Nanowrimo - 12

Our fearsome travel on the westward trails, picking through wilderness, watching for bears, bartering with friendlies or avoiding hostiles, keeping our powder dry in rain, fording streams and rivers, every day an gamble to survive, hunting for food and sometimes going hungry, lives mixed in memory with Gabriel. The frontier or the man, I gave myself over to each with what proved to be a careless amount of abandon. Making a warm fire under the stars where we could sleep and enjoy each other’s bodies, wandering through this country alone doing our trading and trapping, we were a nation of two.

Eventually the Ohio valley became more and more settled. Our little world was interrupted by Tecumseh’s terrible Indian wars and our frontier became peopled. In making our trails we had accidentally blazed a path toward the interior for opportunity starved masses. Our lives became settled, set in place with bands of gold. And our lives together stretched on for years. But, Gabriel was a man who needed to conquer. He needed wide, wild spaces accompanied by things unknown to maintain his sense of cheer. He was happiest on his horse, gun in hand and facing a risk to his life. I had gone from being part of his adventure to his albatross. And so, I finally understood what Zoltan had warned me about while I was still very young and under his tutelage. These mortals don’t have long on this Earth and so have no patience for life’s unfoldment. Their little hearts turn on a dime.

My first determination was never to forgive him. I would never condone this wasting of my time and energy in the absence of any true love. I would never pardon the walking out which lacked discussion or reason. “How dare you pay for your freedom with someone else’s sanity? How dare you demand perfection yet offer so little. How dare you sweep away any fond memory with one bitter gesture?”

“Plink! Plink!” The sound two gold bands make while I play with them draws me from reverie. I find myself at the roll top desk, toying with the rings and staring out a black window. This is ridiculous. I plop them back into their tiny drawer and shut the desk up. It’s always easier to rehash those moments when one could be perceived as having been wronged. Those other many moments when I was the aggressor are bastards of memory – only owned when pressed.

My grief was a rage. I killed for the first time not for the sake of feeding but for the sheer joy of squeezing all life out of a living man. I began to do the deed in stages, starting with the first immobilizing bite and watching their eyes beg for mercy at every turn. I wanted to see the absolute terror in their eyes. I wanted it to hurt. I wanted someone else to feel pain like I had felt pain. The more I fed and killed, the stronger my rage did grow. In anger, I was wild as a beast, invincible, and at a loss for all human dignity.

I could have destroyed myself forever carrying that grudge. When suddenly I came to my senses three years had passed. I ceased this reign of terror on the countryside and moved to upper New York State to start over. This time I had nothing to buy or sell and no one upon whom I could rely for security. The kindness of strangers extended there became my first introduction to the Unitarian church. I soaked up the ‘The Dial”. Emerson’s words became a balm to me and I vowed to love no human more than these divine principles.

Ten years a go, I welcomed the chance to come here, in the role of minister, to the heartland where population was sparse. This was partially to feel the air and room around me but also to know that here was a place where no people slipped off the edge. A crowded metropolis, filled with the inter-mingling feet of strangers, lends itself to widespread anonymity. No one might notice one person missing. But out here, every person matters and every body is counted.

I thought this would be a guard against the urge as it could not arise in safety. I wanted to be in a place where I was guaranteed to wither and die like a normal person. I never counted on another once born entering this world and throwing the balance off entirely. But someone has arrived, someone strong and aggressive, and I lack the strength to do anything about them. That is, unless I feed.

It hasn’t been easy to abstain. With the improved mortal diet through this last century it’s less necessary to feed, but still the hunger is there. And I love the hunger. I love that pain of emptiness in my gut because in a world that grows more and more stale with each passing age that gnawing at my core is the only thing that tells me I am still alive. A life defined by a discomfort and denial of life itself is the one factor that makes me feel like a real human. I starve, there fore I am.

And now this dark blanket is being ripped from me. The ruse is over. “Woman, what art thou?” asks the black night as it creeps through the window and into the room, filling every corner.

And to it I can only render the most feeble of answers. “I am that I am. I know not whither I come.”

I collapse onto the bed for another night of restless travels through memory. Drifting off those distant words echo in my mind. “Hello, Mummy.”

“Peck Peck Peck” I hear the percussive tap and the rattling of the window in its frame. I feel my eyes open but cannot sense that this has had any effect. Eyes closed, eyes open, all is black.

“Peck! Peck!” I raise up, and in the dim square that is my window I make out the outline of a raven, tapping its beak on the glass, looking in at me. I’m not ready for this moment as much as the moment is ready for me.

“Peck! Peck! Peck!” He knows I’m awake and becomes more insistent. Is this how you got into my friend Jones house? Agitating him at the window? And you’re here to destroy me now?

I stand up and look at him in the eyes. Only the glass separates us. “I just want to talk” comes through the ether.

“That’s good, you’ve got some explaining to do.” The lock is stiff with the cold and takes some effort to give way, but as soon as I have the window open a couple inches the corax flutters through.

I push the window shut, reach to turn on a light and when I turn back around before me stands a grown man. His face shines with the health of the newly fed. His hair is thick and dark and something about his features is oddly familiar.

“Don’t you recognize me?” He bellows, holding out his arms.

I scan his features but can only frown.

“I’m shocked that you would fail to recognize your own son!”