Mäkinen
Yellowstone
generations until the knowledge was lost, or is this an entirely new thing, a one-time dying? Following the contours of rock I find the boat. I glance over my shoulder at the house looming against the dark sky. Waves lap at the rocks a short distance away as I feel for the hole in the boat’s hull. Maybe I could repair it. Go before others find me. Every now and then I have checked to make sure the incongruous lump of the car is still there. It has a digital display with a clock and thermometer, and a Neverlost. Seeing the readings would require starting the engine, and the mere thought pitches me into a panic. The roar of the engine might tear apart whatever fragile remnant of reality remains. I go back to the porch, light a match. I smell smoke in the air but don’t know if it’s my smoke or that of the rim of fire around me. I don’t see it yet, but it must have already reached the village. I listen for the dog, which I still have not seen, listen for the lunatic barking and the thudding of frantic paws on dry earth, and catch a sensation of something rushing across the yard, so close I can smell its mad fear. In the momentary light from the match, a few meters away on a rock, a pair of eyes glints. It’s not the dog though, the rock is along the hare’s daily route, the hare we watched grow all summer from a tiny leveret into a strong, lanky adult. The hare is frozen in place and looks past me at something it probably can see as clearly as it sees me. Slowly, knowing I am no threat, it hops away. I am not yet ready to eat you. The wind is rising. I don’t know what it means. I pick berries, soon they will run out. I fall asleep against the birch and dream of the sun. It shines from a strange angle. I’m at the bottom of a pond looking up at the sun shimmering through tawny water, out in a world that I can see but am not in. It is terrifying and beautiful.
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