June 20, 2024
Before the Extinction
by Soramimi Hanarejima
In the museum of sleeping animals, I get another whiff of it—the unmistakably acrid odor of stale fear like charred socks laced with notes of PVC and solder resin. Here, it’s understandable. She’s once again lingering in front of the wolverine diorama, and though the furry creature curled up at its center appears serene in deep slumber, the sight of this viscous predator can still pull an old fear of animal savagery to the forefront of one’s mind.
But that’s not what’s going on. This scent has been coming off her every time I’ve met up with her lately, and though she’s still redolent of bright hopes, I’m getting worried that her coworkers will be put off by the smell and assume she’s lapsed into poor emotional hygiene.
For now though, I say nothing. I don’t want to interrupt. It’s not her favorite exhibit, but she’s always drawn to the wolverine—always ends up the way she is now: staring at it with rapt attention as though doing the hard mental work of resolving the apparent contradiction that such a ferocious animal could sleep so soundly.
After we’ve moved on to the prehistoric section, I broach the matter of the odor.
“It’s these dreams I’ve been having,” she says. “They’re full of old phobias.”
I’m taken aback by their return in this nocturnal form. She’s long since come to terms with them and for years now has said nothing about them. Not a single comment about being a child frightened by the vastness of the universe. No self-deprecating humor about her reluctance to finish reading novels she had grown fond because she dreaded having to “leave behind” the lives of their protagonists.
“Maybe your mind is reflecting on the big emotions of your past,” I suggest.
“If so, it’s doing as much of that as it can in every dream.”
Immediately, her words conjure up an image in my mind, a scene that’s a mashup of those once intense fears: her reading a character-driven novel that she has to finish for a class, the pages illuminated by the headlamp she’s wearing while lying in her sleeping bag, alone in a tent pitched beneath the starry sky, waves relentlessly crashing on the beach just down the trail from the campground.
We pause by the sleeping T. rex, and she says, “They’re not nightmares though. I’m not scared during the dreams or afterwards, but they do leave me unsettled. I mean, these fears are old. They don’t have the power to scare me like they did before, but there’s some potent truth in them. About me and about the world.”
“Well, you were afraid of formidable things,” I muse.
“Right, right. And I can see myself being afraid of them again. Without warning. I was right to fear them while growing up, and not fearing them now seems only temporary.”
So is she afraid of suddenly becoming afraid? Scared that the vastness of space and time will be terrifyingly overwhelming once more? Or is she afraid of what it means to not be afraid? That it’s folly to not fear the formidable?
We breeze by other dinosaurs, merely glancing at the dozing pterosaur and diplodocus, stopping only when we get to the ankylosaurus herd. This is her favorite exhibit. She’s always liked art that feels like its own little world while also alluding to a larger world beyond it. This diorama is like a portrait of primitive community that both depicts a need for safety in numbers during a time of meat-eating monsters and references the long history of caring for others. It could be a scene from a cautionary tale—before a young member of the herd tries to strike out on his own, so confident in all his angular armor until he then finds himself imperiled by a pack of hungry deinonychuses. Or this could be the happy ending, these vegetarian dinos fast asleep after the fraught but of course successful rescue.
With no trace of tension in her now languid posture, she’s completely at ease in the company of these placid giants as though she’s reassured by their presence, a member of the herd at its periphery woken up by some sound or out of some nightmare, relieved to see everyone circled together on this patch of open ground.
The musk of fear wafts from her again, more pungent this time, like a burnt blueberry pancake with long-expired yuzu marmalade—somehow conveying the message that these ancient fears have brought us here to seek their release.
“Thanks,” she says voice heavy with lethargy.
“Oh, sure. You can always count on me to let you know when you smell,” I answer.
“I appreciate that too. But I was going to say thanks for being here.”
And instantly, it’s like we’re both ankylosauruses, safe together under the unfathomably vast night sky, still a million years to go before the extinction.