(10/04/2008) The Offering
Mike had deeply angered the tribe. They were
extremely hostile to intrusions by outsiders, and the foolish dog would
now be dealt a grave punishment. Captured, stripped and bound, Mike was
carried aloft out into a desolate open plain stretching for miles
between the mountains. The cold wind swept down from the peaks and
swirled wildly across the barren landscape, rushing a sharp chill
through Mike's naked fur. Looking down over his feet, he could see
something strange, a dark shape jutting above the flat earth. A huge
stone tablet raised five feet above the ground, like an altar of rock
in the centre of the wilderness. Its appearance gave Mike a deep sense
of foreboding, contemplating its purpose with dread.
Arriving at its edge, the tribe heaved him onto the tablet and pinned
him down onto its cold surface. Climbing up around him, they tied
Mike's limbs with rough cords cutting into his wrists and ankles, and
strapped the loose ends firmly around four gold rings punched into the
rock, leaving Mike's body spread flat across the plate. Then,
clambering down from the surface, they turned and walked away. Mike
felt the panic rising in his body as their voices and footsteps became
more and more distant, until they eventually faded out into the
whirling rumble of the wind, leaving Mike helpless and alone out in the
open.
The dog was powerless, the tight cords stretching his muscles out
beyond his own ability to control them. He could not escape, or even
move. He struggled for several minutes, shifting his head against the
rock as he wildly darted his gaze across the plain, looking for any
sign of what awaited him. With his muscles beginning to ache with the
tension and the grip of the cords burning as they pinched the flesh to
his bones, his heart sank as he started to come to terms with his
hopeless position. Cold, fearful and exposed, he brought his futile
struggle to a stop. The sky was turning dark above him, the black
clouds drawing towards the sun, the chill in the air growing as a storm
wind began to swell over the mountains from the West, like a dark omen
warning him of impending danger. Mike could do nothing but lie there,
pondering his fate. He knew not when, or even if, the tribe would
return. Perhaps this was a cruel means of holding him hostage for their
future will. Maybe he would simply be left there on the cold stone to
freeze or starve to death. Or most terrifying of all, lying on this
rock altar, maybe he was to serve as a tribal sacrifice, an offering to
appease the anger of god or terrible beast unknown...
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