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He with Wide Hands
Itchy in the heat I sink deeper into the cool shallow behind what grows that hides the hot ball. Up is the long line that stretches from tall to his space, the one who keeps me here on the heavy. Dry, my tongue licks dirt, tiny crawls tickling my ears, eyes, middle. With my foot I scratch at them. Body curled I wait, chin to ground. For maybe she will come who sometimes gives me water, whose body jiggles as she shifts from one foot to the other, like the creatures on the line.
Moving from across it is she, with wavy fur that swirls from her head, around her face and down her back. Her short legs take her across her space to near me. The one with limp ears follows his head at height to her middle. Up she throws what looks dead but has no smell, he in fast wide circles jumping for it from his pile of dirt. Her chest shakes. Her mouth crinkles. Out come short up sounds.
Caught in the game I speak too, pulling at the heavy, bringing her closer to fill my bowl that she fills with water sad eyes on me as it washes sweet, quenches, to the bottom, where there is no more. When again he calls, the air swallowing her answer and she lifts her hand, saying, bush at what shades me, shakes her head. Drops her hand by her leg where my tongue finds it once, twice, and they walk away.
In my hole I see he who growls and leads me inside his space to throw me what he will not eat, who pulls me by the neck to the heavy. His face seeps. His body is fur knots. He smells of that which rots as he comes closer to my bush a small creature tied to his covered hand much like those from the sky that sit upon the line and pull limp wiggles from the dirt, swallow them. Much, but not as this one that stirs a want so deep I must crouch and press my nose into the dirt until he has shuffled past me eyes to the creature, stroking its back, mouthing muted sounds, offering from his fingertips flesh to tear at. The urge of want in me is strong, wet dripping from my lip, holding tight to need. But he will not stay. His mate calls shrill, has him setting the creature to the ground. He steps away, blind to the anxious beady eye of the creature that shifts to those above. And he is gone, the heavy on me hanging as it was since he pounded the hard into the dirt leaving me to light and dark turned same; to chill gnawing raw my nose and feet so that I clawed at my hole, curled inside it soaking bits of warm that stuck.
I listen to the silence in the smell of fear, when in the next moment they on the line swoop in a tumble and a flurry of wings and legs, claws and beaks. So that on its leg stubs the small one runs, shrieks, throws a wild squeak and all is a hush in the smell of blood, me quivering in my hole.
He is much as those on the line in his purpose when he returns, his thick steps quickening as he reaches the space where he had set the creature. Legs spread, dropped to his knees, his fat middle rubbing ground, his fat fingers grope, eyes searching. But nothing will he find, and he rises with a grunt scratching at his wet head skin, narrowing his eyes at me, staring as if he might have a thought. Turns, is gone.
And in that moment the air is clear standing away from all that breathes, has my blood rushing with a brutish force, new alive. Backing up and backing up farther, farther from my hole I strain against the heavy around my neck, a quickening in my chest, shaking my body side to side with all I have in me in neck and legs, claws tearing at the earth, pulling, pulling. And the heavy around my neck breaks. I am free.
But in a place I have never been, where there is nothing but fear to hold me, pushing at me, running with me, past calls and shouts and puttering machines and thick bright worms spurting water, as heat drags at my tongue as the heavy at my neck, my body and legs pulling, pulling, on their own.
Until the rumbling that stops beside me that stops me as well. And from inside he slides, legs coming and coming, and we stand watching, facing. His eyes are cool with light that have no fire. He is broad across the chest, soundless. He has wide hands. Yet I bristle, my ears flat, a grumbling in my throat, tail down between my legs. Turning, he opens a stiff squeak, pouring, stretching a bowl toward me, his face close to mine; slowly, slowly setting it splashing at our feet, stepping back. My eyes to him I lap once, twice – a pause.
And loop in his hands he says, “Come,” his voice urging as a gentle hum that stirs, as the quickening in my chest when my blood was new and rushing, the heavy in a heap upon the ground. Wanting my eyes are on him, stuck in other mixed with fear, in heat mixed with cold. My feet refuse to move. I smell for danger. I watch his eyes, his hands. I wait.
And he squats upon his haunches, chest rising, falling, again to me says, “Come,” as low throaty murmurs, his face cracks stretching, holding calm, his wide hands open in the naked smell of tender as I wait for the snap of change that does not come.
That does not come, that does not come, and I take a step.
Maureen Wallner: A Canadian-American, née Québec, and a graduate of Augustana College (IL)
in English literature with a minor in journalism, my short fiction has appeared in New England Writer’s Network (Blue Tattoo), in biasonus.net (Two Fires), Le Forum and Left Curve (Twenty-one Days and Bandit respectively, March and April ‘11). My nonfiction, creative nonfiction (Barbara’s Basement, March ’11) and poetry have also appeared in magazines, with short fiction and poetry placing and winning in contests. Mountains Never Meet, Book 1 of my historical fiction trilogy, is currently with an editor for agented launching this fall.
Email: Maureen Wallner
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