Monday, November 24, 2014
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
The Bear
We walked past the greenhouses to where Raleigh was waiting. The three of us climbed through the fence and began the steep climb down to the river. At the bottom of the hill lay a little bear. A small one. A baby. We looked down at him, curled up, maggots were burrowing away at a sore on his head, his eyes were closed.
‘Ahhh, he’s still alive,’ I breathed out.
He was, his small chest was almost imperceptibly moving, and as we watched his eyes flickered.
Jacob bent down, looking at the bear closely.
‘He has to die. He can’t be left like this. And look at his teeth! His awesome canines!’
‘What? Raleigh? Do you think so? He might just die on his own. It doesn’t seem like he is in much pain....?Jacob? Wait a second!'
Jacob was already scrambling back up the steep hill, and as I watched he began pulling at one of the fallen steel fence posts. It wouldn’t budge. He yanked and yanked, suddenly a small man on a big hill, slipping and sliding in the mud.
‘Raleigh! I could use some help!’
Raleigh sighed and without looking at me, heaved himself up the slope. After working the post back and forth, they soon had it free. Jacob slid back down the muddy slope dragging it behind him.
I stood upstream from the bear, my feet sinking again and again into the sandy bottom, the current tugging at my ankles. As I stepped out of the river onto a flat rock I saw the bear stir. The soft water was running over his legs and I had a sense that he could be carried down stream at any moment, and be free of us, of us who had disturbed his last few moments, as he lay under his empty sky. And I looked at the little bear, his eyes flickering, staying silent, nearly dead, with almost a sense of peace, and yet here we came.
‘This bear’s fine Jacob, he’s calm now, he is almost dead. Let him be.’
‘You,' he panted as he reached the bottom and began dragging the post over the rocks towards me and the bear, ‘you don’t understand. He is not fine. It is more humane for me to kill him now...'
He began to position his weight in order to swing the post back over his head. I grabbed his arm.
‘No, Jacob. Jesus. Stop, let him be, let him die, and in a few days, come back and get your goddamn teeth.’
‘Yeah Jacob, I don’t think you should do this’, muttered Raleigh.
‘Get off me’. He shook off my arm.
I suddenly filled with fury, for it all, for not listening to me, for believing in himself at the exclusion of all else, of everyone else. I reveled in the true and undeniable sense of my soul finally bursting out of my long apathetic state. I yanked the post from him, staggering from the weight, he yanked back, and we pulled back and forth, until I couldn’t hold it, and he fell, sitting into the shallow stream.
‘Leave it Jacob.’ A smile traced across my face.
Furious now, he stood, and picking up the post, he swung it long and back over his head, landing it smack on the crown of the bear’s head. I stood for a moment, entranced by the violence, and by how much I completely hated him at that moment. A cracking sound rang out over the forest, and the bear’s body jerked, before it let out a horrible bawl of pain and surprise. I shuddered as Jacob swung back for one more.
I turned and looked back up the steep path to the house.
Jacob, now sure the bear was dead, tied his bandana over his mouth and nose, and bent over and began wrenching and cutting at the bear’s mouth.
I had to get away from this person hacking into the bear’s jaw. I couldn’t see where Raleigh was and didn’t care. I started scrabbling up the hill, holding onto tufts of grass, my feet trying to grip in the mud. I could still hear sound of knife on bone as I crested the ravine and ran back to the house.
Afterwards, he lay the four teeth carefully in the sun, saying nothing, and I drove into town for food with some of the others. I got back late, and found out he'd gone to bed.
Later in the night, I stood outside the fly, breathing in the cool, wet air of the Californian forest, I could hear him stirring, waiting for me.
We lay in our old tent, with the familiar smell of salty bodies and warm plastic, and I did hesitate, it is so easy to stay, to stay. But only I knew all my hours, of wanting this, of wanting these moments of mine to finally come to me. And I knew I was free to do it now. He was warm as he always was and we shared our last sleep in the small tent.
Monday, October 6, 2014
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Friday, August 30, 2013
Fresh Water
Coming downstairs with the children, they had found the mounted head of the deer on the rug in front of the fireplace. It was face down and the hook was protruding from the base of its neck. The head looked so big lying there, and Miles had instinctively lain his little hand on its neck, clouds of dust rising as he patted it. She had left them with the deer while she went to prepare breakfast. They had washed and eaten, and then gone to run with the other children. She had heard him call her name then and she stopped and listened, standing in one of the slivers of morning sunlight. She looked up to the raw wood of the open beams, the solid noise pressing thickly through the floor. His boots moved from one room to the next, but didn't come down the stairs, so her book in her hand, she stepped out of the sunlight and pushed open the brown screen door, catching it behind her so it didn’t slam and carefully descended the old, dried-out steps.
She stood for a moment and looked out at the flat, limestone bedrock, strangely pockmarked by old fossils – the Alvar coast of the Great Lakes. She had only seen this bedrock in the summer months when the dense green of pine and spruce was occasionally lightened by the birch. When she first came, she had walked in the forest and looked up at the only trees that seemed to catch the sunlight, the only trees that shivered. She had suggested planting more of the birches, but they told her birches needed deeper soil to thrive, and here it was just a thin layer. She wondered at the winters with the lake a frozen mass and the sheets of ice covering the rocks, the mounds of snow that must pile up in front of the cabins. The purple flowers were out now and winter seemed impossible. Her gaze relaxed and a violet haze hovered above the clumps of grass and moss. The flowers small and scattered like their name, Blazing Stars.
The tablecloth from the night before flapped, cheap plastic that ripped as she watched. Stones were strewn about, dropped in their place and would leave an outline, a shadow on the ground, when she nudged one with her foot. She bent and picked one, some. They lay heavy in her hand and she placed a stone on either end of the tablecloth. The summer morning was mild and still, the shouts of the children distant, but as she rounded the swings, she could hear the waves. The wooden seats of the swings gently rocked, vacant after the noise and laughter. She reached the clump of cedars, the roar of the waves growing as her feet slipped in the incongruous sand. She had grown up with the sea, with the air thick with salt; the smell of rotting seaweed rising in tangible drifts as she walked amongst the mounds of pebbles; the luminous mother of pearl shells, tiny on their own, but left in great wave-like shapes upon the grey sand; the smooth, shiny, dark-orange kelp torn out from where the sandy bottom dropped into darkness, the sea grapes still growing and bursting on the sand as she had squeezed and squashed them. The sea, the sea. Salt on her skin, sun on the salt and now the lake. She had learnt that the lake was changeable also, the colours deepening and lightening like the sea, the whiteness of the curling waves lit up by the final bursts of sun, like the sea, but underneath the lakes’ waves lay a strange emptiness. The smooth limestone running endlessly out into the lake, turning to mud in places, the absence of creatures, the absence of shells. Cleaner, people told her. Refreshing. No uncomfortable sand. But she still knew the sea left an energy on your skin, and the lake's cleanliness left nothing.
She saw now there were two birches amongst the clump of cedars, surviving here in the deeper sand. The bench beneath the trees had been recently repainted, perhaps yesterday. The stain looked glossy, and had been spread over the wood with care. She read the plaque, ‘In Memory of David McPhail, 1975-1995’. She had read the plaque many times before, the children always with her, their voices taking them past the last clump of trees with the quiet bench to the point, where the waves would crash and scare them. The thin foam tracing fingers of fresh water waves across the shelf of limestone, reaching further and further with each shout of glee and pleasure. Today, her husband had made it easy for her to sit. The wind was cool on this side of the trees, so she sat and let the sun warm her legs. She crossed them in front of her, resting them on the bench just like they had been told at school and opened her book of Irish short stories. She liked to deliberately read them out of order. The soft paper cover was made fluid with the hands of others and the spine bent easily under her touch. The sun fell on her bent neck, her hair descended, cave-like, skimming the pages. The waves landed on the shore and the sound of people’s voices came within earshot, but she felt secure and hidden behind the trees, beneath her hair. Once she heard her husband’s voice calling her and she looked up, but the sun had grown hot, and she merely shifted to the shady part of the bench. Her foot came to rest on the grainy sand and she shook off the ants. With the quietness of the sun and the care of the boy’s bench beneath her, the world became still. There was lightness and peace. She read through the last story quickly, her eyes skimming the final paragraphs as her time on the bench ran out. As her children spent their hours separate from her own a mixture of anxiousness and warmth rose in her, quietly at first, but gaining momentum. So she read too fast for her own soul to feel the breakable sadness in the story she was holding. She read the last page again and she glanced up at the air around, the light earth, the wind swept trees, the wild daisies almost false in their bunches of cheer. Inside, her heart opened and she sat and looked at the lake on the dead boy’s bench, before standing and walking back to the house.
Coming downstairs with the children, they had found the mounted head of the deer on the rug in front of the fireplace. It was face down and the hook was protruding from the base of its neck. The head looked so big lying there, and Miles had instinctively lain his little hand on its neck, clouds of dust rising as he patted it. She had left them with the deer while she went to prepare breakfast. They had washed and eaten, and then gone to run with the other children. She had heard him call her name then and she stopped and listened, standing in one of the slivers of morning sunlight. She looked up to the raw wood of the open beams, the solid noise pressing thickly through the floor. His boots moved from one room to the next, but didn't come down the stairs, so her book in her hand, she stepped out of the sunlight and pushed open the brown screen door, catching it behind her so it didn’t slam and carefully descended the old, dried-out steps.
She stood for a moment and looked out at the flat, limestone bedrock, strangely pockmarked by old fossils – the Alvar coast of the Great Lakes. She had only seen this bedrock in the summer months when the dense green of pine and spruce was occasionally lightened by the birch. When she first came, she had walked in the forest and looked up at the only trees that seemed to catch the sunlight, the only trees that shivered. She had suggested planting more of the birches, but they told her birches needed deeper soil to thrive, and here it was just a thin layer. She wondered at the winters with the lake a frozen mass and the sheets of ice covering the rocks, the mounds of snow that must pile up in front of the cabins. The purple flowers were out now and winter seemed impossible. Her gaze relaxed and a violet haze hovered above the clumps of grass and moss. The flowers small and scattered like their name, Blazing Stars.
The tablecloth from the night before flapped, cheap plastic that ripped as she watched. Stones were strewn about, dropped in their place and would leave an outline, a shadow on the ground, when she nudged one with her foot. She bent and picked one, some. They lay heavy in her hand and she placed a stone on either end of the tablecloth. The summer morning was mild and still, the shouts of the children distant, but as she rounded the swings, she could hear the waves. The wooden seats of the swings gently rocked, vacant after the noise and laughter. She reached the clump of cedars, the roar of the waves growing as her feet slipped in the incongruous sand. She had grown up with the sea, with the air thick with salt; the smell of rotting seaweed rising in tangible drifts as she walked amongst the mounds of pebbles; the luminous mother of pearl shells, tiny on their own, but left in great wave-like shapes upon the grey sand; the smooth, shiny, dark-orange kelp torn out from where the sandy bottom dropped into darkness, the sea grapes still growing and bursting on the sand as she had squeezed and squashed them. The sea, the sea. Salt on her skin, sun on the salt and now the lake. She had learnt that the lake was changeable also, the colours deepening and lightening like the sea, the whiteness of the curling waves lit up by the final bursts of sun, like the sea, but underneath the lakes’ waves lay a strange emptiness. The smooth limestone running endlessly out into the lake, turning to mud in places, the absence of creatures, the absence of shells. Cleaner, people told her. Refreshing. No uncomfortable sand. But she still knew the sea left an energy on your skin, and the lake's cleanliness left nothing.
She saw now there were two birches amongst the clump of cedars, surviving here in the deeper sand. The bench beneath the trees had been recently repainted, perhaps yesterday. The stain looked glossy, and had been spread over the wood with care. She read the plaque, ‘In Memory of David McPhail, 1975-1995’. She had read the plaque many times before, the children always with her, their voices taking them past the last clump of trees with the quiet bench to the point, where the waves would crash and scare them. The thin foam tracing fingers of fresh water waves across the shelf of limestone, reaching further and further with each shout of glee and pleasure. Today, her husband had made it easy for her to sit. The wind was cool on this side of the trees, so she sat and let the sun warm her legs. She crossed them in front of her, resting them on the bench just like they had been told at school and opened her book of Irish short stories. She liked to deliberately read them out of order. The soft paper cover was made fluid with the hands of others and the spine bent easily under her touch. The sun fell on her bent neck, her hair descended, cave-like, skimming the pages. The waves landed on the shore and the sound of people’s voices came within earshot, but she felt secure and hidden behind the trees, beneath her hair. Once she heard her husband’s voice calling her and she looked up, but the sun had grown hot, and she merely shifted to the shady part of the bench. Her foot came to rest on the grainy sand and she shook off the ants. With the quietness of the sun and the care of the boy’s bench beneath her, the world became still. There was lightness and peace. She read through the last story quickly, her eyes skimming the final paragraphs as her time on the bench ran out. As her children spent their hours separate from her own a mixture of anxiousness and warmth rose in her, quietly at first, but gaining momentum. So she read too fast for her own soul to feel the breakable sadness in the story she was holding. She read the last page again and she glanced up at the air around, the light earth, the wind swept trees, the wild daisies almost false in their bunches of cheer. Inside, her heart opened and she sat and looked at the lake on the dead boy’s bench, before standing and walking back to the house.
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