“…He opens the door of his house
On flames. The scholar of one candle sees
An arctic effulgence flaring on the frame
Of everything he is. And he feels afraid.”
– Wallace Stevens, “The Auroras of Autumn”
Whitney Siddall will feel a strong wind from the north while cleaning up his second tip-up. He used to have more, but they’ve all rotted from overuse. His second tip-up, in this spot, after what could’ve been hours, or days – who knew – will not catch anything. The flag will not raise. No flags have raised for Whitney in quite some time.
Today, he will have taken the riskier route and gone out on the ice 8 inches thick. He used to teach his daughter a baseline of 12 inches. That was the thinnest one could safely drive the family truck across. Whitney will remember this, remember his daughter, the treks they took to the lake each winter.
He’ll pick up the rig. He will recall his youth and regret the time wasted on the hole. What used to be easy was difficult, the auger he lifts will now be heavy. It will be difficult to dig another, and he’ll think himself dumb for leaving tools out on the ice, instead of picking up after himself once the hole’d been dug.
“Making the bed” is what he used to tell Justine as he would place the tools back in the truck.
…That flag would raise and they’d both get giddy at the thought of a large, delicious meal. That gold-yellow perch, mottled and striped like some kind of painting, would emerge squirming, and the fillet knife saddled at his side was all they’d need to actualize their hopes.
He’ll recall that his excitement had been sparked by hers, at her seeing the color explode against the gray. He’ll recall, as he leans down to pick up the rig, that he’d chosen the color green for his truck sometime soon after his daughter turned four or five. He will remember he wanted it to appear to Justine that life could grow even in the harshest environments – as if the truck were some fragile flower.
He’ll laugh at his younger, paternal stupidity…but the laugh will be silent, since he knows, deep down, that this recollection has occurred before. And he will have barely any time for amusement since he will be frustrated.
The weather would have barely reached freezing the day before. But he will not think of his venture as a risk. Rather he’ll think in terms of time: all the times in which he’d ventured out on even thinner, even weaker ice.
All he’ll want is one perch. And he’d sacrifice a million minnows just to give it to Justine. He’ll plan for the holiday season, for when she normally comes to visit, – though Whitney will wonder if she’ll even make it out this year.
He will think of Justine’s new husband, of their marriage, of their indecision about having children, on their focus on travel and self-improvement, of their lives finally formed around each other. And Whitney will feel happy that she has found love. Then he will feel selfish for feeling anything but happy.
Whitney will make the bed and feel alone.
Whitney will enter the truck and turn the key, revving the engine – and he will see a small wolf cub hopping in his direction, aimless. Whitney will leave the truck, confused, and pick up the cub. He will be surprised at the wolf cub’s domesticity as it licks his face. Whitney will then see in the distance his first tip-up – he will see the flag raised…but it won’t be raised up, for it will be sideways, lying on the icy floor.
Whitney will approach quickly, holding the cub who is panting heavily, and who, Whitney will realize, is very light, very thin. Whitney will see something in the distance, near the fallen flag. As Whitney will approach, he will slow, for he sees something that shakes him: he sees a young man (maybe in his mid-twenties), crouched, holding a yellow perch to his chest. The man will be shirtless, his skin will be navy and his posture animalistic. Certain parts of his body will be bruised, others scratched and maimed, frozen blood will paint his torso. And his eyes…his eyes will be indiscernible beneath the heavy scratch that will run across his face. And Whitney will realize this man’s wound has blinded him. Whitney will feel something he hasn’t in a while: pity. He will feel the need to help, and adrenaline will pulse within him. He will feel the need to help, but he will know, from age, to approach with caution…and he will ask, with caution and compassion, “You okay, buddy?”
* * *
He was a quiet man, the type to sit beside a fire for hours, puffing a rolled cigarette, silently enjoying the fruits of his labor.
Though he was a quiet man, he was not altogether serious. He still found humor in vulgarity, and he’d laugh like a teenager. He had moments of outrage that expressed themselves in bombast and melodrama. He whined to himself about the capriciousness of life. And on the days he found himself particularly pleased, he sung loud against the crisp wind, and playfully chased the lemmings and squirrels that crossed his path. –In mind and heart, A. Hugh Town was a child that never matured.
Today he was tired and a little hungover. His walking stick had become an essential limb. Sleeping on cattails for months had taken its toll, and even the exhaustion after hours of sawing through the boughs of a lodgepole pine the night before hadn’t been enough to exhaust him to sleep. The nights had been short and the days long. When Town awoke, he wasn’t sure what time it was: the sun was hidden behind an overcast tapestry. The days of frolicking had been separated by an increasing number of lazy days, marked by a beige personality. But this wasn’t uncommon: Town had always been the silent type.
His silence came from his inability to confront the shadows reaching through his past. And when those moments of silence overcame him, his face turned blank, and revealed neither torment nor depression. Instead he donned a Zen-like concentration, bent on purging his mind of all preoccupation by staring into the fire and drawing from a tight cigarette, as he’d done the night before, and the night before that.
But – once life presented him with what he considered a long-deserving gift (such as a dumb easy-to-kill stag, or the soft wisp of clouds that meant the sun wouldn’t feel so bright) – the jump-for-joy child would bubble to the surface, and his only conscious thought would be to keep his giddiness from springing in his step too suddenly, as it might spook the wolfdogs that hung beside him.
These most recent days, however, gave no gifts. The soft wisp of clouds had turned to a large smothering quilt that only hid the form of the sun. And even then, its shine still felt so bright and so reflective that Town would often walk with his eyes closed, hoping that he wouldn’t bump into any of the pine trees along the way. And, of course…he was starving. There hadn’t been any sign of food for a good month or so. Those lemmings and squirrels Town used to chase playfully were now chased predatorily. But these small bits of sustenance were not enough to keep his stomach at bay – and he could only imagine what it must be like for the four dogs…and that small cub…
Because of all this, Town felt a void growing inside him, which he filled with whiskey. He took long sips from the large flask he kept in his inner jacket pocket. And this day was a day when the void had grown so large that his psyche had burst in excitement just to survive. As a consequence, it seeped through the stick he used to provoke one of those wolfdogs to a wrestle.
Town had been staving off his hunger for about three or four days now. He’d found some lemmings here and there to hold himself over till something more substantial came upon them. The wolfdogs used to worry him, but now they seemed much lower in his list of priorities, a huge chunk of which was now filled with his own need to survive.
If Town could maintain any line of thinking beyond filling his stomach, he might think it strange that he at one time wasn’t as worried about the hunger which consumed his thoughts now. Even during those long stretches of time when Town was, admittedly, just as hungry then as he was now, there was something about the wolfdogs’ presence that was enough to satiate him. – Now, though…. To Town, they were almost a backdrop, like they’d been mixed in with the environment, which over the past couple months had become so bright yet so barren that it was easy to forget.
Town had had a rule: Always move north, as far north as possible. And he’d followed this rule up to this point – at least as best he could. Over the past few weeks, it was becoming more and more difficult to determine which way was north. The daylight had grown longer – which was a good indication – but which way to go when the sky was overcast and it was constantly day? Town didn’t know. All he knew, or was at least beginning to realize, was that he didn’t want to travel north anymore. The first sign that this change of perspective needed to occur was the subtlest change of environment, which Town began to notice in its subtle change of color: a large, light, sun-like yellow that became a mottled group of small, sharp, blood-red dots across the snowy floor.
When Town had first noticed a slow diminishment in the food supply he began to snack on the pansies he saw strewn about, hoping in the near future something more substantive would cross his path. Their bright yellow-orange color against the black patterned center reminded Town of tigers. At first Town saw their centers’ varying shapes as hypnotically gorgeous, but soon they showed Town a premonition of ferocity. For even the pansies would become scarce. With each step forward, day after day into days swept together as one water-color brush stroke of gray and white, Town would start to make out his lack of a future.
What took their place was a smattering of primrose – and with this Town knew he was heading too far north. But despite his attempts to navigate south, he still felt discombobulated…
The fear kicked in when he began to see the primrose replaced by poisonous holly berries, speckled and easy to spot against the backdrop, scattered like some awesome murder had taken place and the evidence of it spanned forever.
Today started as many of the previous days had started – as well as any neverending-midday could start. Town’s hangover wasn’t too intense, but what really caused him delirium today was the splitting headache, piercing through the back of his head, just below his right ear. If Town lost focus, he knew his premonition could materialize. If he lost focus, he’d first collapse on the floor, then these wolfdogs (the cub included) could starve – and even worse, they may feed on him. It was an unfamiliar worry that was becoming more and more realistic to imagine.
However, Town’s already fragile psyche could barely hold the burden of what it’d already been tasked with, and Town’s capacity for responsibility was already shaky… Town had always (but moreso recently) had to deal with the clash of two forces within him: release and tension. This was the cause of his (if not everyone’s) extreme anxiety.
To quell this anxiety, he usually thumbed at an old pocket-watch he kept in his right jacket pocket. In the center of this pocket-watch was a chiseled and patterned bit of topaz, and in the center of this topaz was engraved the name “SARA”. When the sun shone through this name projected in shadow across the snow. He would fiddle with it and look at it; he would see the name carved backwards in the flame-colored stone. And around this stone, the clock ticked, its hands orbiting this gem around the outer rim.—Or, at least it had clicked, about a year ago, before a scuffle which both the watch and Town endured. It would usually calm him to feel the pattern in the topaz and stare at the light blue scorpion that stood in place of the number 12.
Today, though, the watch brought little but bad memories… Today, something in Town would break, and Time would seem indefinitely frozen…. Today, Town would lose focus…. Today, Town would respond to this headache, to his hunger, to his fear of betrayal by those dogs, to his morbid thoughts of an embarrassing death – to the north – with booze.
Within the first five minutes of their journey, Town (the wolfdogs walking to his front, left, right and back) took his first swig. Soon after, he was staggering. His walking stick was needed to keep his footing.
The wolfdogs attempted to keep their distance. They’d seen Town fiddle with his pocket-watch earlier and knew then to stay back as far as possible. They had grown to learn, over the past few days, that Town became especially sensitive and even irritable when he held that watch. And the wolfdogs wanted nothing to do with it. They knew that while he held that watch, he was capable of anything if provoked – though they rarely knew what could provoke him.
Town saw the distance between him and the wolfdogs increasing. Town felt they wouldn’t keep eye contact with him. One of the wolfdogs in particular interested Town – she was walking ahead of him, the cub trailing behind her. She wouldn’t look back at him, nor look back at the cub, though the cub very apparently wanted her attention. A wave of guilt washed over Town slowly. Town recalled something his mother had said when he was young, something about taking care to keep note of all the wrong in the world, and to attempt to make right what was very obviously wrong if it was in one’s power to do so – and that one always had the power to do so.
Town wisely felt the wrong in this situation wasn’t in this wolfdog’s inattention towards her child. Instead the wrong was with the barrenness of this environment. Town felt it weighing on him too. – What fun was there to be had in this wasteland? – How could anyone, without the strength of a god, push themselves out of it and then provide levity? It wasn’t possible…
But, he thought, he could at least be the catalyst for a bit of needed flippancy…He poked her gently in the ribs with his staff.
At the first jab she seemed irritated, and turned back, hoping that if she ignored Town, maybe he’d go away. But Town persisted, this time brushing the end of the stick behind her ear – lightly this time…. And when she looked at him again Town hopped around frantically in an attempt to project his youthful frivolity. When she saw this she understood what was happening – or perhaps she just wanted to humor him…
She swiveled her head to grab playfully at the end of the stick. Her whole body followed suit and Town raised the stick up high for her to reach. The paws of her hind-legs hopped lightly in the snow, her forelegs in the air pawing at the stick’s end. Sara’s tongue hung limp out of the side of her mouth, between her yellow canines.
Town suddenly threw the stick lightly in the air, and as Sara used the strength of her hind-legs to hop up and receive it, Town thrusted his shoulder against her chest. The playful wrestle had begun, and Town fell to his knees beneath her weight. Her large body could only be lifted a few inches above the ground.
Town, using his upper body weight, leaned back, and flipped Sara over. The fresh snow rose up like powdered sugar – it blended with the environment such that Town couldn’t see where Sara’s next attack was coming from. She pounced on him from the left, and Town’s guttural laugh excited the three other wolfdogs. Reid barked and Sara’s snout rubbed happily against Town’s cheek. She pounced up and down on Town’s chest.
But now, fearing bruises and being unable to breathe, Town chose, playfully, to toss Sara to his right. It took all his strength.
Unfortunately, Town may not have judged his environment properly…. He heard the crack of a thin tree breaking very nearby…. Town may not have known the strength he still had stored inside…. In tossing Sara, he’d accidentally tossed her right into the tree, her back smacking against the bark. The tree itself had cracked against Sara’s weight.
And this disturbed the branches above…
This disturbance to the aspen boughs caused the snow that covered them to fall on Sara’s head. She uncomfortably lifted herself and shook off the snow. Town – for reasons not entirely clear – could not help laughing.
Sara stumbled and still there appeared to be some snow in a small pile on her head. Town pointed and laughed. Sara stared and began to circle Town, as if herding him. Town noticed and began to crawl away.
He quickly scanned the area and saw where his stick had landed about 10 feet away, halfway buried in the snow.
Sara circled him, forced him down an indirect path, away from the stick. Her large paws distributed her weight so evenly that she seemed to float across the loosely packed snow.
Town decided to make a run for it. He charged toward the stick. Strangely, though, he could not hear the light paws of this predator behind him, and thus could take no note of his attacker. His right foot broke through the crunchy surface of snow, and soon the rest of his lower half followed. He was waist-deep in the snow.
Sara’s wide paws distributed her weight evenly…when charging across the snow, they barely dented the surface.
As Town began to dig himself out, Sara pounced. Knocked aside, he’d lost his balance and felt the powdered ice fall into his parka, and some fell beneath the sweater and flannel against his bare skin. Sara chewed his left arm lightly. – Unbeknownst to Town, Sara, though annoyed, would never bite the hand that fed her, even if that hand hadn’t fed her in some time; Sara was quick to forgive, and could quickly resort back to play.
But within Town…he felt an instinctive urge grow, and it guided his movements.
Town threw his left arm to the side, along with Sara; and once her head hit the snow, Town took the opportunity to shove her face through the loose ice. Sara was submerged and writhed uncomfortably. Town took this leave of attack to crawl to the stick which lay several feet away. And upon grabbing it, he flung it at Sara, just then gaining her stance. – The stick hit her in the face, and Town yelped in victory.
As Sara gained her balance again, Town leaped to action and found the energy and stability to kick Sara down. He grabbed the stick off the ground and brandished it.
“Ah-ha!” he screamed, laughing at his own unlikely victory. “Can’t do it! What could you do, huh? What would you do next?” Sara whimpered, and Odio, Darwin, and Reid stood idle, but ready.
Town stood there panting and heaving. Above his wheezing he could hear the sound of the small cub hopping through the snow, uttering mini squeaks and yips. Town didn’t turn to face the pup. He watched Sara, looking through her hazel eyes…and his face dropped.
She was baring her teeth, and her growl rumbled low and soft. She barked.
But Town noticed something: she wasn’t barking at him. Her cold, animalistic anger was directed somewhere else. It was then Town heard a whimper in response from behind, a muffled high-pitch squeak – the cub. Town’s eyes narrowed at Sara with familiar eyes, expressing what seemed to be a long-felt, traditional, even ancestral frustration.
Town continued to stare, and Sara barked at the young one again. And Town heard the whimper again, more muffled than before. The cold wind shrieked above it.
Town’s familiar upset shifted then to the deepest consolation, which overtook him so quickly and so unconsciously that one might’ve thought he was rushing to his own defense. Town turned around, intent on comforting the cub. He held himself with a paternal authority that suggested he’d right some universal wrong. And with every step he was sure to carry out this act, so that the cub would feel safe.
Town saw the cub’s head buried deep in the snow, his tail shivering above him. Town was nearly brought to tears by this display of cowardice and shame. Town smiled.
He stood over the pup, its body headless, and declared, “Don’t worry. It’s not you she’s upset with. Believe me.”
Another yip from the cub responded through the snow. Town’s furrowed brow loosened.
“Let it out. It’s good for you,” he said slowly. Then his demeanor hardened again. He gripped his stick tight. “I’ll always be able to protect you.” And to emphasize the ownership of that last syllable, he struck his stick upright in the snow.
Upon this emphatic assertion, the cub’s head popped out of the hole. He was panting, grinning, mouth agape, his tongue flipping. The pup hopped near the erected stick, pounced beside it, and chewed its base. Town, without thinking, flipped the edge of the stick to push the pup aside.
“No,” he pronounced and pointed his finger at the pup.
The pup stuck his head back in the air and wiggled it. He jumped at Town’s shoes and bit the toes.
Again, Town instinctively kicked the cub away. “Mutt,” he muttered. Then he heard another growl.
Town turned to see Sara, still woozy from her beating, dizzily emerge from the snow bank a few feet behind him. He looked back at the cub, then at the stick in his hand.
“I see,” he whispered, and he rushed over to Sara.
His disposition changed. He hushed a whisper out to Sara: “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand – I only thought that…but –,” he scratched behind her ear, “you’re a good girl, a good girl, that’s what you are. You are, you are!” He caught a glimpse of the stick in his hand. “You know I didn’t mean that…. I’d only thought – well, you know. You’re such a good girl.” As he talked he quickened the pace and force of his affectionate massage. “Yes, such a good girl.” He leaned assumedly for an embrace around her neck; but she’d sensed it before he’d committed to it and dashed in an uneven line to the cub, whom she comforted with a gentle rub of her forehead against his side.
Town watched Sara in a daze. The confusion and conflict in his head showed in his eyes as they drifted toward one another, staring in a cross-eyed stupor. This unexpected turn was too much for him to handle and his hand autonomously shifted to his right jacket pocket.
But when he felt inside, he found it empty.
Fear gripped him and he became paranoid and pattern-oriented, attempting to find some evidence of the pocketwatch’s whereabouts. This is when his eyes shifted to the pup, who had escaped his mother’s doting and had rushed back to the hole he’d been scouring.
“Hey!” Town’s voice cracked. Panic tensed in his throat.
He awkwardly stomped through the snow as quick as he could, then shoved away the pup with a wild gesture. Sara growled again, but all Town could hear was the wind’s high whistle and his low, heavy breathing. He dropped to his knees before the hole as if he were about to begin a tormented prayer. Thrusting his arms into the hole, he tore it open violently.
At first, he saw nothing, but desperate determination told him to continue, until he saw the glimmer of relief about a foot deep in the snow. Carefully he withdrew his pocket-watch and wiped away the excess snow and water from its crevices. His focus stayed on the engraved name, and while focused he could hear its soft ticking – and he was reminded of a time before these days of long sunlight and eternal winter.
He was so transported by this ticking that he could barely recognize the miraculous restoration of this heirloom. He began to fantasize about his calmer past…but, of course, the fantasy had to end, for the ticking fell off its rhythmic pattern.
Town opened his eyes and narrowed in on the very short, very thin second hand. When he saw that it wasn’t moving he looked desperately to find the source of this trickery.
Then, about 20 feet in front of him, he saw a shade of gray, flapping wildly: It was a snowy owl, an animal he’d rarely seen in the months spent up north. In front of the snowy owl was a dead lemming. The lemming’s incisors were abnormally long. Town figured it’d been dead long before this owl had begun to feast on it. The brown body was split open and the snowy owl’s black beak shone with a dark red. The yellow eyes stared at Town while the clicking sound emanated from its bloodied mouth, seemingly threatened (Town thought) by his foreign presence.
But then the owl stopped its clacking. It stared tensely at Town as if to return the threat. Its large, yellow eyes reminded Town of the topaz stone in his pocket-watch. And as soon as Town had made this association, it flew off, soon disguised by the gray sky.
(Strangely enough, it had taken off slowly and intently, releasing its low, guttural hoots in response to the wind-driven branches of the deciduous trees clacking against one another.)
Left behind was the lemming’s corpse, which excited Odio, Darwin and Reid. They rushed to the shameful meal.
Town watched the wolves dart toward the corpse, and so much in shock was he by this event, he’d almost forgotten his rule, established sometime shortly after heading north: Town always ate first. (He had learned this from his mother, who had taught him the hard way that if the provider is not provided for, she can do no providing.) He only saw the three hungry wolfdogs rush in excitement, but couldn’t comprehend both this event and its meaning, the potential breaking of this important rule…. Of course, though, it all came flooding back as soon as the dogs reached the meat.
However, with that being said, just before Town could reproach their disobedience, they stopped and held themselves impatiently from digging in. (“Sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants; and one should never hold back or halt a heart from what it wants – for what the heart wants is probably a need,” the echo of his mother bounced in his head.) – Then the confluence of two diverging trains of thought came to be: Town provided so that the dogs could protect, and once protected, Town could provide. That owl had flown off in fear…and now they had – though something small – something to eat. Town smiled in relief.
He lifted his watch to his face to see the hands halted – the big hand on the 3 and the little hand a tad after the 6; the second hand rested on the 9. He felt better, he felt good. He saw the three dogs he’d raised prancing and bouncing, frolicking, happy, ready to tear apart their long-deserved meal. The environment seemed to speak in a kind of spiritual harmony to Town. It had been so long since he’d felt this. He recalled the moment just after his treasured pocket-watch had been broken, when all four wolfdogs – Odio, Darwin, Reid, and Sara – were pups themselves, and the decision to move up north was final, when life was finally going to be lived day by day. The three male dogs now paralleled this past joy as they playfully mimicked ripping through their meal, their snouts shaking with anticipation. – They had once shown this carefree happiness at that euphoric time now past. The pup scratched at his pant leg, hopped up and down, sliding against Town’s knees. Town looked down and felt love. He secretly promised that he would never let any harm befall the young pup, and that he would protect him.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sara limping toward the three male dogs. Sara then stopped and turned her head toward the cub. The young pup could sense his mother’s gaze and turned away from Town’s leg. The pup rushed to his mom and they both headed toward the lemming.
How times had changed! – Town, exhausted, propped himself up against his erected staff and stared at the feast at hand. Odio, Darwin and Reid continued to wait in anticipation by the meat as Sara, the pup close behind, approached. Sara limped and the pup looked up periodically at his mother as if in admiration.
Town scoffed and furrowed his brow: As a result, he coughed profusely, as if stale cigarette smoke were still caught in his lungs. He was weary at this point and was emotionally worn out. He felt numb.
As Sara reached closer with the pup, the other wolfdogs dissipated to let this Alpha female and her young Omega child feed. Somehow, at some point they had made an agreement that Sara would be the next to eat in the pecking order, then lastly, the cub…but now the cub stood ready…and the others stood ready to allow this…
What did any of this mean? Why was any of this occurring? Town couldn’t understand, and he figured neither could anyone else.
Then he saw the pup sneak between the two front legs of his mother and take a snip at the lemming’s intestines which hung outside the flayed abdominal muscles. Sara noticed as well, and she was quick to anger. She growled, grabbed the nape of his neck and tossed him gently aside. But the young pup landed on his side and fell through the surface of the snow, disappearing completely. Town spouted a chuckle – then a full-blown laugh erupted when the pup’s head popped out of the snow with a show of confusion and sadness.
Sara turned to face him and glared. Town laughed at her expression.
“Oh, come on now,” he said, “it’s okay…go on…. A child in need is a child to feed.”
She turned away as if to ignore him, ripped a bit of meat off the bones and dropped it in front of the pup.
Something came over Town at the sight of this mother feeding her young one. He felt guilt and anger, a kind of jealousy that boiled over and made his body shiver…. And this cool envy meshed like water on oil with the warm joy of seeing his hungry grandson happily fed…. Still, though – he couldn’t help feeling annoyed…at the clear disobedience…
“Oh!” laughed Town, “That certainly won’t make up for it! – All you feed is love!” Town cocked his leg back and kicked the snow in front of him. It flew in Sara’s face and she shook her head wildly, just for a brief moment, to get the snow out of her eyes. “Too much?” Town laughed again, then kicked another loose pile of snow. Sara responded similarly to the first attack, but this time she bent low, displaying her growing anger. “Come on! You got to admit, that was cool!”
Sara continued to stare.
“Well, what you did wasn’t very ice. You need to chill out!”
Town kicked again, but the snow fell short of Sara. Town lost his balance. He took a swig from his flask. He knew deep down this wasn’t wise, but what did he care at this point? He was bored.
Odio, Darwin and Reid surrounded Sara in a protective stance, and they all stood in line as if prepared for a kind of battle. But this only amused Town all the more.
“I know, I was wrong,” he assured, “this is snow laughing matter.” He bent down and began to form a snowball. His gloves were loose and his method sloppy; snow slipped through his gloves. He pushed on. “However, with that being said…you all lined up like that…I know what you’re up to…this is some kind of war,” he packed the snow tight, “you can’t fool me because…icy what you’re up to!”
He chucked the snowball in their general direction – but his aim was unfocused. He didn’t see the snowball’s trajectory, but he saw its final destination. It hit the cub, who, startled and upset, wavered and shook, then lopsidedly made his way behind the wolves, sniffling and pawing at his face.
Town would have felt guilty if it wasn’t for the fear that swept over him at the sight of Sara’s large body lunging towards him with a speed too swift to match.
She toppled him, and Town fell on his back, unable to push Sara off his chest. One arm was used to lift Sara’s chin and prevent her snapping jaws from locking onto his face; his other hand was used to pull her collar, in a desperate attempt to not only hold her distance, but also to choke her, and maybe in the process cause a panic in her great enough to stop her assault. Admittedly, it didn’t do much, and Sara’s energy seemed endless. Town could barely keep her at a safe distance. Her jaws came so close to his face that, had his grip on her collar been any looser, he certainly would have lost his eyes to this dumb creature.
It was then that Town, at that moment, realized what the stakes of this fight were, and his adrenaline kicked in. Like the mother, who, when faced with the possible death of her child, is suddenly bestowed with a bear’s strength, Town sought with every hidden instinct to defend hisself.
Town released his grip on Sara’s collar. He knew he only had a split second. She flashed and flailed as soon as he let go. But he’d also let go of an awareness of death and let his body act in its state of panic. It was easy. A strange but familiar knowledge came over him that he would live through this attack. – And Sara almost acted as if this knowledge had passed onto her as well. Her motions became more erratic and less coordinated. He used this brief moment to grab her hind leg.
He twisted, bent, and pulled with as much force as necessary till he expectantly heard that snap of bone. Next he heard Sara scream – and yell. In a harmonious and dance-like motion, he threw her aside and used the traveling force of his arms to guide the rest of his body. He flew on top of her, punched her snout, and while on his knees rolled to the right in a full somersault toward the erected stick. He hopped to his feet, drew the stick from the snow, lifted it above his head and swung down. He swung again and again, as if swatting a large bug. When he knew she was dead, he swung again – and it ended. Then he finally came to – panting and heaving. He dropped the stick and couldn’t recognize the mess before him. Neither could he recognize his thoughts, which either flowed too slow or too fast, but whichever way, were indicative of an overall numbness that overcame Town.
His eyes were bulbous but focused. He felt his stomach spasm erratically and he semiconsciously tightened his abdomen. – It seemed though to make whatever revulsion he was experiencing worse.
He was nervous.
His focus wouldn’t go beyond his stomach. And when he heard his teeth grind, he mistook it for his stomach’s growling.
Down on the ground he saw the watch halfway out of the ice. The diffused sunshine shone through the topaz. The shadow of Sara’s name distorted across the broken footprints in the snow. And then came the ticking again.
First it came from the left, then the right. Several different rhythmic patterns emerged and coalesced, one right after the other. No source could be found, though Town now knew the hidden origin’s form.
– They came as if directly out of the horizon: about a half dozen snowy owls.
They flew in sequence, and the whoosh from their giant, five-foot wingspans pushing against the wind created a natural music that was both beautiful and discomforting. All six landed on Sara’s corpse. They each began to peck and smack and bite and tear at the meat around her neck. Town’s throat tightened. He saw long red yarns of flesh stretched by powerful black beaks. Their yellow eyes were bright against the white background. He felt as if his lungs were collapsing. A ring of sweat built around his hairline. He took several deep breaths, but found he couldn’t take in the complete breath he needed to restore his normal rhythmic breathing pattern. His right arm tingled. He’d been wrong. – He was having a heart attack. His vision went white. He was dehydrated, drunk, and hungry. He staggered backwards, unable to find a balanced position. But it was the violent cough, which came swift and suddenly, that brought him down.
While he expected to land softly in the snow, he instead fell back into a tree. His back slapped against the trunk, followed by his head, which clonked against the base of a sturdy branch. He felt his beanie release itself from his head in the process. Town, dizzy and disturbed, then felt a pile of snow dump on his barren head, melt in his hair and down his sore back. And when he lifted his right arm to wipe it all away, he felt that forgotten pain in his shoulder once again. He drew back his hand and almost cried. – Then he felt a tingle shudder across his right forearm…and soon this subtle prickling intensified to pure electricity, pulsing and tangling up along his biceps, stretching out to each individual finger.
At this point, he noticed that the dull headache from this morning was quickly becoming a piercing migraine. He picked at the location of pain, near the back of his head, just behind his right ear.
Something was happening to his inner voice – the words meshed somehow – he communicated with himself as if in feeling – …and yet he could still make out its tone and slight trickery. The world around him was brighter and outshone the wolves and trees. The snowy owls, feasting, blended with the background, yet they were somehow still easily definable. The force of their flapping wings was felt and Town’s left arm twitched with growing intensity. Town was forced to focus on the wings’ movements, lest he mistake them for the branches of the trees or the sheets of his hospital bed. Bright colors burst from his eyes and he felt the spacey confusion of drugs as the doctor informed him of his recent injury.
My shoulder’s been busted and my head felt bruised on the inside and out. I heard the remnants of mentions – a thing about hemorrhaging, some bleeding, I heard “beneath the skull”.
My brain had been scrambled while still in its shell. The nine foot fall off the ladder had been a graceful one – the doctor tried to reassure me: if I’d been one rung higher, I could’ve been beyond the reach of recovery.
But their reach had gone far and deep to the basis of my instincts. I’d lost so much that had to be regained. But there’s an immovable object – bright starry lights wink at me. A wish for something. The unfamiliar fell upon us.
My body’s temperature was erratic and would mostly raise to such highs that I’d pass out. I couldn’t provide; I couldn’t even see two feet ahead of me. So Sara took care of the child, but had to take up two jobs just to keep the family afloat.
The boy was either in the crib or in her arms. And where was I? And where am I? I wanted her again. But where was she? Always the boy.
We all wondered if these bouts would continue – only one at the hospital, but there was a question of more in the future. It seemed unlikely… And perhaps it was the sight of her constant possession of the boy that pushed this from a one-off result of trauma to a full-blown epileptic diagnosis…
It must have been too taxing on her – having to care for two children. Day by day, I’m sure coming home would just remind her how exhausted she really was – and the exhaustion would grow.
It was only right that she’d abandon one of us. I was surprised though who one out – though I think I knew it deep down… It’s why I started drinking even more…
The doctor had mentioned something about seizures charged by delirium tremens – an alcoholic on borrowed time. I knew now this wasn’t the case – I drank to drown my self-pity now. It’s what my mother’d done and I followed in her muddied footsteps. But this spiral cycled down, and the walls grew around – or I sunk lower. And the two darlings started to distance themselves further and further. Together, together…
At first, I fumed in the corner or on the couch or bed. I was thinking maybe one of these days she’d approach me and take the bottle and care for me. – But it didn’t happen. – What was worse was that I knew this was the appropriate response. My mother had taught me to absorb another’s feelings, their entire life – to open up and digest, to understand – which is what I did.
I knew the first hand must be dealt by me. I should show the open wounds and lay my heart bare – but only truthfully and genuinely, instead of indirectly – no passive aggression. My method of acting had been emotional and cruel, unwarranted of any forgiveness. I had been selfish. I had been mean and unaware of the lives of my fiancée and young son – and how could I do such a thing! Not to my son. Not to her – Sara, the only one with which I ever had any measure of a meaningful connection.
She had meant so much and, of course, I had to ask for so much – ask, beg and beg, incredibly ungrateful.
So how could I show my gratitude for her? How could I express its depth? She’d taken over the world since the accident – had earned everyone’s respect. And I wallowed in the background.
– But I wouldn’t wallow anymore! I couldn’t! For her sake! For my son’s sake! Of course! I need to show some tribute and receive her love.
She’s cold to me again.
She’s as stubborn as stone.
And what could be the flint against that stone! The spark that erupts the flames again? My fingers caressed the stone in hand.
That topaz gold; my mother’s birthstone embedded in this beautiful watch! My treasure! My 9th birthday gift…the gift to forgive my father’s forgetfulness…. Sara’s love fulfilled both a mother’s and father’s responsibilities…. Through the stone-in-watch I could offer up a gift to carry on the love from the age of 9 till the age of 29…. It could be the perfect tribute, the perfect offering…. An inscription!
It’ll show she’s always in mind! As if she’d always been in mind! That she’s been my love, the one and only, forever! Since the very beginning…
It took so much out of me; in a way, though, that felt tremendous! As if the offering were one that were meant to come about! And it was meant to be!
– But why…when presented to her…. Her mean shrill laugh, my looking down at the floor, my chuckle to myself, as if it’d all been a joke since the beginning…. It was all a joke…. Of course, it was…. And her high-pitched yells, the child crying…. She couldn’t get past it. Pathetic, she said – I remember this.
I walked the streets that night and into the next morning. I was groggy, drunk, and unable to think – but I knew one thing: I needed a companion. A true companion. And then they came…
The pound was before me in a haze in the morning light – it was something significant – I remember that feeling! I saw them all together, the only wolfdogs – each abandoned, all found in the cement river, feeding on bones and birds.
But I could provide for them – and maybe they’d be a happy surprise for the family…
– Sara hated them. They would grow to be too large and unsavory; even now, mangy and grotesque; they were frightening and dangerous. “Not around a child!” And in the ensuing fight, Sara threw the watch against the wall. I picked it up and listened, and slapped her in response. I was kicked out; and they came with me; they hopped beside me as we ate out of trash bins and from the hands of strangers – that was no life, surely. There was more we were meant to accomplish. I pet her head, “We can hunt all we want in the north, Sara, yes…” Her smile was long and canines bright. I loved her and she loved me, she’d told me so…. We would live together…. They all would…
…Town emerged from his seizure, sore, and saw them surrounding him…. These powerful creatures, fraternal by nature, had abandoned their sister to the sleet and slush. His vision sharpened: he saw their faces revealed nothing; but from what Town could read, they seemed to speak – if anything – of fear and shock.
Odio, Darwin and Reid stood still, in awe of the spectacle. The cub was somewhere unseen. Maybe he was chasing the owls away; they’d flown off to some place undisclosed.
Town was tired and lacked the energy to show some sign of apology or reassurance. Both his hands felt weighted – especially his right. It cradled the watch, broken, stupid, and mute. The sun revealed itself briefly between two streaks of stratus and reflected off the surface of undisturbed snow (whatever was left of it) – then the sun vanished once again. Its form hid behind the overcast clouds. Town could’ve been out for hours.
Town’s head fell and his body slumped in acedia. He found the energy to take another sip. A welcome gust of wind came and chilled him. He was sweating from the drunkenness and exertion. He couldn’t worry about the night that never seemed to come, the nights of extreme frost that froze the sweat to his skin and brought about hypothermia in those parts of him he cared most about.
When his stomach growled it was as if his body spoke to him with meaning. – He tossed the watch aside. – All he saw now was a mess of red and brown, some gray between the bits of exposed bone. He saw what he needed…. Rhythmic scurrying echoed in the background as he field dressed the carcass for the meat he craved.
He flipped the animal on its back, and, with his hunting knife, tore a hole around the anus. He cut up through the belly’s skin – careful not to slice the organs beneath – and stopped at the sternum. There wouldn’t be much to eat from this; the body looked thin and almost frail; the stomach, barely filled… – but on the plus side he knew the worst of the process would be easier to get through.
He scooped out the chunk of organs, ending with the diaphragm, and he then gripped the slimy, stretchy tube bridging the hunk of innards and the anal cavity. Town squeezed the fecal matter from the anus down along the tube so that the soft mass would accumulate in the middle. At this point, he ripped out the anus through the initial circular incision he’d made, and on his left, in a small hole he’d quickly dug in the snow, he grasped the tube and ran his fist along it, wringing out the stiff creature’s last digested meal. There wasn’t much, which was what he’d hoped.
Town flung his greasy, maroon-streaked hands through the snow and let the ice melt around. He then wiped the droplets on his parka. They weren’t clean, but it was enough to feel comfortable moving forward. He’d have to dirty them again anyways…
He thrust his hand back up inside and reached elbow-deep through the chest cavity to spool out the remaining material. By this time, he’d worn out the little energy he’d had left. His fuel tank was empty. So much so that when he had to roll the body over on its stomach to complete the last step, he nearly passed out. From the knees down he felt a pulsing soreness, but he pushed past it to hoist himself to a kneeling position.
The head flopped as he flipped the animal over. Town hated how the legs jutted backwards when the body lay on its belly, all bent and bone-breaking at the shoulders and hips.
Preparing himself for the squat and the quick exertion of energy to come, he breathed out then in and held his breath long. He stood up and bent his knees, grabbing her head between his hands. One good, violent shake was enough to dump the rest of the loose blood still sloshing inside her. He threw the empty body to the floor, then plopped down against the base of a nearby tree in celebration of his task. No more energy could be mustered. – In the euphoria of dehydration and hunger, tears came to Town’s eyes, and the tears turned to streams, and he wept silently, covering his eyes as if to hide his response from hisself. And then the clicking came again.
Click. Click. Smack. Smack. Click. Smack. Smack. Smack. Each of these cut Town deeper than the last. Each had a juiciness to it – a fruitfulness, maybe – and Town, distressed and distraught, began to feel the true depth of Nature’s insult.
Disgusted with himself and revolted by the environment, his throat tightened and his chest stretched. Town wanted to give in: he grabbed his hair and squeezed – it sprawled between his knuckles, white and pink, and, when plucked, his roots took off tiny flakes of skin. Though the red rings around his eyes had been the only color on his pallid face, that flush of blood spread and pressed against the inside of his cheeks and forehead, it engorged the vein running up from his left eyebrow to stark and disturbing visibility, and faded to pink as it fell down his neck, ridged and tense.
Something foreign emitted from his lips, something primal and yet unnatural – some force of air expressing all forms of repulsion, all ways to say stop. Town shrieked and sobbed. It echoed throughout the trees, and things unseen rustled off to hide in the far distance. The sky’s gray canvas was pierced once again for just a brief moment, and Town, blinded and dumb, shielded his eyes. Whatever guttural screech had emerged soon subsided and faded, stifled by the mucous that ran down his nostrils and throat. Then the brief emergence of direct sunlight left, to be filtered once again through the forever-clouds and overcast nightmare above.
Town kept quiet in his hopelessness, for he felt the slightest utterance might hurt him again. So he bowed his head…and instead of sobbing, he let the tears drain out, drip after drip…
Click. Smack. Another Smack.
Why, Town thought…. Where?… He lifted his head and peered over the corpse…. Returning his gaze was the cub, mouth open and smiling, tongue hanging over the side – canines red, whiskers stained, snout covered in something…. Down below the cub was the hunk of organs – intestines, lungs, stomach, the gallbladder, a kidney maybe…. Town couldn’t discern them all and yet could see the teeth marks in every element of gizzard. The cub, now seeing Town’s attention given, received it lovingly and hoped to give the same perceived loving attention in return. He hopped atop the corpse of his mother and tried to climb it. Town felt every urge to kick him away, but couldn’t bring himself to touch whatever evidence was left of this monstrous event. In the past he’d had to deal with the worst of nature – the worst cases of field dressings, the weird cannibalistic occurrences of the wild, the degenerate appeal of the dregs of flesh to the carrion-eaters – but, at this sight, his stomach turned and his brain constricted. He crawled behind the tree and noticed the tears had stopped.
He was stunned, numb. He twitched here and there and blinked constantly, as if whatever had just been presented to him was too much to take in. Something swooped and beat the air above him. But it wasn’t the owls – a swan, a singular swan, drifted in the air, large and graceful, like an airplane – some incredible creation headed to the lake further south. A gust of wind coupled the pulses of air from the beat of the swan’s flapping wings, and Town wondered where this zephyr came from, and why at such an appropriate time.
Suddenly it came to him: he headed to Sara, crawling hopelessly but still determined – he would bury her, all of her.
He managed his way toward her body, and thought about how he’d muster the strength to commit to the task. He found that the greater his inner strength, the greater his willingness to expend the last bits of reserve energy to complete it, till the end.
Near Sara’s stony face was the hole in which he’d dumped her feces. He covered it up; he wouldn’t dishonor her memory and bury her in her own filth. He would prime her – work as best he could with what he had.
First, he dug a hole, small but deep, on a focus of an elliptic coliseum of aspens. Town then shuffled back to the dead mound of organs, and upon reaching them, removed his parka and scooped the organs inside. It stunk and dripped through the cheap fabric of the parka, soaked in her remains – but Town fought through. He pulled off his sweater, the tundra combatting his bare skin, and lined the inside of his parka with it. The parka and sweater cradled them fine enough, and when the sleeves were tied over top, it sunk smoothly down the hole.
Steam rose.
The snow was pushed over the top till a tiny trodden mound stood in memoriam. And then it was time for the big leap: the hole to dig, a large and heavy animal to move, while Town, shirtless, was getting colder.
He dug over the opposite focus. The sweat coated him; the snow fell in his gloves and quickly melted. His temperature dropped as the cold water cooled his skin. He kept up the energetic tossing and hoped to stave off what he knew was coming. In the background he heard a familiar rumble, but he chose to ignore it as it grew with every freezing shovelful.
Odio, Darwin and Reid watched each handful of snow thrown in various directions, and every so often the snow would land around their general positions – as if it had been thrown at them with intent. Their uneasiness grew and couldn’t be contained for too much longer. Whatever was happening was an insult and a blatant reminder of a past slight. But tension didn’t snap under the weight of this action until Town grabbed Sara, dragged her across the bed and dropped her down, her body disappearing in a puff of displaced ice. They could no longer keep the anxious energy withheld and growled to show their discomfort and hatred. – And yet Town seemed to ignore them…
What was he doing?…
He gathered the leftover lumps of snow left piled up around him and tossed them over the hole now filled with their sister. He struggled to manage it…and it still wasn’t enough to refill the grave. He shuffled around weakly and kicked, with pathetic intensity, the surrounding snow into the grave to fill the remaining space. It only showed to the wolfdogs, though, that his hatred was complete.
Particles of snow landed in each of the wolfdogs’ eyes. Their heads writhed and jaws snapped; their intensity built. He hated them, and they knew it – knew it for the first time – and for the first time they saw a meal. Two different forces of instinctual survivalism swirled and collided, then merged and meshed together, a symptom of the fires in these wolves’ bellies. And it emerged from their mouths in condensed air, directed at the man who barely knew the circumstance, had taken it all for granted, and was now about to see the true power of the natural, circumstantial beast and become a casualty of its ferocity. They entered the arena and circled the culprit.
It hit Town, like stormy winds, exactly why he was bound by these wolves – and yet the burial still needed to be finished – and somehow, Town still thought that this gesture of respect could be interpreted as such, and the antagonism may leave his former friends; we could all share in the grief of this moment perhaps, and be united again. – It was so delicate. He knew this gesture must be expressed lightly and with caution…
He crawled, eye-level with Odio, toward a pile of snow beside the hole, but kept his head low. Softly, he scooped a bit here and there and slowly moved the pile towards the hole. Then one by one, his hands distributed the parts of the final blanket that would cover Sara. Town was smart (and in some ways naïve) in how he managed to fill half of that hole. In other words, he had the confidence of an idiot; and in that confidence, he knew he only had to pat down that final scoop and finish the burial to achieve the harmony he sought with the wolves.
He crawled again around the hole to the other side, where another pile of tossed up snow was displaced. He drew his head up and found Darwin staring at him – but Town no longer saw fear and anger and raised hackles; instead he found confusion and an attempt to understand what was happening, what Town was trying to tell him. Oh, and Town’s confidence grew! Town bent his head to show his respect while smiling excitedly.
Once again, bit by bit, he tossed the snow inside but this time, he tried to make it more blatant that this was a display of respect. With each handful of snow, instead of simply dropping it down, he rubbed it between his fingers and let it sprinkle across the body. The wolves were no longer restless and Town even heard Darwin release a small, sad whimper (in mourning, Town determined) – Town was happier.
Town took his time to make every bit of the burial count, to make her death a sacred one – to show that he was ashamed for what he’d done, and that he wished to express that not only was there respect that needed to be given, but that he missed her for what she was and not what he’d wanted her to be. Even the cub, who had made his way between Odio’s legs, sat calmly in an attempt to make sense of what was happening in his brethren’s minds.
Town was almost done, and the ceremony was close to the end. There were only a few more swipes to commit to the mound. Further around the hole he went. And there he saw Reid, whose face expressed something slightly different than his adoptive brothers. But only slightly – he appeared more regal, disciplined, and suspicious. For him, Town laid his head the lowest, so much so that his forehead dragged against the snow’s surface. It was cold. Town’s brow was sweating profusely and his face was red. Why had he done this? This was a question that repeated in his head – why had he done this: removed his clothes, crawled so vigorously, wasted his energy…? He knew the end was coming; he felt the symptoms of hypothermia and the sweat begin to freeze, especially across his hair line. He tried to fight against it, but the dizziness returned.
Town bowed deeply as he made do with the last of the displaced snow, finally finishing this burial ceremony. He patted the top of the mound and the cold, melted snow built up and soaked the inside of his gloves. The gloves were useless to him now, so he removed them, throwing them aside in exhaustion. One after the other, he felt his faculties shut down. He was proud, but humble in front of the regal one – and then he heard a soft, almost whispered, whimper once again – but this time, from this vast angelic creature. Town took the dare and looked up. But Reid was too preoccupied with something else to notice him. Something on the ground had grabbed his attention. There Town saw the source…the pocket-watch. Though Reid was enthralled by what he saw, he seemed to Town too proud to move or even show an ounce more emotion than what emerged against the will.
The blood in Town’s face drained. Some new feeling grew inside him, some pang in his psyche – he felt ashamed and afraid at Reid’s reaction to the abandoned watch. Town’s humility, then expressed as a bowed head, was now redirected to a new form of expression: he lifted his head and met Reid’s gaze, eye-to-eye. Psychic transmissions of compassion and empathy were attempted and seemed to electrify the deadened air.
As Town stared, something flickered in Reid’s eyes, which swiveled in their sockets, very slightly, yet furiously. Reid appeared to resist against this twitching. Of course, though, the resistance itself rippled through his body, and he shuddered as if the crisp wind’s coolness affected him harshly – and beneath the twitching of the irises, Town caught a glimpse of the beast’s true feelings: fear, anger, and paranoia. The guilt weighed heavier than ever on Town’s conscience, which spoke to him, not in words, but in loud, bellowing shouts of admonishment. It was as if Town, for the first time, saw the consequences of his mindset pasted on the environment before him, in absolute purity. How frightening and shameful. But though Town had dared to face the beast, he dared make no further gesture of peace. One wrong move could be the spark that burst this rocky keg.
Reid made the first move – and turned away from Town. At first, Town took this rejection dejectedly. But soon saw where Reid was heading…. Reid disappeared briefly among the aspens, then returned with the stick, dropping it before Town. – Town knew what to do, even if he didn’t know why. He picked up the wet, ruddy stick and stuck it upright in the mound, a respectful marker for this amateurish grave.
Then Reid shifted and Town figured he may have done something wrong, but Reid was only looking up at the sky: another respite in the gray had come upon them, and the beam of light that descended upon them grazed over the mound, turning this new “headstone” into a kind of sundial. Reid looked back at Town, who returned the gaze.
Town held still – like he was frozen – and allowed himself to freeze under the crackles of branches above, then lowered his head once more. – And in that moment of stiff humility and hope, something miraculous happened – a marvel Town never dreamed he’d see: he heard a scrape, then another, then looked up to see Reid digging through the snow, his paw stiff, attempting to dig out the watch, that corrupted symbol. Reid had fought his instincts and sacrificed his God-given common sense in the name of good will.
In that moment, Town knew…he knew that Reid’s sacrifice should be honored…this symbol – the watch – must be purified of its rotten past.
Reid seemed to suffer, as he dug out the watch. Every horrific trauma imprinted on it constricted his heart and stunted his movement. Reid fought this…when he gently pulled out the watch and, between his teeth, held it out to Town as a gesture of accord and unity. Tears streamed down the pallid, blue skin and moistened the darkened lips as Town stretched his hand to receive the offering – to which Reid let the watch go and let his chin rest on top of Town’s closed fist. Town peered around: Odio and Darwin, still standing, also lowered their heads, though Town could see in all of them the same struggle to keep their fear at bay in the presence of this watch. They all shivered and strained, except the cub who still sat calmly beneath Odio, and looked on with curiosity.
Town pulled the watch close to warm himself. He opened his fist close to his chest, curling in a ball, and pathetically looked at the former atrocity. In the emotional warmth of the watch – in the heat of this fiery moment – Town was filled with a surge of energy that pushed him to take action and express the truth of this transformation.
His knees hit the snow (and even the crunch was enough to put the wolves on edge), he bent over the watch harshly – his back arched, the spinal column stretching against the gray skin – and he attempted to pry off the back panel…to get to the inside, to see what had gone wrong – to fix it.
Then something extraordinary happened, though it was altogether natural…. Reid, seeing the blue fingertips attempt to pry apart this fearful symbol, took this barbaric jerking and twisting as a sudden revolt, an intentional turning away from, or mocking of, the attempted unity. Soon that electrified empathy that seemed to thicken the air and make it bearable, turned to jagged hatred; with every zephyr came convulsions of dismay swirling with anger. “Attempting,” as a concept, was carried away with the wind as well – all that was left was temptation: the wool had been lifted over their eyes, and once again, the wolves saw only a meal.
Far too focused on the task at hand, Town didn’t see the attack coming. He suddenly felt the hard punt from the top of Reid’s head as Reid blew through him at full speed. Town flew back through the air and heard the growl of four animals. Their roar, akin to four six-cylinder trucks, echoed across the field.
It was enough to trigger Town’s survivalism to the max – and in that moment, came the quick thoughts of manipulation and treachery that plague anyone hoping to ward off an attack. (How could he take control of this escalating situation?)
He crawled away quickly but with a kind of limp. His mind was on fire, but his body was burnt out. His eyes darted from left to right, up, down, anywhere and everywhere to find some advantage in the soon-to-come battle. But it was when he peered behind him that he found his ace in the hole: the stick.
Even as he flipped around to utilize all four of his limbs, his mind – still ablaze – burst open with explosive but indiscernible warnings. He headed for the stick – an item still heavily painted with a patina of these wolves’ fears and intimidations. One swing could stifle their energy for that brief period necessary to make that decisive blow…
He made it to the base of the stick and attempted to rip it out of the mound, but he was either too weak or the stick had been buried too deep. He struggled to stand up, using the stick to lean on; his hand kept slipping on Sara’s blood down the shaft…it was still lubricating the stick…. – And this would have affected him…had it not been for the fierce and frightening snarls behind him, the startling snap of jaws like a car door slamming.
He’d only used his left hand until this point to reach the top – his right hand still invested the watch. – But when he threw his right hand on top of the stick (for that leverage he needed to hoist himself up), the watch’s crown penetrated the stick’s wooden tip…
The watch, now upside down, projected out from the top of this grave marker…
Town, panting, stared at it blankly forgetting briefly what was coming upon him from behind. – Then the dozing sun – still piercing that quilt – struck the watch’s topaz center, traveling through to Town’s eyes. His head flung back, his neck unnaturally bent, his Adam’s apple jutted out. The wolves were startled by the short and shrill yawp that followed this enlightenment. Town staggered, then fell back on top of the wolves, who needed only one excuse to follow through with their plan to satisfy their hunger. They all, each of them, dove in to take a chunk from this fallen man’s flesh.
Reid took the first bite.
Between his neck and shoulder, Town felt a powerful jaw’s dull teeth tear through his skin. He felt Reid’s cold nose push into his clavicle. Odio’s bite then snapped on the opposite arm and mashed Town’s bicep. Darwin came shortly after, chewing on his ankle, working his way to the calf muscle.
Town lay immobile. In a way he wanted to give up and he welcomed death. Staring into the gray was enough for him to accept the inevitable. The clouds wrapped around the sky so tight. Air couldn’t penetrate through – there was no room for adjustment in this climate. The way the puffed blanket lay across the sky, circumventing the whole horizon and heavens, spoke with a tone of pride. It was unrelenting, neverending…. And that same puffed quilt that now smothered Town was made up – Town knew – of the same wisps of smoke that fumed from the mouths of the wolfdogs with each of their snarls (which sounded to Town like laughter, as if they’d transformed Town’s sorrow to joy, a joy in this abrasive, abusive, cold, stupid, violent environment that had now shown itself to be truly, truly king…). Town was ready to give up…. His headache returned, behind his right ear…. His eyesight faded….
The machine’s rotations were becoming clearer, as if before this moment they’d never existed, as if they’d never been obvious up until the point that they were finally whirring to an end, the cycles turning still. Everything seemed to blend together…
Town was about to give up…when above came a large, bird-like shadow…. Its feathers pulled away the clouds above and showed a wealth of stars and green flame. At this sight Town thought he’d died and had reached beyond the veil of material into the realm of transience. The teeth still pierced, but his body was numb. In this moment, it was only fear he felt, an awesome fear at this grand spectacle above him, as if he were gazing at the sun. The awesome verdant sky slithered, and the tendrils of enflamed emerald light shrouded even the stars above. Town knew what he was up against – and yet now he felt no antagonism. As Reid moved his way to the ear and Odio to the thigh, Town knew he couldn’t give up; but he also knew…that if he were to fight this terrific majesty the wolves inhabited, he’d certainly lose…. So he decided (or understood) that he must fight as if it were he himself who was the enemy; that is, he wouldn’t fight….Town would simply resist and flow with the struggle.
The wolfdogs threw themselves into their work without passion, and ate and ate, bit by bit, chewed at what they could – but Town threw a punch, his first and only. Not knowing which one he’d hit, he felt the impact, and that was all he needed. He’d fight until the end, as a show of respect; for the wolfdogs themselves were only in this wrestle for survival as well…. And then that gust of wind came, and the bird-like shadow emerged from the opposite direction, flying further north.
The wolfdogs stopped suddenly.
Town felt nothing and was numb. Shirtless, dug deep in the snow, he couldn’t feel the blood dripping down his limbs, the frozen powder pouring over him. He couldn’t even hear the gnashing of teeth. A familiar whoosh surrounded him, delayed…. One paw followed, the claws digging through his corneas, blinding him – then the scatter of paws against the ice were heard. And, then, in the distance (or just beside him…?) he heard the wolfdogs howling and one frame flashed in his brain:
The howling dogs, posed at four points of the circumference of the burial mount, the shadow of the sun-dial’s singular hand fading with the sun as night finally came – and darkness…
Once the vision passed, the paws echoed further off. Perhaps the wolfdogs were scuffling away to find some new partners, some family familiar with their wants and needs, a pack they could possibly enter and enjoy through fair judgement. But the sound of one set of trampling – smaller and quicker in rhythm (the cub!) – made its way to Town’s ears, trailing off in the other direction. South, Town figured…. So Town crawled, wearied, following the sound.
Town kept pushing forward. He pushed through in the darkness…. In his blindness, he stumbled into trees and had to navigate the terrain with barely any guidance. But he kept pushing forward, for in the darkness time stopped…and when pushed to optimism, progress is eternal.
The tiny footsteps, heard ahead of him, provided Town with an audible path – and this path was thick with dry brush, thick trees, other small creatures that squeaked to the left and right of him, and low rumblings of some kind of noise Town may have been familiar with in his past, but which was now scarcely determined. He kept his focus on the path, leaving no room for distraction. He felt a new drive leading him on – a drive he hadn’t known for a while…. No longer was hunger or survival fueling the fire within him; this spark was something else…. Without sight, the environment around him seemed fresh, reestablished in a way that he hadn’t thought possible. He was oozing pain, but this only served to solidify his determination. For some reason, he wanted to hold that young cub in his arms, cradle him, raise him, but more than that learn from him – he wanted to follow that young cub on adventures to old lands renewed. He finally saw a purpose within him, and he knew he could impart and develop it with this pup at his side.
He crawled and crawled, avoiding the obstacles when he could, unperturbed by any thing in his way…he only wanted to follow the cub…when his hands came upon an icy hard surface: the southern lake frozen over.
At first Town slipped across the ice, but soon was able to move forward with a kind of stubborn grace. The steps of the cub were now barely heard (if heard at all), but Town continued forward: one hand, another hand, a knee, then the other. This pattern repeated till the left hand hit some thin erect structure. In his anxious memories, he toppled the erected stick, and heard it clatter beside him. Regaining himself, he moved forward, and felt that where the stick had been placed, a hole had been carved in the lake’s surface. And nearby – he felt around – was a thick thread, taut, against the inside edge of the hole. His fingers followed it to the toppled stick. His fingers were so numb at this point that he could barely discern the material. They followed in the opposite direction down in the hole. Town did his best to pull the thread in his dazed curiosity, when his fingertips finally slid along something soft, something slimy. Town trailed further down the object. One edge of this object had thick, fibrous, flexible platelets extending off it, and when Town caressed further down, both edges narrowed to a ridged end that branched out. His fingers moved along in the opposite direction and he felt a soft putty orb and hard, cartilage opening. It was a fish…
Welling inside him was an old feeling – an ancient one it seemed – which had an undertone of magic and mystery. It was the feeling of grasping Time in its entirety. And the past was no longer the past, but the beginning to a future he could see unfold: and the future he could see before him was one in which he provided for the starving cub.
He didn’t know where the cub was, but Town was determined to find him. He was also determined to save himself, and he was now in desperate need of a fire, for the warmth and for the opportunity to cook his meal. There was almost the smell of heat in the air – of burnt coal, ash and char – and in his mind, Town thought he felt his face brighten in the heat to which he was heading. He also could hear in the distance a growl, the growl of a wolf…
He made his way to the wolves full of hope, with food in hand…then heard footsteps thud against the ice, and he heard the rhythmic panting of the cub, followed by a stammered, “You okay, buddy?”
“I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air,
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.”
-W.B. Yeats, “The Wild Swans at Coole”
Cameron Edward Reilly - ERC Writing 