a land mass that was known as South America a long time ago, the return of Boubus, had caused quite a stir. Boubus was the child of the chief who had disappeared into the forest a year ago to 'find himself.' Everyone in the village assumed he would be killed by a big cat or one of the other nefarious creatures that inhabited the forest, but one day he returned.

He had a horse with him and was dragging a cage full of exotic monkeys. But the return of Boubus was less remarkable than the contraption that was carried behind the cart. Wooden slats had been put together in an outlandish spherical design. The contraption rolled behind the horse.

A group of womenfolk gathered in the village square. The return of Boubus made them emotional. There was enough eye oozing going on to create a mound of ooze in the square that Boubus tactfully pulled his cart around.

His family and the elders of the village embraced him and then turned to the contraption.

"Can you see the ease of movement?" he cried. "Imagine how this will revolutionize our village and make it easier to harvest the crops."

His father mounted a rock with his smaller leg on the surface and his other leg on the ground. That way he attained some stature and equilibrium. "I am so proud of my lost son," he told the gathering crowd. "He went away into the jungle and came back with something wonderful. This is progress."

He pushed the cart and it moved forward. The motion caused his lizard nostrils to puff up and emit little squeaks of delight. He pushed it again and giggled..

So that's the A-Z Challenge zipped up for another year. This one was hard due to time constraints. A few posts were late but it wasn't the end of the world...