Weather

Big Goof didn’t like this weather. It made his hide scaly and his fur brittle. Dust pounded up from the furrowed path, clinging to him as his feet rose and fell. The warm day weather felt foreboding to the gangly creature. He appreciated the early blooms because the short winter had nonetheless emaciated him. Each year, though, the shorter winters caused more hunger and disease. The forests would be scorched of habitat and forage material just as it had in the last warmth. But it would come much earlier than ever before as warmth once again supplanted the cold winter.

Big Goof stumbled over the land, stubbing his toe interminably on the roots and snags and stumps, knocking his noggin on branches, and scraping his sides on trees set close apart. Each bruise pulsed through him. Each sprained bone strained him.

He would sit down after hurting some part of him – his scalp, his knuckles, his knees, his hips, his chin – and just sit until the pain subsided. But a rush of recriminations rolled through his thoughts and he was soon black of mood and black of intention.

Other times, he would alight over the land like a doe tiptoeing across a meadow, then leaping over a fallen tree, effortlessly disappearing into the darkened woods.

He eventually realized that not all of his moods were his own. He came to know that when he hurt himself, he felt mad but when he didn’t, he felt … something not altogether unpleasant.

He could lilt over the landscape following the full moon to the distant horizons, never quite catching it. He would stomp through the forests until dawn, never once stubbing a toe despite gazing skyward.

He would chase the bright orb until the sun chased the night away.

Other times when the moon was nowhere to be viewed, dark mutterings began to simmer on his conscience and he would shriek at the slightest noise – a twig breaking under his calloused soles, a darting wind whistling across the canopy.

He contemplated all these things and decided the moon was a fickle friend for coming and going so regularly.

But, of course, that wasn’t fickle at all because the moon always rolled regularly back around to full, brightening not only the nightscape but Big Goof’s moods, too.

He sometimes felt sorry for the moon for having nowhere to lay down its head to sleep and for always changing its moods and for being homeless. He thought the orb must be in constant agony while going through its phases.

But then the full moon would arise some evening and immerse Big Goof with its light. He would feel joy for the moon because it had a clear path and purpose. Though he would also feel sad for himself because he had no direction or purpose.

Then the wind would whisper down the gorge, stirring leaves around him and thoughts within him.

“Not many beings are blessed with knowing their purpose,” the wind seemed to mumble.

But his moods weren’t always the moon’s phases. Deeper, longer ones were less often though as cyclical.

Dry hot weather

Big Goof wished many things hadn’t conspired throughout his long, boring life or lives. He thought of all the brisk snowy winters that had at times blown him into the deadly illness.

He recalled the burning days of pain as his fur dried and his skin crackled. He would claw off large clumps of his coat as he scratched the scaly skin.

He wished every thought could be about her – only her. Not about food, not about cold, not about the skins, not about the river or the moon or the wind or the sky. Only her. He would sit for hours trying to recall every detail of their time together, sometimes reimagining the scenes to comfort him in his misery.

He wished all his fellow creatures would know the experience he had in her arms, had felt the burning desire in their loins for her embrace. He hoped all the firmament above and around and below would be calm and mild, that the berries and tubers would grow year-round, that the warmth would infuse every being, every twig, every cloud, every beast.

He glanced up as a hawk soared on the thermals far overhead. The bird of prey looked piercingly at Big Goof, its bright eyes cutting into the back of his mind like an arrow. He briefly considered turning into a mouse but thought better of it as he recalled seeing a hawk move faster than the wind to claw a mouse quickly from the turf and fly away. He had never seen a mouse get away from the hawk’s talons – not once over his long boring life and lives.

Neither would he. The bird would swoop down on his mousy form and stop his quivering whiskers too fast for the big guy to resume his natural form. He would finally be that other thing.

Big Goof mused on what the hawk saw with those piercing eyes. From way up there, was everything as small as it looked to him as he soared far below the hawk? Was he small to the hawk, too, or did the winged creature sense the boulder of being he truly was? Or a sapling of no significance surrounded by native earth and rolling river and endless sky all around?

During the forgotten time after her, he had wandered all across that land. He had followed that river to its far reaches and now could soar in the sky in all directions, all-seeing, seeing beyond the earth’s horizon. He had seen and could see everything and the one thing he had never seen was a mouse escape a hawk.

Storm

Big Goof stood transfixed under the May Day full moon. He stared at the bright orb, once more hypnotized by the pocked round face shining brightly overhead. He’d seen plenty of full moons, some turned blood red as a shadow rolled over the face, some seemed so close, he could reach out and touch the bright surface.

This moon felt different. Or was he different?

A wisp of clouds murmured across the sky. A darting chill streaked past his nostrils and was gone, chased by a warmer spirit. He shivered but his gaze was glazed by the orb. Strange creaking sounds emanated from across the valley somewhere high above the distant ridge. Or was the sound more like the snorts of a wild hog?

The grunting growls jarred him from his reverie. He peered toward the place the noise would’ve come from and espied nothing. What had made the sound? He tried to remember whether he had ever heard that sound before over the long, long weary seasons. A disturbing shadow of recollection darkened his thoughts.

Ravens flew forward from the darkening skies, cawing the story of the approaching storm.

A halo shown on the high cold clouds around the sun. The wind drew the heat from the sun, pushing always upriver to the hot plains.

He had shuddered under the sporadic lightning the night before. He stood frozen – not by the bolts – but by the rainbow that reached out without success across the dark river.

Thunder rolled and echoed upriver and down. Big Goof howled right back, shrieking his frustration over his entire life – the loss of his family, the constant effort to find food, the threat of being found out, the effervescent weather, the skin people, having no mate to console him as she plucks porcupine quills from his hard soft palms.

He really hoped the wind now wasn’t bringing a repeat of the cascading rainstorm of the night before.

Big Goof looked downriver where he saw half a dozen blue winged birds beating against much smaller though many many more birds. The starlings attacked from all directions and the bluebirds fell back and down, retreating from the barrage of wings. They seemed unaware of the gathering squall that would soon blot out the sun.

He turned to gaze around him, now weary of the weather enough to consider finding a deep hollow under a low tree. Where had he found shelter around here before? His mind went blank. He closed his eyes. Suddenly, the terror and love of the last visit here struck across his mind, searing him as much as a lightning bolt. He had found her in the forest, nearly on fire, and had rescued her on an idiotic impulse. He had found a place for them and the other stormfire survivors in the roots of an ancient elder where the tree stood half poised over the ground which had fallen away. The tree looked safe enough that night as true it became. Perhaps the tree had long since succumbed to the sinking ground, he thought.

What had happened after he left her there? He tried to recall. But his weary old mind no longer had the focus of memory. Though remained the sense of dread around the place and he hoped he would not stumble upon the site though he desperately needed to find shelter from the storm.

Like Gyoto Buddhist monks who sometimes lingered in the shadows of his dreams.

T’esmekewes, he said under his breath.