Alpha – II

Guest Author Uncategorized

Ian’s allegory continues …

(Image Credit: Wallpaper Stock)

The Alpha female leaves the mountain having seen the conflict. Its beginnings, its aftermath. She moves toward the shadows. She seeks an understanding of what drives the darkness.

She has seen some of her own pack swallowed by darkness. From within. From without. They live in the dusky light of an uncertain future.

Those of the shadows emerge into the light. Their true ugliness not disguised by the aggressive stance and swagger. These are the ones who prey upon the sick, wounded and runt. Not for survival, but for sport. A cabal of the weak. A cluster of the impuissant.

The pack, her pack, retreat. Defeated?, yes. Vanquished? Never. They still belong to the territory, the territory still to them. An immutable bond forged by generations, of births, of deaths, of seasons of plenty and of naught. They are watchful. Ever wary of the surprise attack, the food denied. Not by those who hunger, but by those seek control over strengths they can never understand. Those that cower and cringe before the alpha male, then slink in his shadow, need the control. They seek a power denied them for too long. They seek it from the bloodied, the broken and the dead.

The Alpha female steps cautiously into the shadows. A foreboding grips her. An uneasiness borne of many battles fought. Both won and lost. She seeks the pack that controls the alpha male. The pack he cringes and cowers to. She seeks their leader. The supreme alpha and a dominant female.

That they exist is of no doubt.

Their spore permeates all around. The sour stench of their territory marking waters. Their scat willingly dispersed by the air scavengers. Once a clean, invigorating force for life, the air now hangs dead. Oppressive, stultifying and sour.

But there is life in this place … this darkness. Life that sees only the kill, that rejoices in the corpse. Never understanding that even the corpse, by its very decay, sustains life and helps give birth to the very innocence they seek to destroy.

This is the lair of the supreme alpha.

(Image Credit: Worldwidefeatures)

Finding a tussock on the bank of a dry creek, a comfortable way from the lair, the Alpha female settles to watch, to wait, to learn. She observes and learns much about the supreme alphas’ pack – those she had seen coming out of the shadows and who had, once, annoyed her with their constant yapping and nipping. She now understood that they were many, each returning to the shadows only to be replaced by another. All cringed and cowered before the supreme alpha. All rolling in the scat dropped by the air scavengers, each revelling in the power of the supreme alpha. None notice that their toxic slavering eats at their strengths till none exists. They have become the worst of life. They live, as do all sycophants, but only just. When the supreme alpha passes so shall they. The irony of their deaths feeding new and exciting life is lost on them.

Having observed enough the Alpha female begins to leave. The supreme alpha emerges from his lair. She stays. Observes.

(Image Credit: Scotch Macaskill )

He is frailer than she remembered. His sparse coat shows the inevitable mange that age bestows. His fangs worn, cracked, yellow. His puce-coloured tongue lolls out of his mouth as he gasps for breath. Young females gather around him. He accepts the regurgitated meat they spew at his feet and begins to eat. He looks shrivelled, dry, worn out. Then he turned, saw her, and she looked into his eyes.

Expecting hate, passion, fire, she saw only a cold malice fed by a malignancy too deep to ever be understood. They were the eyes of one who had died long ago. Then the Alpha female understood what she was seeing. Dry and shrivelled as he is, he needs the malice to keep alive. He needs to feed from the malignancy within even more than it needs to feed off him. Finally, she looked into the maw and began to know him. Why many of the weak and corrupt followed him. A nobility of purpose that gives strength to pack or individual scares them. To him, nobility of purpose is a weakness to be exploited, scorned, derided. He gives them an open cruelty; they repay with cowering obeisance. The weak and corrupt are his for as long as he has use of them.

Yet the supreme alpha didn’t wield true power. His was a power built on the willing subservience of the lesser. On those that surrender, to him, their chance to enjoy a pure sunlight, to drink of a sweet, clean creek, to taste the meat of an honourable kill. Those that sacrifice what they could have been for what they have become. A power built, not on what the heart is capable of, but of what it is denied. The power he used for so long has always been a mirage. Some take the mirage as truth or substance. Many more do not.

A rustle behind her forced the Alpha female to break eye contact.

A younger female, dominant, stood below in the dry creek bed. The Alpha female recognised her as the consort of the alpha male and confidante of the supreme alpha.

She leapt, wanting to rip, tear and shred a throat, vulnerable to her fangs and jaws. To feel the last of breathes expelled from dying lungs. The Alpha female did none of this. She swerved, landed and turned to the dominant one and studied her.

(Image Credit: The Hindu)

What she saw gave her pause for reflection. Again seeing a lust for dangerous power – yet no understanding of the uncontrollable nature of what power can be. Power, in its true essence, is impartial: belongs only to itself; returns to itself. To believe that it can be subverted at will is the purest of folly. A dangerous folly.

The Alpha female broke from her study of the dominant female. It was time to head back to the mountain. There was much to think about, much to consider.

430 thoughts on “Alpha – II”

  2. Yes Joe, it was a comprehensive defeat in every aspect of the game.
    Even so, the sheer intensity of Test cricket was on display for the whole series. Real cricket!
    On a humorous note today I had a phone call from the son of a guy who, with my father, first brought Garfield Sobers to Australia to play for Prospect in the district competition. We had many laughs as we reminisced about those wonderful times. He told me about the time he took Garry to his primary school class for “show and tell”!

  3. I don’t think Lehmann and Clarke could have planned for how easily the English batsmen rolled over and died.
    Up to third on the Test rankings, leapfrogging the Poms and Pakistan.

  6. http://o.canada.com/news/despite-favourable-conditions-tories-continue-to-slide-in-the-polls/
    This could be a foreshadowing of the poll direction of an Abbott govt. And we just lost a govt despite relative economic good times. It could happen again here and in Canada.

    There are other underlying reasons for Canadian discontent. See….
    http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/12/30/Spectators-Disengaged-Youth/

    And on a side note, see…
    http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/12/23/Canadian-Science-Libraries/
    What’s Driving Chaotic Dismantling of Canada’s Science Libraries?

    http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/12/30/Harper-Library-Closures/
    Secret Memo Casts Doubt on Feds’ Claims for Science Library Closures

  16. OK Joe.
    Garry Sobers came to play with Prosepect where my dad was coach for many years. He and our family and that of the then President (to whose son I referred) spent a lot of time together. i well remember great nights at the Saturday trots at Wayville as well as funny golfing days at a private course at Ashbourne in the Adelaide hills.
    The first two years dad and the club president started off an indoor coaching clinic in the city with dad and Sobers providing the personalised coaching.
    When Packer’s World Series stuff was on Mrs BK and I loooked after Garry’s little son when there was a game at Footy Park. After the game Garry and his then wife, Pru, came up to our place for an uproarious BQ along with the other family.
    They were great cricketing days. During the period whe dad coached Prospect we had the following test playes in our team – Garry Sobers, Barry Richars, Younis Ahmed, Geoff Hammond, Ashley Mallett, Terry Jenner, Rodney Hogg and Gary Cosier. On top of that there were many SA state players.
    I remember one day when there were 5000 at a district match at Prospect Oval. Amazing really.

  17. BK

    [Garry Sobers, Barry Richars, Younis Ahmed, Geoff Hammond, Ashley Mallett, Terry Jenner, Rodney Hogg and Gary Cosier.]

    A big line-up!

  23. Hi me again,
    I just wanted to say thank-you on Kira’s behalf for the way you have all welcomed her into the Realm which is “The Pub”. I know she is going to enjoy mixing it with as do I….. although not often seen ….. with all the species who frequent this place it really is a haven.
    Kira reckons I need to come down from the rafters a bit more as she isn’t real keen on heights, I did tell you she was my constant companion,what a dog.

    So down I have come & she has snapped me into action as you can see, because here I am. It sounds like I will be here more frequently from now on & Kira will be right by my side, don’t you worry about that Olly

    Puffy
    Now that I am down from the rafters I am hoping that both myself & Kira will be here to share in the atmosphere that can only be found at The Pub.
    re: First drink on the house. I have already had my freebie….Rum & coke hit the spot, thank-you Kira however has asked if tank water is on Tap….If not she will have a Run & Coke Thank-you 😉

    Fiona
    Looks can be deceiving, only joking, Kira is a sweetie with a touch of the Devil in her tail & the eyes of an Angel, when required, if ya knows what I mean. 😉
    Thank-you for guiding Gravel through Gravatar territory. I am yet to play in Gravatar land as I don’t want to stress Gravel out on a Sunday, Monday will be fine. 🙂
    Kira has seen it & now thinks she is the next best thing since sliced bread. I’m sure she will get over it 😉

    Tommetje
    Yes Kira is a great little dog I couldn’t wish for any better. She is my reason for getting up in the morning….she wants breakfast….so I get up. It’s that or be subjected to a stare, that I can feel burning thru my doona to my skin, ouch! Not nice, so no rest for the wicked in this house I’m afraid 🙂
    The little dog on you gravatar looks like a bit of a cutie. Great smile 🙂
    So what is his/her name? & Kira says hi.

    Foreverjanice
    Thank-you I too think Kira is a good looking little doggie but it could be said that I am just a tad biased 🙂 Hey your big doggie looks pretty good to us too. Kira says he/she has long legs & where can she get some. I haven’t had the heart to tell her they are no longer in stock. Why spoil her dream time
    I don’t know what is going to happen with the Cushings. She is still happy,eating & drinking normal amounts now but is very slow & a bit wobbly but she still wants to go for her walks, or should I say waddles. She looks like she has swallowed a water melon due to the Cushings & her poor little legs look like they could fold at any moment but she battles on regardless, won’t accept a ride on my scooter(Clayton) So what do ya do? Whatever makes her happy 🙂

  25. BK, your cricket stories brought back some memories. I remember how excited I was when Barry Richards came to our high school to conduct a coaching clinic (we even got out of some lessons!). He was playing for South Aust and I think he was sponsored by Coca Cola to do some coaching. We had a centre wicket practice and at the end of the session Richards had a bat. He smashed us all around the park naturally. The most amazing thing was that after a while he got bored and so he turned the bat around so he was hitting the ball with the EDGE of the bat. He proceeded to dropkick balls for 6 straight back over the bowler’s head! A couple went over the main road next to the school ground and into the Repat hospital. The bats in those days didn’t have a big fat edge like modern bats, and that remains the most amazing feat of batting skill I’ve seen on a cricket field.
    Apart from Sobers & Richards, I played against all the others on your list in Adelaide grade cricket. A great pity that nowadays the test players never play grade cricket, and even state players rarely are available.

  27. Mike,

    I was a cricket fan from before I could walk, but am now almost devoid of interest in the game.

    Why?

    Too much money pumped into the so-called elite end, to the disadvantage of grade and state. Too many people at that big end believing they are wonderful and staying around, in some cases, well past their use-by time. Not to mention too many people believing they are wonderful because of the pump-up publicity they’ve been given by the Board and the media, and not actually having the wherewithal to live up to that alleged promise.

    Yet, given there seems to be little in the way of preparing “elite” cricketers for life after their cushy years, why is that surprising?

    The only first-class cricketer of recent years for whom I have any respect is Adam Gilchrist, because he at least had the guts to walk if he thought he was out.

    Another sad example of the commodification of sport.

  28. Read carefully –

    Brisbane Times
    20 minutes ago via mobile
    For those wondering, all the smoke around Brisbane tonight is indeed from Stradbroke Island. Most of it is back-burning. Spare a thought for the fairies who’ve been at it for days now.

    https://www.facebook.com/brisbanetimes

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