Bonkers ... a caveman humor short story

by Norm Cowie



  What they say about Norm's full length books

  "I loved this book, fangs and all." ~~ Best selling author James Rollins on Fang Face

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  The Next Adventures of Guy voted Winner of Preditors and Editors Readers Choice award for best Sci-Fi Fantasy

  See end of story for more on Norm’s books

  Bonkers

  a caveman humor short story

  By Norm Cowie

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. You may share this with other people... as many as you like.

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  (See additional titles by this author at end of book or at his website)

  https://www.normcowie.com

  ...

  (More necessary legal small print)

  All Rights Reserved.

  Copyright © 2011 by Norm Cowie

  cover art by Norm Cowie

  with PhotoShop assistance by Lauren Cowie

  This is a most likely a work of fiction.

  But who knows?

  Record keeping back then was kind of spotty.

  Bonkers

  a caveman tale of debauchery

  By Norm Cowie

  From his perch in the small tree near the river, Bonk had the perfect view of the two male musk oxen bulls squaring off on the ridge. They stamped and snorted their outrage that the other contested its right to hook up with the on-looking cows feigning disinterest in the duel. Bonk watched with fascination, trying to ignore the thick unpleasant aroma drifting downwind from the fighting arena.

  Bonk was a typical caveman, hairy, dark and naked. He also wasn't all that smart, a result either from regularly conking his head on the ceiling of his cave, or it was just one of those guy things.

  The bulls’ heads went down, and they thundered towards each other, slamming together in a resounding crash that sent a cracking sound down the entire valley and shock waves through their shaggy bodies. Like heavyweight boxers, they backed away a bit unsteadily and waited for their small brains to assemble themselves back into some order for the next round. They would continue their duel until one gave up or perished.

  Bonk took advantage of the commercial break and looked downriver just in time to see a crocodile surface and swallow a crane. The bird had been too preoccupied spearing a frog to notice the approaching reptile, while the frog had been too preoccupied snagging a fly to notice the leggy bird’s approach. After a futile struggle, all of the contestants were dragged into the river’s depths to be munched on by the leviathan croc.

  The two musk oxen slammed into each other again and Bonk’s small tree vibrated from the concussion of the huge animals’ collision.

  Bonk tightened his grip and looked down.

  Yep, the saber-tooth was still there. It grinned up at him with six-inch canines.

  “Go away,” Bonk yelled. He broke off a branch and tossed it at the heavy cat.

  It stopped grinning and snarled, whipping its short tail back and forth.

  Bonk was glad the smilodon wasn’t much of a tree climber, a fact that he’d fervently hoped for when he’d stumbled across the cat. After a brief but enthusiastic sprint, Bonk had clambered up the tree using every bit of the accumulated muscle memory from his tree-climbing ancestors.

  The musk oxen slammed into each other again, and Bonk looked up at the big day disk that brought warmth and light.

  “Ow!”

  Sometimes it was okay to look at, and other times it was too bright.

  The saber-tooth tired of waiting for its lunch to drop out of the tree and decided to take matters into its own claws. The heavy cat clamped massive paws around the small tree, causing the tree to shake violently.

  “Awk!” Bonk shrieked, hugging the trunk.

  There was a pause as the cat waited to see if there was a result.

  When Bonk impudently refused to drop, the huge predator sprang a dozen feet in a single bound, landing on the branch underneath Bonk.

  “Aah!”

  The cat’s semi-retractable back claws dug into the bark as it lunged at the caveman.

  “Aagh!”

  Bonk scrambled higher in the small tree which began swaying under their weight. The cat slapped a huge paw over the next branch and pulled itself closer.

  Thus urged, Bonk scrambled higher, noticing with considerable dismay that there wasn’t far to go before he would run out of climbing room.

  The cat snarled right under Bonk’s butt.

  “Go away! Shoo!” Bonk screeched. He smacked the cat on the head with a branch.

  This just further enraged the saber-tooth, and it clamped jaws on the stick and shredded the leaves angrily.

  “Aaah!”

  Bonk dropped the stick and scampered to the final branches. The massive cat followed, and as they climbed, the tree began to shudder.

  The combined weight of a thousand pounds of cat and two hundred pounds of intended cat food finally outwrestled the small tree and it began bending. As the treetop bowed, Bonk went from vertical to horizontal and then almost upside down. Both of his arms and legs clamped around the tree’s trunk. Below him, the cat was hanging with its powerful forelegs alone because its back legs weren’t equipped to hug an object. The cat had somehow turned around so it was facing the caveman.

  As the ground rushed at them, they silently watched each other. They floated closer to the ground, and Bonk let his legs swing free, so now both cat and human were hanging onto the tree with legs dangling.

  Bonk grinned nervously. “Nice kitty.”

  The cat’s lips lifted in a snarl.

  Bonk stopped grinning. “Not nice kitty.”

  Then he saw an opportunity to rid himself of the cat.

  Bonk mentally measured the length of the cat’s back legs and decided his were longer. So he kicked the cat in the chest with all of his strength. The cat yowled and let go with one clawed foot, swiping at Bonk with the other. Unfortunately for the half-ton cat, it couldn’t hold on with just one paw, and it dropped, gouging deep marks into the wood as it tried to hold on.

  Bonk had about a half second to gloat.

  Then the tree catapulted him into the air.

  “Aaaaghhhhhh.”

  Another crane standing in the shallows watched as a non-avian being helplessly flapped overhead and splashed into the river. The crane shrugged, and speared a minnow as the croc approached from deeper waters, hoping to snare another bird.

  Bonk came up sputtering. He couldn’t swim.

  “Aagh!”

  When his flailing foot hit bottom he realized he was on a sandbar in water shallow enough to stand. He stood upright and sighed in relief.

  He saw the saber-tooth pacing the water’s edge. It dipped a paw in the water and hastily pulled it back out. Then it glared at Bonk across the water.

  “Ha!” Bonk cried.

  That’s when he saw the huge saltwater croc arrowing through the water at him.

  “Aaagh!”

  He turned and ran through the waist-deep water towards the nearby rocks. It felt as if he was running in slow motion. He shot a panicked glance at the croc. Though it seemed to be moving leisurely, the distance between them was evaporating like a puddle on a salt flat. Bonk peed a bit, which was okay because he was in water, and the
sturdy caveman surged through the water. If he could just get to the rocks, he might be able to pull himself out of the croc’s reach.

  As these thoughts tumbled through his mind, something else surfaced in the water where the river emptied itself in endless repetition into the nearby saltwater sea.

  A fin.

  Shark.

  Bonk was familiar with the sharks that occasionally entered the river from the sea, mostly when the sea turtles were coming to shore to lay eggs. And he knew from seeing the resultant carnage on turtle shells how vicious a predator they were.

  And it was between him and the safety of the rocks.

  “Aaagh!”

  The triangular fin sliced through the lazy brown river with casual majesty.

  Behind him, the croc was getting closer.

  The shark angled so that it would cut a wide circle around the caveman, most likely to size him up as a possible meal.

  The croc harbored no such doubt, and it was swimming right at Bonk.

  Bonk turned to watch the shark pass between him and the shore, and now it was heading towards the exact spot the croc was heading towards. Then the croc saw the shark, and veered to assess this new threat.

  Suddenly a python landed on Bonk’s shoulder.

  “Aaagh!”

  He grabbed the python by the throat and started squeezing in the hopes of strangling the snake before it could strangle him.

  “Grab it and we’ll pull you up,” the python said.

  Oh, it wasn't a python. It was a vine. And the voice came from Dork, a friend who Bonk could see now was standing on top of the rocks holding the other side of the vine.

  Bonk grabbed the vine and his friend yanked him out of the water. As he was pulled up the rocks, he looked down at the croc and shark circling each other.

  A chorus of voices started chanting, "Go, Go, Go, Go, Go.."

  Bonk gained the ridge and now he could see a group of cavemen standing along the rocky precipice, cheering and whooping at the scene below them. Joz, Grog, Droog, Deth, Tacks, Lunk, Berp and Dork. They were all naked and dirty, with long muscular arms and deep-set eyes under thick supraorbital ridges. And judging from the fermented grape juice slopping over the edges of half coconut shells, they were likely a bit tipsy.

  "I bet a conch shell the shark wins," Berp cried.

  "You're on,” Droog countered. Droog was mostly known for his ability to bite through turtle shells, a trait admired by his friends.

  "I thought they had you," Dork said to Bonk as he stumbled away from the edge. Dork’s lips were dark purple from the grapes. He pushed a coconut shell filled with juice into Bonk’s hands.

  Berp smacked Bonk on the butt (yes, this marks the first time in history a guy smacked another guy’s butt). "Too bad, I had four coconuts riding on the croc getting you before the shark did."

  Bonk grinned at him. "Hah, I hope you break an arm paying off your bet."

  "You wish,” Berp said.

  Bonk slurped some wine, and looked back down into the river, where the two ancient rivals were still circling and sizing each other up. Both the shark and crocodile were salt water creatures, so they weren't unfamiliar with each other. The cavemen anticipated some entertainment, because neither shark nor croc was intelligent, neither feared the other, and they were both veritable eating machines,

  "Go, Go, Go, Go..." the cavemen chanted as they watched the circling predators.

  Unfortunately, their hopes were dashed when, with a twitch of its tail, the shark prudently decided to disengage. It whirled and headed back towards deep sea to go find something smaller than a thirty-foot saltwater crocodile to gobble.

  The crocodile floated for a moment, before submerging to go find something reptilian to do.

  "Awwww," the cavemen moaned.

  Berp threw a rock at the crocodile. "That was disappointing.”

  "Chicken," Dork taunted the shark fin as it passed from river to sea.

  "Chicken?" Bonk asked.

  Dork turned. "Bird, scared of everything."

  "Oh." Bonk looked back to the shark, and shook a fist. "Chicken."

  "Good one," Dork said.

  Let down from the excitement, the cavemen found comfortable places to sit or lounge. Now Bonk could see that he had come up the back way to the Portsbar, a rocky cluster of rocks at the mouth of the river feeding into the sea. The cavemen met there regularly to be guys, yearn for the invention of the NFL and drink fermented grape juice out of sight of their mates, who did not entirely approve of drunken cavemen. The Portsbar would later be the home of pirates, and even later used for a movie about pirates. For now, it was a great place for them to hang and drink.

  “Okay, okay,” Berp said, waving his hands. “Time to vote on who had the hardest trek here.”

  Deth shot up a hand. “A giant weasel chased me through half the valley.”

  “What’s a half?” Tacks asked.

  Deth’s unibrow beetled. “Um, like more than... or, well, less than... I dunno.”

  “I had to dodge a couple of dire wolves,” Droog said.

  “Hah, that’s nothing,” Joz sneered. “I had to pick my way through a mastodon herd.”

  “Hey!” Bonk cried, waving his arms. “How about me? Shark, croc and a saber-tooth tiger?”

  Lunk stood and belched up some wine. “Oh, yeah? I had to sneak past my mate and her sisters while they were cleaning.”

  “Oooo,” the other cavemen chorused.

  “And their mother,” Lunk added.

  “Oooo,” the other cavemen said.

  “We have a winner,” Tacks cried.

  “Yay!” The cavemen gave him a not-standing-but-lounging-on-rocks ovation. Which was probably best because they were quickly losing the ability to stand.

  Bonk quickly drained his cup because he had to catch up. He held out the cup for more. “Oh, hey, I think I discovered a new sport.”

  Tacks poured him some fermented fruity goodness. “Good, because we don’t have any sports yet.”

  Bonk frowned. “Well, actually not a sport. It’s more a way for us to impress our females so they will mate with us.”

  “Well okay then,” Droog said.

  “I thought you had a mate,” Deth said.

  Bonk’s eyes widened. “Oh, no, I’m not talking about me. I have more than enough on my hands with Hedz.”

  Grog grinned. “Yeah, that Hedz is a foxy momma.”

  Droog nodded. “Yeah, her mustache is most awesome.”

  Bonk’s mate Hedz had the most spectacular mustache in the community. That and her sexy unibrow made her the envy of the other cavewomen. And the cavemen.

  “Tell us about this game,” Deth urged.

  “Oh, right,” Bonk said. “On my way here, I watched the musk oxen...”

  “Musk oxen are good eating,” Droog put in.

  "Once you get past the smell," Deth said. He scratched himself, releasing some of his own not so good odor.

  Bonk nodded his agreement and continued. “That’s for sure. Anyway, I was up in a tree..."

  Droog cut him a glance. "What were you doing up in a tree?”

  "Saber-tooth chased me up there."

  "Oh, good job getting away," Droog said.

  Dork grinned, and dug out a small buggy critter from his armpit. "Bonk may not be a good hunter, but he's a very good escaper."

  "Yep," Bonk agreed. "Nothing has caught me yet."

  Droog belched. "Yeah, because if it had, you wouldn't be here.”

  "Well, we could say that for all of us," Dork said. He turned back to Bonk. "So tell us more about this game."

  "It’s pretty cool. The bulls go out into a field, and with the cows all watching, they charge and slam their heads together until one of them quits."

  "And the cows like this?" Droog asked.

  Bonk nodded. "Yeah, they were all excited."

  “It is a display of male machismo designed to make them swoon in female delight,” Dork said. Dork was the closest thing
the caveman community had to a scientific expert. Over the last winter, his studies had shown conclusively that cold caused ice. Then he had gone on about something called viscosity, and they had to throw snowballs at him until he stopped trying to teach them. But attracting females. That was another thing entirely.

  "We gotta do this," Tacks said.

  "I think as we speak some of the ladies are watching over the kids playing on the field," Lunk said.

  "So an audience awaits us?" Deth asked.

  Droog jumped up, nearly tumbling off the rocks into the water where the croc had reappeared and was watching patiently. "So what are we waiting for? Let's go impress the females."

  "Yeah!" they all shouted.

  Wine sloshing from coconut cups, the group of drunken cavemen tottered to their feet and picked their way down the rocks, occasionally falling and scraping themselves on the sharp lava stones.

  At the bottom was a tree lined path that followed the river. The cavemen stumbled upriver under the reptilian gaze of the hungry salt water croc as it shadowed the unsteady cavemen along the shallows hoping for a caveman splash.

  With the luck of future drunk drivers, the troglodytes made it safely to a field situated between the river and the hills dotted with caves housing their tiny community. Further upstream a small active volcano squatted next to a ravine that lead to the plains where large prey and their predators played their games of life and death. The volcano was gently burping bits of smoke, as if suffering a bad case of geothermal indigestion.

  The village children were playing in the field under the watchful eyes of the older cavegirls, who were keeping bugs off the kids with palm fronds.

  At the sight of nubile cavewomen, Joz’s eyes widened. “Whoa, nubile cavegirls.” He tripped over a rock and landed on his face.

  Bonk looked down at the prone caveman. “This looks like as good a place as any.”

  They spread out around Joz, who rolled over and lurched to his feet.

  “Okay, what do we do?”

  Bonk looked around at the eager faces, most of whom were casting looks to see if the cavewomen were looking. They were, mostly because Joz had gotten their attention by falling over the rock. They were waving their fronds which rustled as they shook.

  “Okay, everyone huddle up,” Bonk said.

  “What’s huddle?” Grog asked.

  “It means gather in a circle and lean on each other so we don’t fall over from all the wine,” Bonk answered.

  “Oh, a gravity inhibitor,” Dork said wisely.

  “What’s inhibitor?” Joz asked.

  “Stops things,” Dork replied.

  “What’s gravity?” Grog asked.

  “Nothing yet,” Dork said. “We have to wait until an apple falls on someone’s head.”

  Grog’s eyebrows tried to go up, but were inhibited by his thick eyebrow ridge. “Huh?”

  Dork waved him off. “Never mind. Not important.”

  “Okay, guys,” Bonk said, trying to get their attention again. When he did, he continued. “Here’s what we do. We line up in two lines..”

  “What’s a two?” Grog asked.

  Bonk frowned. “Oh, yeah, sorry, there’s no such thing as counting yet. We line up across from each other in front of the ladies. Then we run at each other and slam heads. It’s called, ‘football.”

  Lunk looked down at his dirty bare feet. “Football?”

  “Yes,” Bonk said. “You stand on the balls of your feet...”

  “There’s a ball on my feet?” Lunk asked.

  “What’s a ball?” Grog asked.

  “It’s a future invention,” Dork said. “It will mean more when we invent foosball.”

  “Oh,” Grog said, still looking confused. Most cavemen knew enough to bail when the explanation for something was more confusing than the original something.

  “Good,” Bonk said. “Okay, now back away from each other.”

  The cavemen obediently backed up in uneven lines like an amoeba swelling up after swallowing a protozoa.

  When they were about twenty yards apart, Bonk said, “Stop.”

  They froze.

  “Are the girls watching?” Bonk asked.

  The cavegirls were, in fact, watching curiously. They were standing in a line behind a group of toddlers roughhousing in the not-house. The girls waved the fronds over the children, keeping flying bugs away.

  “Okay, we’re on,” Bonk said. “Okay, is everybody ready?”

  They nodded.

  “Good. Here goes. Hut, hut.”

  “What’s that mean?” Tacks asked.

  Bonk scratched his head. “I don’t know why I said that. Never mind that.” He shook his head, and settled into a crouch. The other cavemen got into matching crouches.

  Grog sneaked a last peak to make sure they still had the girls’ attention. “Uh, oh.”

  “What?” Bonk asked.

  “Hedz is here,” Grog hissed.

  Bonk looked up. “Really? Oh, good.”

  Grog was right. Bonk’s mate Hedz and their older daughter Gop were now standing among the girls. Hedz was holding their baby Eff, and frowning.

  Why was she frowning?

  “Oh,” Bonk said.

  Grog lifted his head, “Did you say ‘go?”

  “Go!” the other cavemen yelled.

  The inebriated troglodytes stumbled towards each other, meeting in a colossal collision in the middle of the field. With more luck than agility, forehead slammed into forehead with the sound of coconuts plopping into mud.

  The shock of the impact interrupted the flow of neurons from caveman brains to caveman legs, temporarily disabling crucial information needed to stand erect. They tumbled to the ground, moaning and holding heads which were receiving plenty of pain messages from the neurons vigilantly laboring to service that aspect of the brain.

  Bonk had not joined them because he was still standing, looking at his mate, who was looking back. Bonk was frantically trying to determine whether or not he was in some kind of trouble, and how he might be able to shift any such trouble onto anyone else.

  Hedz started through the field towards him, baby Eff riding her swaying hips like a kid on a carnival ride. Gop followed with a look of disapproval on her face.

  Bonk carefully studied Hedz’s face, trying to assess her mood.

  Trouble?

  Not trouble?

  It was so hard to tell. He couldn’t wait until the day humans advanced enough that males could figure females out. Surely it wouldn’t take long, but for now comprehension was beyond him.

  Hedz stopped a few feet short of him, and her eyes cut to the cavemen moaning and writhing in a jangled pile in the field. Hedz crossed her arms in a way that somehow embraced Eff, who was gumming noisily on an apple core while watching with wide-eyed interest.

  “What’s up, Bonk?”

  “Um...” he stammered.

  A retching sound came from the pile of cavemen.

  “Looks like you boys were having some fun today.”

  “Um...” he replied alertly. “Well, yeah, kinda ... “

  She looked at him.

  “Sorta...” he continued lamely.

  She just studied him, bright brown eyes deep set under a thick bone, her glorious moustaches swaying slightly in the mild breeze. She was definitely a fine looking cavewoman.

  “We, uh, were playing football,” he said when he couldn’t stand the weight of the silence anymore.

  She frowned. “Football?”

  He kicked at the grass. “It’s, like a sport, where we can impress you females.”

  A quirk pulled at her lip. “Impress us?’

  “Yeah, like for mating and stuff.”

  Her lips tightened, whether in amusement or anger, he couldn’t tell. At that moment, he might have been willing to pony up money to take any class that might explain the complexity of women. Assuming they ever got around to inventing money.

  He cleared his throat. “U
m, it’s a display of male machismo designed to make you swoon in female delight.”

  She glanced back at the bloodied, erstwhile NFL’ers moaning in a tangled pile.

  Another lip quirk. “Oh, yes, I see now. I can’t believe I missed it.” Finally, she smiled, and the hard little knot in Bonk’s chest unraveled. She handed baby Eff to her older sister and grabbed his arm. “C’mon, big boy.”

  As she tugged him up the hill to their sleeping pit, all a grinning Bonk could think was, ‘What do you know? It worked!”

  Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this story, there’s more of the same in my full length book,

  Bonk & Hedz, a caveman... and woman ... story

  Read on for a preview

  Bonk and Hedz

  a caveman ... and woman ... story

  By Norm Cowie