Neglect shrouds the bungalow. Abandonment. Crouched at the hill’s crest, the structure is slowly engulfed by a silent chaos of overgrowth and tangled tree shadow. From dark unpaned windows, beneath low-hanging eaves, the house peers vacantly down the hill. The air of neglect extends beyond the bungalow in a radial arc. Sere, unmown grass slopes down and away from its front door. Pale seed heads nod and bend, dip and shush with wind. Wildflowers, their petals blanched of color, float over the grassy sea like moths. And, standing chest-deep amidst this lawn-turned-meadow, are four scrawny bears. Arranged at equidistant points in a rough square, their coats are lank and straw-brown, and they are heartbreakingly thin. Their dark eyes consider me where I stand, far below, and then, as if they are a single unit, they begin to bend slightly at their wrists and ankles, flex at hips and shoulders in a pulsating fashion. They remain, otherwise, rooted in their paws, standing in the derelict lawn, staring. Eyes as wide and dark as the bungalow above them, grass and fur commingling, they stand and stare and pulse.
As far as the eye can see — water. As if the land itself has shifted its elemental nature, exchanged solid certainty for the mercurial, the mysterious. And he and I, adrift amidst it all.
Perched atop a dining room table, we float unmoored within a vast sea that stretches to all horizons. Wavelets slap the table, send small plumes and rivulets over its smooth surface. The formica top grows slick. I kneel within an ever-shrinking dry patch to one side of the table’s central seam. In contrast, he sits at the other edge, dangling his feet, with blue-edged water creeping over his knees.
Shins and knees squeaking on formica, I begin sliding down the dining table’s incline. Toward boundless water. Toward him, where he laughs and talks and splashes feet and hands, oblivious. But my incremental advance soon stops. Before my eyes, I see him shift, exchange his cumbersome human form for something sleeker, smoother, more well-suited to our surroundings. His clothes and shoes slip into the water, drift away on its currents as he glides off the table in his new form — a sea lion. Watching him dive and swim and roll, I laugh. This form suits him. He suddenly makes complete sense to me.
The path winds through a meadow, an earthy ribbon parting green. Breeze-touched, the grasses sway and stir, licking my calves with rough tongues as I walk. Though I maintain a steady pace, I fall farther behind with each stride — his legs are longer than mine, cover the ground more quickly. Already, he is a silhouette cresting the gentle slope; his shadow, stretched toward me, an illusory bridge. Both withdraw steadily.
Following the path’s gentle curves, I continue unhurried. The snake, however, brings me up short. A enormous, bright green astonishment, it is coiled and piled in the center of the path several yards ahead. I call out my discovery, but my companion dismisses my concern.
“Go around it,” he says. His voice is muffled by breeze as he disappears over the hill’s lip.
“But what if it’s poisonous?” I must pitch my voice, placing hands to either side of my mouth to project.
A rising tide of wind diminishes his response, if he has responded at all. Stealing myself to circumvent the snake, I see there are now three snakes. Two brilliant red snakes — similar in size and girth and heavy coils — have arranged themselves on the path to either side of the green, one before it, the other after. Stop. Go. Stop. As I stand, dumbfounded, the snake furthest along the path rears vertically upon muscular coils and lashes out at the central snake, sinking fangs deep into the latter’s neck. The two snakes thrash and convulse in a confusion of green and red until the green snake lies limp.
The danger is clear. There is no “going round”. And, as suddenly as I have this realization, I stand in stead indoors, at a polished wooden counter. All around, the steady pulse and throb of laughter, conversation; the polite clink of utensils on dishes, of ice in water glasses. Suffuse light pours through long, wide windows — the only illumination in this expansive, crowded room.
As the young woman behind the counter checks me in for my stay, my walking companion arrives. He unwraps crinkling sheets of thick white paper, empties several snake fillets onto the smooth counter. Pale, pleated flesh glistens softly against dark wood. He informs the young woman that he’d like the fillets plated up for lunch. Stunned, I immediately remind him that the snake was poisoned — not a good recipe for consumption.
Dismissing my concerns — again — he picks a fillet up between his fingers and bites off a large mouthful, chews, swallows.
Both ends of this large barn are open; huge wooden doors slid back along their tracks. Bright sunshine spills over the dusky interior in sharp contrast. Bales of hay are stacked six-feet high in one corner, and atop them sits a young man. Shoulders curved, he slouches against the barn wall, draped in shadow. Bright white earbud cords snake up beneath the hair screening his face. Everything about him is designed to ward off approach. I immediately set feet in his direction.
As I thread my way through knots of stablehands, three men in dark suits, fedoras, and sunglasses also enter the barn. They stare pointedly in the boy’s direction. The boy ignores them; the men look away, expressionless. They move past me like a slice of nightfall.
“Am I too late?” I’m breathless with anticipation once I’ve reached the corner.
With a slight shake of his head, the boy indicates there’s still time. He does not look at me, does not remove attention from the device in his hands. But, elated, I am unconcerned with manners and rush outside. Squinting against the light, I find the corral to the left. Easily, quickly I climb the six-foot fence, balance on the fence top. Contained within the corral below, is a small herd of horses. They move like fish, navigating the interior space and each other’s bodies in circling, eddying patterns.
Above the corral, suspended from thick cables are numerous large, clear tubes. Each must be three feet in length, and at their bases are four flat, brightly-colored plastic paddles — red, blue, yellow, green. I drop into a crouch on the fence top, leap to catch hold of one of the tubes. The cable is grooved beneath my hands and cool to the touch. Swinging gently from my perch above the milling horses, I depress one of the paddles with my foot — oats and grain pour out in a yellow stream. Horses gather below me to eat, shouldering each other aside. Before my momentum can slow, I leap to another tube, grip its cable, dispense more food. Again and again, I repeat this until I have made a circuit about the corral and all the horses are contentedly eating.
Except…that one… From this lofty height, I see a scruffy brown and white pinto edging toward me along the corral’s perimeter. Its extraordinarily long neck is thrust out and slung low over the ground. It bares large yellow teeth, eyes me balefully. In order to keep out of reach, I must continue leaping from one dispenser to another. And the horse, with grim intent, is determined to keep me from reaching the fence and climbing out to safety.
Okay — go brew yourself a pot of your favorite hot beverage and get a little something to snack on…maybe a cinnamon raisin scone, or an old-fashioned doughnut. Then, sit back, make yourself comfy, a prepare for a long, wild read!
Wide blue sky. Scudding clouds. Steep slope of grassy hill awash in gray stones scattered like small flocks of sheep. We follow her — this green-clad woman, this mystic, old-world physician — up the hillside, struggling against an edge of wind through which she glides unbufetted. We have left the small town below so suddenly, the townsfolk are suspicious; they gather together in the square, plotting and whispering. Even at this distance, at our ever-increasing elevation, I feel their collective stare.
We have almost reached the hill’s top, that gently sloping shoulder of soft, wind-tossed grasses, when we see them — three small gray balls of fluff. Wolf pups. And then, we see their mother, prone upon the ground, torn in two. Beyond all probability and imagining, she yet lives. The woman, this doctor who leads us — she can save the wolf. I watch as she kneels beside the ragged body, and I realize another gray shape hurtles toward us from the hill’s far side. The she-wolf’s mate. Fury in his eyes, bristling his coat. He won’t stop, will rend us entirely, though we wish only to help.
Standing, placing myself in his path and shielding the doctor and her lupine charge, I call out in a loud, steady voice unfamiliar to my own ears:
“WOLF!”
Immediately, the rushing male halts. Yellow eyes stare, but he listens as I explain, in wolf’s tongue, what we attempt, that he must take the pups to safety, that we will bring her to him when we have completed our task to the best of our abilities. He must show me where we may deliver her at that time. Still, he stares with those yellow eyes, turns at last and leads me around the hill’s far side till we arrive at a steep mountain of polished granite. A smooth ledge is incised into the mountain’s curve, up and around. The wolf starts upon this path, looks back at me, and gestures with his muzzle several times to be sure I understand. Yes. Follow the path. Continue. Around. Like the warming curl of tail over nose in Winter. Up. And up. Like wolfsong called out to the full Moon.
Back at the scene of carnage, I am, now, the woman physician. The mystic. I kneel in the spread of spilled blood. Green skirts rusting, hands slick. I stitch the she-wolf together — organ to organ, flesh to flesh, front half to back. I wrap her torso in strips of white cloth. Fur pokes through, a fringe of gray between overlapping seams. She makes no noise at any time. Never struggles.
With help, I fashion a litter from two long branches and a pair of jeans. We struggle to force the leafed and twigged limbs down the pant legs. At last, I lift the wolf as gently as possible, secure her to the litter. Leading the way, I begin the trek up the smooth granite path to the mountain’s top.
Such a climb. Footing unsure on gripless stone. Ceaseless, tugging wind. Upon reaching the top, I have abandoned the litter, clutch the bundled wolf to my chest. Before us — a pair of stainless steel sliding doors, which part, allow entry into a cavern fashioned from within the mountain’s dome. Lights hang from impossibly long steel cables anchored to the interior curve of mountain above us — slender, luminous stalactites. A plane of polished granite spreads out before us, chasing away past a reception desk, a set of elevators, what appear to be offices. The floor disappears into the dark beyond.
Most astonishing, though are this places’ inhabitants — wolves all, yes; but the majority of them walk about upright on two legs. Some are clad as people, in business suits and work uniforms; others in only their varied shades of fur. All eyes slew to intercept us, eyeing me in particular, with my bloodied burden clasped against my chest.
A wolf dressed in white doctor’s scrubs and head mirror steps out from behind the front desk. I lay my charge down, and the wolf doctor speaks to me, assures me of our safety, of their gratitude. She speaks English, I notice. She begins her examination, and I watch her run a scanner over the wounded hind wolf’s paws, witness her alarm when the device offers no reading. Again, the same with the she-wolf’s front paws. The doctor wolf is confused, she says; the patient smells of the right identity, but the scanners do not support this finding. I explain her injuries were so severe, I was forced to apply skin grafts.
Noise from the dark. Tumult. The wounded wolf’s mate is charging, on all fours. I exhort the doctor to check the she-wolf’s eyes, to take a retinal scan. She peel’s back an eyelid. To my great relief, the scanning device blips confirmation.
I peer through a square pane of glass, smudged at the corners with grit. This lends the scene below an antique character — curving, cobbled streets, damp from a passing shower; tall, sun-washed buildings leaning shoulder to shoulder. I realize I am in Pamplona, and an image in sepia tones appears before my mind’s eye, crowding out all else — a photo that has not yet been taken, of a bull being speared. The great creature’s body has been captured as it rears up, front hooves churning air, head and horns twisting leftward. A long, black lance-like spear thrusts from the bull’s right side body.
For a moment, I wonder how the photographer could manage to take the photo without being trampled himself. I speculate as to a structure that might be placed in the street’s center to protect the photographer on three sides when the runners and the bull arrive, and thus divert the tide of violence to pass around while affording an incredible view of the spectacle.
Suddenly, all is noise and chaos. I press my cheek to the glass. Surrounded by waves of people, the very bull I had foreseen in the photo runs past my cropped, squared-off view. Mud rises from the street in clots. Feet and hooves pound. The bull bellows, the men shout. From my vantage, I see a man below and to the right — he pauses at the fringe of commotion. In his hands is a great, black lance decorated lavishly with twists and coils vining from the hand guard down the lance’s length and diminishing upon reaching the weapon’s smooth, elongated tip. The man hefts the lance, draws his arm back in an impossible arc, and hurls the lance forward. It strikes first the cobbled street at an acute angle, sending up glittering sparks, then ricochets up to impale the charging bull squarely beneath its right front shoulder. The bull bellows rage and pain as the lance wags against its side body.
I find myself whisked from my lofty vantage and planted in the middle of the street behind the final wave of berserking humans who are thrilled at the sight of the bull’s shed blood. Within me, I feel a great pressure building from the soles of my feet, rushing upward to fill my lungs, until I am shouting. My voice is huge: “I don’t care if it’s tradition. I HATE it.” I do not feel as though any one has heard me.
