For 150 million years I’ve laid here. Covered beneath heaps of dirt and rocks and so many bugs. Patiently waiting for a scientist to dig me up, dust me off, and let the sunlight finally shine in on all my historical glory.
It’s a moment I’ve dreamed about ever since I was a tiny bone inside a baby Switfaylisaur. Even then, I believed I could be more than just a femur. I wanted to be seen, I wanted to be admired, I wanted to be… a fossil.
I envision it every single day.
Dozens of people will be there. A thousand paleontologists. No, a hundred thousand paleontologists. All there to see me: An almost fully intact left femur of this previously undiscovered dinosaur. A new link to a mysterious past that can only be explained through discoveries like myself. A piece of prehistoric history that will completely change the way humans understand dinosaurs and, by extension, how humans understand themselves.
How could I have possibly known I wanted to become something eons before language was created, let alone the distinct field of science that came to define my existence? When you’re made for something, you just know. I could feel it in my… bone.
There have been a couple million years when I wasn’t sure if it could ever happen for me. Visions of an eternity merely lying in wait filled my upper extremity. Everything I dreamed of remaining pure imagination, all because the humans were too stupid to dig into the ground. Or when they did find something, they thought it was some biblical Noah’s Ark reject bullshit.
But slowly, I heard of things being unearthed. Iguanodon bones in southern England. Herrerasaurus remains at the foothill of the Andes in Argentina. The fossil of an eight-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex in Montana; also, I’m sorry because I know humans lose their shit over T-Rexes, but they’re seriously overrated. Switfaylisaurs will make your T-Rex model look like a fucking griffin fly, which was basically our version of a dragonfly so yeah, fuck your wimpy Tyrannosaurus Suck.
I heard of bone after bone after bone being discovered from each era of species in every corner of the world. And that scientists dug up so many that they erected giant buildings where the fossils are admired for the rest of eternity.
To lie in a box of glass, with a spotlight and a diagram explaining my origins, is everything I’ve ever worked for. It should be me displayed in those buildings. It will be me. I’ve come too far to lose hope now.
I’ll tell you more about myself. The Switfaylisaur wasn’t just a dinosaur – it was a beast. And we all – the Switfaylisaur’s bones, muscles, veins, organs – had the best time growing our mega-monster into the most ferocious creature to ever walk the planet.
And we showed the dinosaur kingdom hell. We were vicious, barbarous, savage – three times the size of an Argentinosaurus and way more deadly than the dumb T-Rex. We stomped through the jungle with the power of a million suns, the roar of all the hurricanes in the solar system, and chewed up any inferior animal that dared glance our way.
But I knew my future held something bigger. So I soaked up nutrient after nutrient after nutrient to ensure my place as the strongest bone in the Switfaylisaur’s body. When our dinosaur ate poisonous mushrooms, I didn’t touch a single psilocybin. When the organs soaked up all the yummy, salty animal fat, I only absorbed the calcium. I grew dense and strong, all the while hoping the sacrifice would turn my inconceivable future into a reality.
And when my Switfaylisaur died, and the vermin took hold of its flesh and muscle and the sun scorched all that remained, I sunk myself into the Earth and fought to stay intact. As sediment and time covered what was left, I soaked in everything I could suck up.
And here I’ve been ever since. A perfectly preserved piece of the fiercest monster to have ever lived. I’ve done the work, I’ve made the sacrifice. I’ve watched all my friends wither away to literally nothing. All I can do now is keep waiting. My big break – but hopefully not literal lol – can’t be far off now.
I only hope I’m found before humanity meets an end as violent as I heard ours was. Because if I have to wait another hundred million years for some new, upright species to figure out there’s cool shit in the dirt, I’m going to fucking snap myself.
Oh, my right counterpart? Hah, let’s just say that porous piece of shit is probably gravel now.
