Crawling alien — wet belly down, chafed and chapped skin, no claws or fur to protect an exposed white membrane.
The hillside quietly drinks from snowmelt, roots peeping up as soil filters away. It feels my weight and new heat, the prickle of fear between ears, behind eyes. It discerns me as a different kind of mammal from those who crawl with abandon like wolves and wild cats.
I was once vertical in this place in high leather boots and dry garments, head in the sky, eyes seeking only the best fruits. Unacquainted with the drinkers beneath my boot soles, my arms free to clutch the ultimate product — my oiled rifle. My lips and tongue were dusted with gunpowder to spit-charge it with, my heart greedy to snatch Land without permission, to fell building trees and scrape away lush fur and claws to trade.
Back then, I stepped through rivulets, choices all made — the zenith of creation to date. By my side was my son, who knew pride only as a foreign father’s theory. However, he knew the drinkers below well and never had a single choice to make in his life. We prowled together with rifles, but he was not torn out of the universe like me, not scrutinized by the bloodshot eyes of Master Secular.
Vertical, I could survey the edge of the watery copse ahead, the flame of rolling hills beyond, and I knew I could be seen. My son — his mother’s line — that different kind of mammal unconcerned with being seen — was un-diseased by fear, just a necessary flickering of it. He was descended from the loyal custodians of the Earth, not pilfering aliens torn out like me.
As I crawl, my ripped weight drags by a fragrance. I follow it but am no longer intoxicated by questions or whereabouts. Only now can I know my son’s mammal! In truth, there are no choices, word games, or baubles of outcome. There is only listening to the Lands without reward or glory.
I have no desires as I crawl, only urges remembered by my cellular being — urges to only-drink like the roots, to only-inhabit my pain like the facets of jewels, to only-be packed back into the universe like him, my son.
The she-bear tore me out for a second time, filling my face with her bristling pelt. Her cub whined applause from cover as mother hoisted me, her teeth anchors in soft organs, agitated me by the modernized apparatus of the throat, dropped and threw me from a wet muzzle. Even her eyes assaulted mine to make a mockery of me to the hills. Whipping and whipping me again from side to side, reaching deep inside me from back to front, she chucked me off the ridge.
My gang shot her just before she went for my head, and she plumped down directly on top of me — the final belly blow. Extracted as trophies, I legitimately earned her teeth and claws placed in my pocket before they left me for dead. They embed my thigh as the scent drags me, but I feel nothing until the surgeon removes them later.
Just crawling is my sole way to be pasted back into reality to apply the theory fully. And the only way to fill my arms with the essence of all life? A son instead of a killing machine.
Survival of the body against all odds? To a glutinous sack — prey to arrogance, fear, and the chronic decay of suffering — revenge, jealousy and greed are its yeast. The heavily armed settlers with white skin and turquoise eyes are the true enemy of Nature, snatching it to surpass ‘survival.’ They are uninvited visitors stumbling on a land ample with treasures: convicted criminals, entrepreneurs, and social outcasts—they race to the corners of the world to be the first ravagers. Unaware of their infliction — long since sold out on Nature — they prefer cesspool cities and pleasure palaces beneath the poisons of roof and glass.
Now a horizontal reptile, I am between worlds, haunted by my union with the Land through my native wife. She ranges through tall grasses waving with no undue fear or obsession with competition, singing me to Now-and-Here beneath the Madonna tree, our mixed flesh son running between us, still carefully wrapped in the oiled skins of intuition.
The soldiers slapped away the luxuriant herds of buffalo along with her body. Our son was wounded and feverish as I kept his spirit in him with the tribal lore. He came to me from her and strived to be by my theoretical side until he, too, was scared off by a bullet to the head.
Twilight and high stags float by on the bloated current behind me as I tear the moss surreptitiously from the rocks, stuffing it into my mouth. They do not know I cling like a boneless leach, my body jellified, my bitten fingers perforated, relieved of all dexterity. I cease snorting for sustenance when the exposed nerves of my spine detect their antler parade moving effortlessly. They notice out of sheer appreciation of the contrast between us mammals.
Once again, I stumble upon that other, such as my son and my wife, their stunning elegance and assurance of place in the Land. Despite my defeated white-enemy status, I foolishly aim my stick rifle at the swimmers, even issuing the mock sound of shooting for food. Who on Earth do I imagine is listening?
The silliness in this magnificent wilderness serves no purpose other than to distract me from the collapsing balloon of my stomach. It shudders over me like my grave. Natural balance denies me organic food to pay back for my acute pain from all the enemy assaults of all time. I am being made an example of.
But I am not angry or humiliated now; I am sure such things do not exist in true human Nature. These other original mammals kindly show me the error of my ways, clawing and biting away the layers of manufactured life to reveal the most exquisite gem of all — my indestructible, divine Nature — identical to theirs.
This short essay was inspired by the film ‘The Revenant’ (2015) starring Leonardo da Caprio.