Leafstorm
05-08-2008, 09:07 PM
There’s a certain bridge in the city, and every time I start to cross it I’m ambushed by a shark. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
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He appears out of nowhere, as if some ancient part of his brain gives him the power to pop in at will from other worlds. <o:p></o:p>
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As well as the ability to float through the air, breathing it, undulating through it and flipping his tail with impudence. Seeing him makes me queasy with the thought that I’m underwater – not just while on the bridge dodging the shark, but at all times, and always have been – and I’m oblivious. Perhaps I’ve forgotten – the way a child forgets that he once swam in the warm currents of his mother’s ocean. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
Whatever the case, the shark is bearing down on me with offal-coated teeth flashing and not a trace of remorse in his eyes. And I am filled with a fear that melts my resolve like a sand castle under a great wave of emotion. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
This time I was on my way to see my new friend. Her name is Mara, and it’s also Crying Deer, and when she was young she had a leopard-spotted AraAppaloosa named Sirocco. I think I’m in love, but I’m no more sure about that than I am about the water thing. After two months she still wants to see me, even though I told her that asking me to be her boyfriend would be like asking an arsonist to housesit. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
I should consider myself lucky that I’m always attacked on this particular bridge, because it offers protection. Steel girders cross in giant X’s on both sides. Despite my terror I laugh, because every time he attacks the shark bangs his tender nose into hard steel. If I don’t seen him coming the reverberating gong alerts me, and I always escape unchanged.
Mara owns a cabin on the Olympic Peninsula, and she’s invited me to dig clams and smoke salmon the way it’s supposed to be smoked. Two amazing things happen when the sunlight catches her dark hair: it flashes red, and I want to be with her forever. But I also want to push that hair aside and kiss her cinnamon skin, and become drunk on her sweetness, and become a salmon in her stream, and swim away before I die. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
This time as I retreated my foot got caught in a crack in the asphalt that covers the bridge. I fell on my ass, my Achilles heel wedged tight. The shark’s familiar smirk grew wider, revealing additional rows of razor sharp teeth. My thought was that nature can be obscene at times, and that there is no beauty, not even cold beauty, in this overkill. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
What does she want? What do I want? What does he want? Of these three questions I can only answer one: he wants to devour me. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
As he closes and leers at me I have a vision of a grassy plain. A beautiful dark-haired woman is galloping full-speed on a splendid white horse with black spots all over. Now I am on the horse behind her, my arms wrapped tight around her waist, feeling her muscles and the horse’s work with calm resolve.
<o:p></o:p>
Ahead of us the shark swims as fast as he can to escape this strange atmosphere. Now his eyes flash fear, and perhaps shame. And in my new world I hold on as tight as I can or dare. I am heading west, resolved to be a man rather than a fish, to go hungry now and then, and to never set foot upon that bridge again.
<o:p></o:p>
He appears out of nowhere, as if some ancient part of his brain gives him the power to pop in at will from other worlds. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
As well as the ability to float through the air, breathing it, undulating through it and flipping his tail with impudence. Seeing him makes me queasy with the thought that I’m underwater – not just while on the bridge dodging the shark, but at all times, and always have been – and I’m oblivious. Perhaps I’ve forgotten – the way a child forgets that he once swam in the warm currents of his mother’s ocean. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
Whatever the case, the shark is bearing down on me with offal-coated teeth flashing and not a trace of remorse in his eyes. And I am filled with a fear that melts my resolve like a sand castle under a great wave of emotion. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
This time I was on my way to see my new friend. Her name is Mara, and it’s also Crying Deer, and when she was young she had a leopard-spotted AraAppaloosa named Sirocco. I think I’m in love, but I’m no more sure about that than I am about the water thing. After two months she still wants to see me, even though I told her that asking me to be her boyfriend would be like asking an arsonist to housesit. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
I should consider myself lucky that I’m always attacked on this particular bridge, because it offers protection. Steel girders cross in giant X’s on both sides. Despite my terror I laugh, because every time he attacks the shark bangs his tender nose into hard steel. If I don’t seen him coming the reverberating gong alerts me, and I always escape unchanged.
Mara owns a cabin on the Olympic Peninsula, and she’s invited me to dig clams and smoke salmon the way it’s supposed to be smoked. Two amazing things happen when the sunlight catches her dark hair: it flashes red, and I want to be with her forever. But I also want to push that hair aside and kiss her cinnamon skin, and become drunk on her sweetness, and become a salmon in her stream, and swim away before I die. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
This time as I retreated my foot got caught in a crack in the asphalt that covers the bridge. I fell on my ass, my Achilles heel wedged tight. The shark’s familiar smirk grew wider, revealing additional rows of razor sharp teeth. My thought was that nature can be obscene at times, and that there is no beauty, not even cold beauty, in this overkill. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
What does she want? What do I want? What does he want? Of these three questions I can only answer one: he wants to devour me. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
As he closes and leers at me I have a vision of a grassy plain. A beautiful dark-haired woman is galloping full-speed on a splendid white horse with black spots all over. Now I am on the horse behind her, my arms wrapped tight around her waist, feeling her muscles and the horse’s work with calm resolve.
<o:p></o:p>
Ahead of us the shark swims as fast as he can to escape this strange atmosphere. Now his eyes flash fear, and perhaps shame. And in my new world I hold on as tight as I can or dare. I am heading west, resolved to be a man rather than a fish, to go hungry now and then, and to never set foot upon that bridge again.