The hungry roar of a meat-eater broke through the forest, but they didn’t heed it, not stopping for a moment. They were together, inseparable, strong. No predator could touch them. They danced for new generations, in harmony, as if they’d been dancing together their whole lives, as if they hadn’t met only that morning. They danced in slow, heavy-legged rhythm, two dark shapes against the sunset sky burning bright in reds and oranges and fiery gold.
And then, as night fell, under the twinkling stars, they stopped dancing, She and He, and surrendered to each other. Under his panting weight, She forgot Her old herd, and teeth and death and horror. Instinct led Her into the future, towards a large nest, with eggs and little ones that would one day grow and dance themselves to the rhythm of life.
~~~
Vesna snuggles against the professor’s chest. His gentle hand rests on her breast. The autumn nights are chilly, but the professor’s warmth spills comfortably across Vesna’s back, and she enjoys his quiet breath on her hair.
That afternoon, it had taken her time to understand. Time to take the proportions of the animals into account, their anatomy and how they moved.Time to accept the obvious, no matter how impossible it seemed. But as much as her mind resisted, as much as the scientist inside whispered it could not be, in the end, there could be no doubt. Her and Šaric’s footprints on the beach, in the sand, the impressions left by their shoes … Vesna substituted them for the prints of the iguanodons’ feet in her drawings.
Many, many millions of years ago, two iguanodons danced. They didn’t just perform ancient rituals of wooing, calling and displaying, and ritualized fights that occasionally erupted into something more serious — that would be nothing more than paleontologists had assumed for decades they’d done. No, these two danced! Facing each other; holding each other by their forelimbs; turning, circling, twirling just like humans do. They danced!
Why? That, too, was demonstrated by the afternoon’s experiment. When, exalted by their discovery, Vesna embraced the professor and, not fully realizing what she was doing, kissed him. And then when they looked into each other’s eyes, fully realizing what they were doing, they kissed once again. Only to end finally, after the best dinner Vesna had ever had, in the professor’s apartment, in his bed, in a hot, sweaty, panting embrace that made Vesna forever change her opinion of elderly gentlemen.
“You don’t sleep?” The professor’s question is a whisper in her ear. He starts rubbing himself gently against her hip, and the young woman realizes with joy that the night is by no means over yet.
“Something’s troubling me.” Somewhere in the corner of her mind, Vesna wonders why she must stubbornly — usually with the same disastrous results — analyse every relationship she’s in? Why can’t she simply let go, all the way, without holding back? Why can’t she listen to her heart when it whispers to her she’s finally found what she was looking for?
“What?” The professor kisses Vesna’s cheek, his hand caressing her breast, teasing her, making her entire body tremble with desire. Their breathing growing faster, Vesna turns to face him and look him in the eyes. They kiss and kiss and kiss some more, until she opens to him, spreads her legs, breathless, surrendering to the passion, moaning as his lips close over her nipple and his moustache tickles the soft skin. And, as the professor penetrates her in slow thrusts, Vesna thanks two ancient behemoths that helped her — eons after they died, millions of years after their species went extinct — to find a new love.
And later, much later, feeling cozy and fulfilled, as she ruffles the professor’s sweaty hair and places a gentle kiss on his forehead, she asks, “The iguanodons. Who played them their waltz?”
~~~
ALEKSANDAR ŽILJAK was born in Zagreb, Croatia, in 1963. He graduated from Electrotechnical Faculty in Zagreb and earned his Master of Computer Sciences degree in 1990. He’s a freelance illustrating artist, specializing in wildlife, but also doing science fiction.
He also writes science fiction/fantasy/horror stories. He has published two story collections, Slijepe ptice (Blind Birds — 2003) and Božja vu ica (The Divine She-wolf — 2010), and a book on cryptozoology. He has published his stories and texts all over the world. He’s also an editor.
Aleksandar Žiljak has won six SFERA Awards for his science fiction writing, art and editorial work.
John doted on the elite French touring car he’d devoted much of his time to restoring. Can his dead wife teach him there are other things worthy of his attention too?
THE RESTORATION MAN
by Simon John Cox
John doesn’t stay long at the wake.
It’s held upstairs at the Dun Tap, round the corner from the crematorium; just trestle tables and sandwiches and a hundred quid behind the bar for the mourners, who flock in after the service and croak their grief like ravens. He arrives last, circulates amongst them beneath heavy beams that smell of dust: lovely service, very respectful, it’s what she would have wanted. Someone gives him a beer. It feels heavy, and he drinks it too quickly. He leaves as soon as he feels that etiquette will allow.
“Still in shock, I expect,” says a steel-haired aunt, and she smiles briefly after him before returning to the carcass of the buffet.
At home, in the house where they lived, he is overcome by a feeling that she is nearby. Every time he walks into a room he feels as though she has just left it, senses that she is
