I T H A C A

CHRISTOPHER JONES

Shaun peered out from within the tent. Dew from the night prior coated the canvas exterior and glittered in the first light of the oncoming morning. The massive red oak stood proudly over him, its branches swaying audibly in the soft morning air against the curtain of stars soaring above.

The sun was barely a hint from beyond the mountains to the east. The world lingered in an ashen gray palette beyond the pale glow of the oil lamp he’d struck to flame with a match produced from the small tinderbox at the foot of the tent. It was nearly cold enough to crack bones on this October morning, he thought as he wrapped a fur-sewn Sherpa jacket around his shoulders and arms. The air was silent, as the ground birds had not crawled from their nests in search of food for their young. Such was the season; a late return to each young day. There was power in the solitary- the chance of revelation that existed on the periphery of every action and unspoken thought that such a place and this, the barren and opaque world, gave position to bear.

He sat in the dry earth, crystalline with ice, and removed his boots from the wax-sealed wooden crate he’d stuffed with old leaves and slips of torn newspaper. He beat the caked dirt from the rivets in the soles and pulled the old leather reliables over patched woolen socks. The air smelled of lingering wood smoke and freshly fallen pine needles. He breathed out, faint breath billowing from his throat in the cold. He sighed and admired the underlying aroma of tree sap and earth, ever present and often lost upon him but for when he sought for them. A man in the streets of the city will lose his nose for cigarette smoke and old car smog; such the same can be said for he who becomes lost in the wild world.

After lacing on the boots he looped the antique watch around his wrist and stretched his legs before him, his knees popping as if in singsong to honor his days growing more numbered. The dark was so complete that he lost sight of his feet beyond the rim of golden light from the lantern. He drew the serrated knife from his boot crate and went about sharpening it with a routine precision against the flat side of a whetstone. When satisfied he wiped the wet shavings from the blade on his pants leg and deposited the knife in its leather sheath along his belt.

The fire from the night before was still simmering with embers and he had little trouble rekindling it with a handful of dried pine needles and a couple lengths of stripped kindling. The fire pit was dug into the earth ten yards from the tent as a safeguard against burning the red oak down. It was layered with smooth stones dug out from the nearby riverbed now blackened from a year of warm summer nights and the barren twilight hours of oncoming winter. A charred wire grill top lay to the side of it, along with an amalgam of cleaning and cooking supplies that he had organized in a battered metal cylinder.

Once the fire was crackling he blew out the little flame in the lamp and looked down at his watch: sunrise in twenty minutes. He got the grill top secured in place atop the rim of the pit and unfastened the latches to a large metal container nestled beside the pit. Within the cooled interior were a variety of meats, all of which he’d hunted, carved, dressed and stocked in salt for preservation. He drew out a small cut of elk leg and unwrapped it from the translucent paper packaging. It was frozen but he threw it on the fire nonetheless and watched the meat begin to pop and sizzle as the flames licked at the underside. He turned it over with the tip of his knife and a splash of juice fell into the flames, causing a momentary roar and a choir of orange sparks to dart out into the dawn.

He sat in the near dark and watched the sun leer out from below the mountains before the light sprang out beyond the towering pyres and claimed the sky once more. He chewed the last of the elk down and grunted with satisfaction before tossing the bone on the edge of the fire pit.

He checked inventory on his food stocks, shortly after which the heat of the new day began to rise and he removed his jacket and folded it beside the fire. Fog lurked against the fringes of the meadow where the sun could not quite reach, beyond which the forest was a soft and unclear shadow. A pile of half-chopped logs stood stacked at the edge of the meadow and he took up his hatchet from the tent and went about finishing the work from the day prior. He heaved a few of the logs over to the fire pit, stacked them neatly and wiped the sweat from his brow. He took a deep draught from the canteen and stood looking at his camp in the near alabaster light of day. This was a day, much the same as many others, and in it was lay claim nothing but that which was of his own making.

The northwest side of the meadow was completely occupied by the husk of a cabin he’d begun building at the onset of summer, when his plans for the years to come had first gone into effect. He had toppled the trunks of nearby spruce trees with a serrated band saw and fashioned them to shape with the blade of his hatchet. At first it had been miserable work, with many nights spent nursing blistered palms in boiling water, but practice a master had made of him and the project was nearing completion. He figured to complete the build by winter after he’d finished sealing the western wall and built a proper bed on which to lay the old foam pad from the tent. He looked at the cabin with pride. ‘I made this with my own hands.’

As of now the only use he’d had for the cabin was food and equipment storage in the basement, which was little more than a crawlspace where he’d housed the foundation of the single beam that held up the roof supports of the entire structure. The whole space was buried six feet underground and compounded with sand pull by the bucket load up from the river and neatly sifted and passed through the spacious gaps between the floorboards.

By the glow of the afternoon he carved a single log to size for the western wall and raised it into place with a small hand crank that he’d built from scrap over a two month period and now worked well for getting logs higher than he could reach. The rope for the crank was woven between the twin branches of a nearby tree and had been fitted into place with the old wheel grooving of an ATV, the very same that he’d used to reach his home some months prior. Once the misshapen piece was fitted into place he stood back, marveling at the progress. Winter was his completion goal and he had just enough time the reach it.

He checked his watch now and again and by three o’clock made his way down to the river to draw up water and check the nets. It was a short walk to the low-rising banks, and the way was generously paved with assorted berries and herbs that he picked and pocketed for later.

The water in the river was low, but cool and clean from running through the vales and gullies of the mountains. He filled the two bottles he’d brought along and left them swaddled in a dry swath of waterbed and went about checking nets. There were four, and each held at least one fish. He drew them up, one after the other, and bashed the heads writhing for freedom in the hands of their captor against the curved surface of the river rocks. When he was done he tossed the nets back into the shallows and slung the fish across his back in a burlap bag and with the water jugs in hand he made his steady way back to camp.

As the sun began to set in the sky he rekindled the fire and set about deboning and preparing the fish. The guts he threw on the fire along with the bones and he lay the grill top over the flames and went about cooking the fish one by one, wrapping all but two after they cooled and depositing them in the ice box.

As the evening drew on he sat smoking a stale cigarette that he’d drawn out of his stores and carved a point from the elk bone. It would make a nice tool and he was eager to use it, whatever its purpose became. He finished the cigarette and tossed the butt into the fire along with another log and watched the smoke rise up into the sky filled with the bulbous forms of cloud systems catching the last light of the setting sun. Hundreds of birds passed to and fro amongst the canopy of the forest and between the borders of the meadow. The year was moving along, and he had little time before the cold moved in again and the land was covered in snow.

When the dark had fallen he changed into warm clothes and sat beside the fire, which roared pleasantly and gave off cheerful warmth. There were calls in the dark of the woods around him, to which he’d sat up and listened many a night and the source of which eluded him. It lulled him into a light doze for about an hour, before he woke and found the world around him dead silent and the night sky a pitch of black he’d never known before and it drove him back to the tent for the night with a half-woken sense of dread carving a pit in the center of his heart.

Early in the morning a heavy rain began to fall. It beat across the top of the tent in waves like the drums of war, no discernable rhythm lasting longer than a moment. He lay awake in the dark, listening to the violent thrashing of earth and shrubbery alike being torn about the wide and dark world of which he could only imagine. In a flash he leapt to the mouth of the tent and unzipped the flap and reaching out grasped the wooden boot crate and dragged it inside out of the downpour. The tent shook as a violent wind picked up and somewhere in the woods some fifty yards away there was a mighty crash.

The rains carried on for some hours, at times so primal and uncontained that he thought the tent might blow up and away across the mountains and into the woodland miles beyond which he’d ever seen.

The next morning he woke and emerged from the tent. The field was a mess of branches and leaves and scattered debris from the madness the night before. The red oak stood behind him, devoid of a single leaf, like some titan shaved bare and left as some derelict monument to its own creation. The sun was bleak and hopeless behind a mess of scattered clouds away to the northeast, not yet fully risen. He rekindled the fire and looked about at the wreckage. Pools of water, half-frozen from the nightfrost, pockmarked the brown expanse of meadow. Sunrise was in twelve minutes.  He rekindled the fire, tossed an insurance log on and went about the camp gathering supplies; rope, wire, a belt, binoculars, the short-barreled rifle with an ornate, hand-carved leather strap, and his ax, which he shoved into the loop of his belt. Everything was in place and in accordance with his design.

He left camp with a hustle, tumbling through the wet undergrowth and trailing the dead forms of autumn grass by the bottoms of his boots. The woods around the perimeter of the camp were coming to life- the rustling of small creatures beginning to go about their business in the undergrowth, the gentle and muted patter of droplets casting off from the unseen canopy. The woodland fauna knew he was not a threat anymore, as he barely hunted game, and it was the larger animals that he picked off. The seeds he’d brought and stored in dry seclusion beneath the cabin would take to root in the spring and there’d be little need for excess meat after that.

He crossed the stream, stepping from stone to stone, careful to keep his shoes dry. There was a gentle breeze that followed the flow of the waterway from the east, carrying the cool and clean post-storm air down from the vales of the mountains. He scaled the opposing embankment, anxiety tingling in his heart.

“I can be there in time,” he spoke aloud to himself. He was surprised by the sound of his own voice in the thick, undisturbed dark around him. He rarely spoke at all anymore and the sound of his voice was strange, seeming to draw up from his chest in some tucked away corner of the man he once was. He trudged through the undergrowth and reflected on the idea of a man without a voice, and if there were such a time where it was as he’d meant to be. He came through the tree line and found himself at the rope bridge.

The ravine was more than ten feet wide, and a two hundred foot drop to the bottom. Months prior, he’d tied off two bands of thick sailing rope between a pair of massive elm trees and heaved the jumbled mess across the gap, where it had landed safely in a smattering of thorn bushes. Then he had carved a path up the lip of the ravine for about a mile due west. The ravine had eroded less here, and he was able to leap across, grappling at the other side before pulling himself up. Trekking back, he assembled the ropes and tied them off to another set of trees, forming two single lines across the drop. This had been enough to build on, and after hours of careful labor he had sewn together a worthy foot bridge in the fashion of a spider’s web by which to scale that deadly pass.

He had planned on adding another level to the bridge, a railing of sorts, but had been preoccupied by creating effective footholds between the two extending ropes. The work had taken months, and he was not particularly fond of it. For now, it would suffice.

He crossed the bridge within poise and caution, the faint tumble of the creek echoing off of the walls of the either cliff. The thick rope held his weight with ease.

Small bands of sunlight cut through the cloud cover, which he glanced at repeatedly as he leapt down from the rope bridge and carried on into the woods. It couldn’t be more than forty feet ahead now. The ground was nearly mulch, with a rich soil that spanned the few miles or so around the grand upheave of land that soon became the peaks of mountains whose slopes caught up several miles away and rose thousands of feet into the air. He strode on, minding his step as the terrain slowly begin to curve upward.

The temperature had risen by the time he reached the tree, which he knew by the marking left time long since passed. Looking up, he traced the wooden planks extending out over the branches every which way. The planks had been nailed together with the backend of his hatchet and formed a small landing.

He climbed the clumsy steps, taking care to mind the pack and the rifle swinging from his back. He left the gun and the bag on the primary landing and ascended the secondary set of boards that carried him through the canopy and up to the overwatch crown.

He rose above the sea of trees and beheld the widespread horizon. The pink light of the forthcoming dawn was blossoming over the rumpled tops the trees, pushing away at the black and purple stretch of night sky to the west. There was a soft breeze at his back. He clung to the topmost spindle of narrow tree trunk, shivered, and stared out at his green kingdom.

The sun emerged and thrust a curtain of light through the clouds and across the whole of the forest before him. The tumbling pink and red shards above the mountains shattered the sky from north to south. He dared not move, for fear that even a hushed breath would smear this image and it would be lost to him before he held it in his mind long enough to count amongst his memory.

When the sun had cleared the topmost peaks, and the sky assumed the aquatic blue of early morning, he began the climb down. He stopped only to scan the forest with his binocs, for anything from game to smoke rising from the trees. Nothing. Satisfied, he descended.

On the landing below he shouldered the rifle and the backpack, then climbed down to the forest floor. Sweat had caked his jacket to his back, so he removed it, stuffing the bulky, down-feathered bulk into his bag. The mud had caked around the brim of his boots. He grunted and kicked his heels against the trunk of the tree until the clumps flung off every which way.

The way back was becoming well lit. The forest teemed with life, as pairs of sparrows and jays chased one another through the clusters of evergreen trees, hunted after insects, or hastened off to some hidden nest deep in the canopy with feed for their young.

He’d once stolen eggs from the nest of a pheasant, and after cracking them over the heat of fire, had immediately been struck with an insurmountable guilt. When he was a boy he’d summered in Vermont with his cousin and aunt, who had lived in a cabin by the lake. He and his cousin had been exploring the forest and had come across a nest of chicken eggs tucked deep beneath the rotten trunk of a toppled tree. His cousin had approached the nest and, one by one, picked up the eggs and smashed them into the ground with all the force she could muster. He had started crying, begging her to stop, but she refused.  When she was done, the shells and the yolks littered the ground and the soles of her tiny kids shoes, with not one egg intact. He’d run back to his aunt, all the while feeling sick with guilt.

This memory had carried with him into his adult life and he had never managed to shed himself of it through all the years since. Therefore, he no longer took nor ate eggs in any way. There was no middle ground for him, and the laws that governed this land were his to forge at will. The morality of his own code was written as the only law of the land since its abandonment years prior.

He picked some berries on the way back to camp, stuffing them in the front pocket of his shirt. The button has fallen off long ago and he’d forgotten to bring any to spare. Thin, anxious wisps of steam rose from the earth as the condensation underfoot evaporated with the blooming daylight. Nary a sign of rain the night prior.

He came to the rope bridge whistling an old melody from his youth, the name of which he’d forgotten. He was distracted by this thought and did not check the ties on either rope. If he had, he would have found one of the lines slack due to the knot on the end slowly coming undone, having swollen with water and now shrunken in its knot work from the heat. This would not have been an issue had the winch holding it in place not snapped the long before. No, he did not notice these things before he scaled the first line and took to crossing the gap.

Halfway across the ravine the knot gave way. At first the ropes barely slipped, but then the line he was standing on gave way and fell under his weight. He fell into the ravine.

___

The season was summer, and he was nine years old. The smell of buckwheat and pollen hung in the air, as did the faint humming of mosquitos. He stood knee-deep in a shallow creek, tossing stones at the tiny insects that zipped across the surface of the water. His father stood on the porch, wearing a sweat-stained t-shirt and smoking a cigarette. He’d been staining furniture in the front yard and his fingertips were black and brown where they clutched the white cylinder of the stogie. A rag hung from his back pocket, soiled with stains from work the day through. Smoke tendrils hung in the air, billowing out from the eaves of the house and fading into the afternoon sky. A lunch bell rang nearby three times. Clusters of gossamer hung in the bramble thickets on the opposing bank, where stood the gathering shambles of blackberry bushes amongst the clutter of the woods.

When he turned around his father was gone; the porch was bare. He waded out farther into the water, where the gentle waves lapped at his stomach and soaked through the white cotton of his dayshirt. A patch of sunlight poured through the  tangled knot of trees and glittered on surface of the water. The air was dry and heavy.

With both hands he smacked the surface of the water and sent duel spouts into the air, soaking the rest of him in the process. Droplets rained through the sunbeams and cast a rainbow across the creek. Pleased, he waded back to the shore, wherein he stepped on a piece of submerged glass with one bare foot and screamed as he fell into the water face first.

His father erupted from the house and found him floundering in the shallows, the water filled with veins of blood. He dragged the boy out of the water and held him against his chest, soaking the white t-shirt he wore.

His foot was cut badly and the piece of glass still protruded from his foot. It was the olive green of a wine bottle and he and his father stared at it as blood bubbling out on either side from the jagged edge. His father held his foot for a moment, his hands coarse but warm and reassuring. He picked the boy up in both arms.

“You’re alright.”

___

Shaun hung on to the remains of the rope bridge, dangling hundreds of feet from the floor of the ravine. His temples throbbed, and he felt stickiness against his forehead and cheek. The worst pain, though, was his leg. He had managed to curl up into a ball as the swung and rope carried him into the cliff face. His left leg had taken the brunt of the impact and hung at an angle that made him sick. He could feel the shattered bone and eradicated tendon pulling away from his body. His hatchet had hung from his belt on that same side and had been between his leg and the cliff face when he smashed against it. The bottom curve of the blade had smashed about a quarter inch into his thigh.

He could hear the faint trickling of the stream below. I need to pull myself up, he thought. His grip on the rope seemed sure, but his bare palms were beginning to burn as his forearms shook. He wrapped his good leg around the course line and pushed his foot through a hanging cross-section that had held together after the fall. He felt a slight resistance and breathed a sigh of relief as he pushed his weight onto it. The rope hung below him and into the shadow of the ravine, swaying gently with the weight of his body.

The sun had risen a bit higher. The heat reflecting off the cliff wall was low, but still he was caked in sweat that dripped down with blood from his forehead and into his eyes. He shook his head, freeing some of the liquid from his sight.

Shaun pulled his body weight up, using his arms alone, and felt the connective tissue in his leg completely give way. A shockwave of pain rocketed up through his groin, stomach, and up into his chest. He took heaving, desperate gulps of air for fear of losing consciousness and losing his grip.

He reassessed the pressure of the rope in his palms and around the circumference of the rope and without second thought pulled his entire weight up again. His leg spiked with pain and he ignored it as best he could. One arm following the other and he rose slowly towards the hovering edge of the rock face above. He screamed so loud that his throat tore. His bad leg connected with the cliff face, and he screamed again, this time with a blood-red tinge of hate and madness shivering in his veins.

He glanced up and saw that the lip of the ravine was closer than he’d thought. With a locked jaw he heaved with all the might his bleeding palms could assure. The exertion forced a laugh out of his mouth, and his bowels quivered and he pissed himself. He saw stars and blinked them away as best he could. It was so close now. So close. There, he had a handhold.  

He dragged himself over the edge, grasping at thick patches of dried grass sprouting from cracks in the chalky earth. He pulled, seeking a surer hold, before hauling the rest of his body over the edge. His legs swung over and banged against the ledge of the ravine, the pain dropping red spikes behind his eyes again.

He lay in the dirt, conscious of naught but the short breaths he pulled in through his swollen nostrils. The dirt beneath him was soft and warm, for which he was grateful. He fell asleep sprawled out like a ragged and bleeding Vitruvian man beneath the sun as it arched through the sky.

When he awoke he coughed and struggled to clear his vision. He rolled over and tried to push himself up. The leg burned and he sprawled out again. There was a nearby tree, which stood out a bit from where the forest began and seemed to reach its limbs out towards him offering. He shambled through the dirt on his elbows, tearing the fabric at his ankles and knees. Sweat poured from his brow and fell to expire in the dirt.

He reached the tree and, with a deep breath, pulled himself up and into a standing position, his shoulders pumping up and down. His body ached with hunger. He turned and looked at the ravine, marking his progress by the inch. Something caught his eye back across the gap and he strained his eyes against the sun overhead. It was his backpack. The rifle was nowhere to be seen, but somehow he must have flung the backpack from his shoulders as he’d fallen. It was out of his reach and there was nothing to be done about that now.

_______

It took him a matter of hours to get back to camp.  He’d stripped a long branch from the tree, snapped it in half, and tied a portion of it to the shattered leg with his belt. The pain of the brace had nearly made him faint, but it held true, as did he. The rest of the branch became a walking stick and aided him slowly trekked between the trees, dragging his limp and useless leg behind. The swollen underbrush and treacherous roots prodded out from the trees like greedy fingers grasping at a prize.

The forest eventually gave way to the meadow and the camp beyond, which he beheld with a relief that stifled the pain for but a moment. He crossed the fifty or so yards from the edge of the trees to the cabin and, once inside, fell to the floor. Heaving breath and sweating through his garments, he unbuttoned his shirt and lay back on the floor, the dust and debris clinging to his soggy back. He let his rasping lungs catch breath in the shade before opening the cellar door and drawing out a jug of water that was stored directly below. He popped the top off and chugged a good amount. It filled his mouth and poured over his lips, wetting his shirt and pants, stinging his parched throat like fresh lime squeezed over an open wound.

When he had drunk his fill he replaced the cap and shoved the jug across the floor and heaved his good leg over the edge of the cellar. He fished around for the flashlight taped directly beneath the overhang and once he found it he thumbed the button and lit up the cellar. Dozens of boxes littered the interior of the basement, organized on either side so that a narrow crawl space existed between two aisles. He spied the medical case with the Red Cross emblem standing out in the dim beam of light. It was about ten feet from the cellar door.

Shaun carefully lowered himself into the bowels of the cabin, the pain in his knee throbbing like a nest of snakes in frenzy. His right leg met the solid, flattened earth, and with that he began to crawl between the boxes.

Shaun reached the medical box, unlatched the hinges and rifled through the assorted bandages and bottles. His leg was a madhouse of pain. He found the morphine beneath a bottle of acetaminophen and drew it out of the case. The cap to the bottle stuck at first, but he managed to pry it off, palm two little white pills, and toss them back into his mouth. They stuck to his tongue, so he tilted his head back and swallowed with as much saliva as he could. The pills finally went down.

Inside the box were other supplies, including two adrenaline shots with needles the size of his pinky and huge plungers, the bottle of acetaminophen, rolls of bandages, tweezers, and a needle and stitches. The leg was not bleeding, but he could feel the awful swelling press against the denim, and he knew that sooner or later he’d have to stitch up the cut across his forehead. The dried blood had a waxy texture and clung to the severed skin beneath his hairline.

Somewhere along the way he’d lost the strip of tree branch braced against his leg, but the belt still dragged loosely around his foot. He reached down and retrieved it and tied it around the thigh of his injured leg.

He dragged the medical box behind him, pulled himself up and out of the cellar with trembling arms. He drew the knife from his pocket and gently cut away the tattered fabric of the pants leg. The look of it shocked him; the knee was swollen to the size of a grapefruit, yellow and purple discoloration surrounding the spot where he’d connected with the cliff face. The swelling was not a good sign and he would have to relieve the pressure sooner than later.

The morphine had done enough to dull the pain into a low, constant throbbing, but would not prevent further injury if he didn’t do something soon. He used this chance to drag himself out of the cabin and across the meadow until he reached his tent. He removed the boot from his shattered leg and tossed it gently into the insulted box. His extremities were chilled and his body caked in dust.

The fire pit was still smoldering from when he’d rekindled it that morning. He crawled to the edge of it and pushed two logs from the top of the pile and into the pit. Within minutes he’d roused small pillars of flame that danced happily in the waning sunlight. He drew his knife and set it at the edge of the pit close to the growing flames.

The dirt was firm but flat next to the large makeshift bench, which was still damp with rainfall. He lay with his back against it and legs outstretched toward the heat of the fire. The sky was a broad palate of blue and white elements of cloud etching slow, isolated patterns over the horizon. A gentle breeze pushed at the treetops, instigating the flames in the fire pit further. Flies were beginning to drone in wide circles around him, drawn to the stench of the woods he bore. He waved a hand at them lazily and they dispersed, only to return within minutes.

The tip of the knife glowed a faint orange, and he carefully removed it from the heat. He waited for it to cool, holding it at arms length away. Once the glow had faded he stabbed the tip of the blade into his knee and screamed as steam and blood shot out from the entry wound. He pulled the blade out and a thick draught of black, coagulated blood ran from the small incision. He turned his leg to the side, letting the blood drop from his knee and pool up in the dust below. The earth turned a granulated red and he watched with a kind of vacant interest. He set the knife down on the tip of the fire pit again and reached into his breast pocket, where there was a swath of clean bandages crushed in with the few remaining berries he’d picked that morning. He unfurled the white cloth and wrapped his knee tightly and tied the bandage off as the pad began to soak through with blood. He leaned his head back against the log and unleashed a massive sigh that became a scream. What the fuck am I going to do, he thought as the darkness crept up from the back of his skull and dragged him down.

A pop from one of the logs in the fire woke him up, and he jolted up. A dozen or so flies, thick and midnight black, took flight from his leg and his hands, which were coated with blood. The dirt around him was gorged with blood. The wrappings around his knee had held tight but the pain had emerged greater than before. His veins pulsed with hot iron as he reached up from his seated position and shoved another log from the mount onto the fire.

The trek back to the tent was a terror. The field was swarming with insects hovering above the grass, feeding or doing whatever they did in the failing light of the afternoons. The dirt gave little resistance and soon he reached the tent, his knees and elbows ragged. He dragged out the sleeping bag and brought it with him back to the cabin, strewn out behind him like a corpse.

He crawled into the sleeping bag with great difficulty, and lay there for the better part of the afternoon and as his leg throbbed and the temperature began to drop outside. When the sun neared the western horizon he rolled over to the cellar door and drew up the flashlight and turned it on. He then dipped his head below the floor and scanned the cellar again. In a small plastic trunk there was a battery-powered lamp that was kept ready and held a charge for late night work on the cabin. He pulled it out and flipped the switch, illuminating the interior of his refuge. He set the lamp down on the floor beside him and dug through the stores nearest to him, searching for cans of food that didn’t require cooking. He found one that would suffice: pears. Great.

He lay in the low lightcast of the lamp, prying at the can with his knife until it wrenched open and he lay fetal and ate the fruit from its can like a beast. Once he’d finished he lay in the dark, listening to the sounds of the wildlife and the low crackling of the wood cooling and venting heat around him. In the first days, when he was green and filled with a fear of the new and unknown, there had been fear of wolves and other predatory mammals that may have sought him out in the dead of night. As the months passed, so did the fear. At the very least, the smell of his piss around the circumference of the camp would keep them away. Now there was a large puddle of blood by his fire site. He thought of this, as the pain in his leg kept him up long into the night and more than once he leapt from a light sleep in the fear that some low and stalking form was sniffing around the eaves of the cabin.

He woke late in the morning after rolling on his side. The knee was smashed beneath him and he screamed himself awake. Sweat drenched the sleeping bag, yet the cold outside of it was vicious and he shivered. He shifted across the floor on his back, making for the open cellar. He dug through the heaps of boxes until he produced three cans of acceptable food. Breakfast was a serving of uncooked pork and beans, corn, green beans, and tomatoes, along with a swig of water from the jug.

Shaun wormed his way from the sleeping bag and propped himself against the wall next to the door. The temperature was already dropping still, far earlier than normal for the time of year, and if he did not have an open fire soon he would die. By the time the sun had reached its peak height for the day he crawled outside, hatchet in hand, and began to dig a few feet from the doorway.

Hours passed and he had himself a serviceable fire pit. He glanced up at the red oak from the doorway, its leaves dancing gently in the breeze that had struck up from the south and cascaded through the camp with a curtain of dust in tow. It chilled the sweat on his neck and scalp. He went inside and withdrew the sleeping bag and forged a straight path across the meadow again. Once he reached the fire pit he began to toss logs onto the flat of the bag and when it was covered with wood he dragged it back again to the cabin. His knee stung like an infected carbuncle. He stacked the logs as neatly as he could by the doorway and went back three times for more. When this was done he lay under the stubby eaves of the cabin and panted, the pain in his knee turning his vision black. He ate the rest of the pork and beans before going through with making a fire.

Evening crawled out over the sky and he hurried to get the fire going, using the matches he’d shoved in his pocket in the tent after the last load of logs had been towed. Kindling was sparse and the dead grass that grew in patches all across the field did little to help ignite the flames spread under the larger logs. Eventually, though, he had it going and the warmth of it moved him, assuaging the panic he’d been wrapped in completely through the day. He wheezed and coughed and sat and watched the stars unfurl above him. The leg beneath bandage throbbed and once removed was proven all the worse than that which he’d imagined. The gnarled flesh and protruding chips of bone were a stark contrast of black and white. He changed the bandage and lay his head back.

The logs on the fire were stocked, so Shaun crawled back into the cabin, dragged out the medical box, and changed the bandages once more. He groaned as the coagulated blood stuck to the old wrap and he had to tear it away with force to remove it. The pain was astonishing. He pulled tightly at the new wrap and took two more morphine pills from the little brown bottle. This time he swallowed them with water and they went down with ease.

That night was kept warm by the fire, yet he slept little, eyes drawn up at the night sky and the stars calling out to him from the black. When morning came he was hungry but too tired to move. His clothes were rank and the insulation of the sleeping bag had given the stench a place to thrive.

Groups of ground birds landed all across the field and picked at the earth in the early morning sun. He watched them from the doorway as they hopped around, prodding with their little beaks, and took flight into the trees at the nearest sign of danger.

_____

Within a week the cold had become constant, and little reprieve did the rising sun offer. The animals began to disappear, as did the hours of sunlight. Shaun mostly lay in the cabin, listening to the sounds of the forest around him, in ceaseless pain and hunger. He slept less than he ate and changed his bandages as frequently as possible. The cut he’d made to drain the blood was beginning to heal, but the shattered bones in his leg were not doing as well. He fashioned a brace out of two pieces of wood of equal length and wrapped them around his leg with the old belt and several strips of tanned bark. This limited his mobility, but forced his leg to remain straight. It was the best he could do.

The firewood began to diminish, and only when it was gone did he venture out into the woods with his hatchet to begin collecting. It took him five days of constant work to gather enough wood to feel safe for the coming rainy season.

In the morning he took morphine, which he was forced to ration after excess use in the first weeks, and waited for the pain to settle. Then he crawled to the cellar and began drawing boxes out and stacking them in the corner of the main landing. His breath plumed before him, even in the full light of the day.

He organized the boxes by contents: food, drink, clothes, emergency, and travel. The travel boxes he set far away and began to dig first through the food storage. He arranged two separate piles of cans and bags. One was for dry goods and foods that needed to be cooked, and the other was for goods that did not require heat. Once he was satisfied, he took out all the juices and spare water bottles and littered the floor with them. Then he changed his bandages, rewrapped the brace against his knee, and slept for the rest of the day.

He woke the next morning to an ashen gloom and invasive, bombastic cold. The fire had died and he spent most of the morning rekindling it from what few embers remained in the charred, damp logs. The sun did not appear once that day and he spent his time under the eaves wrapped in the sleeping bag. He forgot to eat and drank little water, for whenever he moved his leg would scream with pain. It was healing poorly, and the fact of the matter was he might never walk properly if it did. Under the cloud cover and under the eaves he cried. He cried for a long time, the only sound in a silent world but for the gentle and unperceivable whisper of the woods moving on beneath the hidden sun. He wondered if anyone missed him, or what he’d tell his mother if she walked through the grass and found him lying there.

That night he swathed himself in a pile of blankets and pillows, his leg elevated. The swelling was almost completely down, but the discoloration had spread halfway up his thigh. The anxiety of his predicament weighed down on him, crushing his heart, and he stayed up long into the night with naught but the noises of the forest outside. He heard a loon cry out far away and then fall silent once more.

He woke in the early morning. The leg was swollen again and had fallen off the pillow pile onto the naked floor. He groaned and prodded the wound with his index finger. It stung, overwhelming his vision with a flash of red. All at once the fear of the wide world grasped him, yet in that moment too a thought struck him and the glow of hope clutched at his heart.

Inside the cellar was a small, battery powered radio he’d kept in case of last resort emergencies. He crawled through the dirt like a solder, dragging his bad leg. The radio was large, metallic matte-grey, and had been the heaviest piece of equipment in the whole expedition. It bore two massive, cylindrical batteries that were the size of bricks and they were above all else the most precious item in the camp.

It was more than two hours of prodding and digging through the storage space before he was able to reach the radio. This was the only way.

He turned himself around in the basement with the radio held to his chest like and otter bearing it’s young. His leg twisted in the dark and, though he could not see the angle at which it lay, he could feel the rending of the tendons and with that at hand he clenched his teeth. His heart thumped against his chest like a artillery barrage. With all his strength he pulled up the raw clumps of dirt and rock of the basement floor and soon found himself staring at the small port in the floor. The radio went first; he passed it through the hole with care and slid it across the floor to a safe distance. Then he laid a hand on either side of the floor and dragged himself out. His legs swung free of the ground and banged against the side of the cellar port. He pulled them through before falling back onto the floor and screaming out through the walls of the cabin and into the empty forest outside.

Piecing the radio together was simple enough; he’d done it many times in the course of his training. Daylight burned by the time Shaun had fully assembled the radio. He checked the battery ports to make sure they were plugged in properly, checked the microphone cable to make sure it was connected, and finally thumbed the on switch.

Nothing.

He paused, staring at the button for a moment, and switched it off again. He double checked all of the connections and made certain that the switch wasn’t loose in its socket. It was not.

He took the batteries out and checked them for any sign of damage, of which there was no discernable cause. He flipped the bulky body over and checked the vents, between which the wiring was housed. Nothing.

Again, he put the machine back together and tried it. The light on the receiver flickered for a moment and then died. He held pause in the silence for a moment before screaming and hurling the radio against the wall. It slammed against the wood and clattered to the floor, still in one piece. He lay back on the floor, staring at the ceiling, throat burning. He tried to hold back the tears but couldn’t. They let loose and didn’t stop for some time, until the sun began to set and darkness swept through the camp and he wiped the dried tears from the corners of his eyes.

He came out of the camp after dark, a large bar of chocolate in his front pocket. He situated himself before the fire, unwrapped the foil packaging, and ate the entire thing in two bites.

Late that night he woke up from the pain in his leg, which held over him for some time. By the early hours of the morning a frost had covered the field, blanketing the tips of the frayed grass and coating the top branches of his tree. There was no sound but the beating of his heart as he fought to sleep, shivering like a leper in the last desperate pulses of life.

He crossed the field in the late morning through the frost fall and came to the tent, which he rifled through for supplies and a fresh set of clothes. He struggled to change his pants, which he had to cut away at the leg to fit the brace and then wrapped the cylinder of cut denim around his bare leg again. The wood was soggy from either sweat or condensation so he dragged his way to the old fire pit and fashioned a new one from some kindling that had been wrapped in the plastic tarp.

Noon came and went and he found himself wishing he had the rifle. Perhaps if he had it he could fire off every round he had in his possession until help came but in the end he doubted anyone would come. It could only have fallen into the ravine as he’d slipped and that would be the end of it. Shattered on rocks, the same as he could have been at this very moment. The animals would’ve picked at his bones and eaten his entrails and his skeleton lain prone for all the turns of the earth and no one would remember him.

He could only hope that the leg healed well enough to limp his way out of the valley and hike the fifty or so miles back to the highway from whence he’d come those many months ago. It was hypothetical but when all was said and done he had little more than that. A hawk flew past the sun and cast it’s shadow across the ground. It was traveling south. He watched it go and stared after it for a long time after it passed beyond the wall of trees.

_____

The pain had become a harpoon, by which to keep hold of the world. Four days he’d lain in the entrance of the cabin, leg stretched out before him and leaning against the wall. The water jug next to him was half empty. He could see the weight lost in his thighs, his waist, and his chest.

On the fifth day it rained and he watched the downpour carry across the valley like an animal confined to the overhang of a barn. He thought to carry the jug on his stomach and crawl outside to fill it, but one move sent a violent report through his leg and put the idea to rest. His lips stuck together, crusted over with thirst.

The following day he tried the radio, repeatedly tapping at the switches to no avail. He hated himself for throwing it against the wall when, upon closer inspection, he discovered several wires had become disconnected from the circuit board on the inside. He reconnected them after taking the machine apart and felt that it might have worked again had he simply done this to begin with. He dropped it on the floor and sat with holding his head in his hands

A week and more passed him by. The pain had subsided bit by bit, and Shaun began to massage the area around the swollen curve of his leg to relieve pressure and ensure blood flow. Dark thoughts crossed his mind from time to time, and the stores of food he’d intended to last for years began to wane. Water he’d long since rationed, and dehydration became a way of living. His tree lost its leaves with the coming of winter, giving it a bare, decrepit look. The shape and spirit of my soul in unison. Rain fell every few days, which soon abated his concern for water after he managed to drag every available jug out into the rainfall. He fashioned a funnel from the inner lining of a box and used it to focus the rain directly into the jugs.

The wood he’d gathered was soaked and he cursed himself for neglecting it. He brought what he could inside and when the rain remained ceaseless he thought to cave in the unfinished wall of the cabin to vent smoke and build a fire pit within. It would ruin his work, but also further his chances of survival.

He woke in the dead of night to the sound of a shifting presence moving about the camp. He shivered with fear and held the knife close by. The scratching and clawing drew closer. He held the knife close; the hatchet was outside, leaning against the wall next to the door. His heart bellowed beneath his chest. A low, rising moan echoed out and into the dark, and then was gone. He breathed out and spent the night wide-eyed, clutching the knife close to his chest and fearing every shadow in the night.

The first snowfall came the next day. He dragged every bit of spare clothing he could find out of the piles of boxes and crates and built himself a mound in which to fight off the cold. In the end he caved in the western wall of the cabin and set to building a fire pit across a section of floor where it would not burn through into the cellar. In four days he had a regular setup and felt little regret for the ruin of his cabin. He even burned the logs he’d smashed apart with the hatchet and they burned long and well. He sat there, wrapped amongst the entirety of his possessions and without a constant pain for the first time in weeks.

The thin carpet of snow that covered the meadow was smooth as pearl. The crowns of the trees wore shawls of white and the far tipped mountains were adorned with fresh fall. He stood with the aid of the wall to temper his balance and limped across the floor like an old man without a cane. His leg burned and the pressure was immense but still he managed to carve a straight line from the doorway to the fire pit on the opposing side of the cabin. He laughed and half-toppled into the blankets beside the fire. His leg caught beneath him at an awkward angle and his laugh turned to a yell. He sat there, holding the knee between his palms and gently massaging before taking up the old brace and pulling it tight against him with the leather belt.

The searing pain did give way to a dull ache, which remained constant despite the immobility he force himself at first to undergo. Days melted away, as did his supplies. Water remained an assurance, but without the rifle he had no choice but to deplete his already meager food stores. He tore through the stock of canned beans in a matter weeks, doing his best to maintain a high protein diet as his leg slowly healed. The corn and tomatoes were the next to go, as he would often mix them and add a bit of salt to create a pleasant savory mix; this last for a couple of weeks. He rubbed his face, fingers tracing through the course and untrimmed hair on his neck and cheeks and chin. Fuck it.

One night he was out in the woods taking a shit when he heard the scuffling, panting sounds, much the same as from weeks prior. All at once he became still and looked around. The cabin was 30 feet away and the light from the fire flickered against the far wall, which he could see through the excavation. There was a shadow lurking in the corner, crouched in a hunched black mound. It bubbled and moved back and forth, sweeping low across the floor. There was a clatter as something fell within and growl that was entirely alien to his knowledge of animal sounds.

Shaun dragged himself out of the hole, hoisted up his pants with a disregard for his knee, and tumbled through the undergrowth by the light of the fire alone. He hadn’t brought a flashlight and cursed as he waded through the dark. His bad knee caught on a log jutting out from blackness and he keeled over, breathing deep to hold in a scream that built in his throat and died behind his clenched jaw. Sweat broke out all over his body and he curled up into a ball. He lay in the silent woods, huddled in a thick pile of snow that began to melt beneath the heat of his body. He breathed deep and listened as the hiss of breath escaped his lips.

After a time there was no noise but the faint crackle of the fire and the dim report of snow falling from overburdened branches around him. He knew not what to think of it, but felt a relative, instinctual safety that he trusted and headed back towards the cabin through the dark. His temples pulsed frantically as he set out shifting and tottering like a somnambulist with his eyes fixed on the dying glow of the fire through the trees before him.

He reached the cabin and entered, glancing quickly about the space. Most of the boxes had been turned out; his bedding had been torn to shred. The floor was covered with wet prints leading from the door, to the fireplace, and back again. They were a kind the likes of which he’d never seen before. He limped through the entrance and stood in the center of the room. First he found his knife, which was exactly where he’d left it in the corner by his water jug. Then he located the hatchet and tucked it into his belt. He wished for the familiar feel of the rifle.

He was up the whole night, huddled in the corner, intermittently throwing logs on the fir. The knife was next to him, which was stretched out across the floor and wrapped in its sheath to ward off the cold from the blade. By morning he stood and hobbled to the doorway and looked out on the field around him. Fresh snow had not fallen from the night over, so he could see clear lines of tracks pushed into the snow surrounding the cabin. They were huge. He shuddered with the cold, or was that the cold, and went back inside.

He spent the day inside nursing his bruised leg, and the following morning he rose with the sun, limped into the woods and cut down ten small trees. He dragged them, one by one, back to the camp and stripped them of bark with the blade of his ax. As the day drew on he began to chop them into smaller pieces and fashioned thick boards. He had some difficulty with his leg but found it less bothersome than he had initially feared.

By the light of the evening he turned through a small box of nails and produced a variety he deemed larger enough for the task at hand. He trudged outside and tore down the tent and dragged it soaked wet and covered in frost into the center of the cabin, where he hung it on the open wall. He then moved outside once again and with a heavy pocket began to draw the nails and hammer them into the boards across the portal of the doorway. When it had been entirely covered he banged in a few insurance spikes, all that were left, and limped around the side of the cabin using the panels of it to keep upright. When he reached the back by the caved-in wall he hoisted himself inside. He lowered inside and wiped his hands clean on his pants when he was done. The work on the doorway was good, and he kindled the fire back to life and lay panting in the low light. Then he tore open a can of meatballs and sat by the fire stabbing them with the tip of the knife and biting them from the blade. He wiped dirty palms on his pants and lay back against the piles of blankets, where soon sleep took him.  

That night the wild was still and devoid of sound. The next day he considered the oncoming snowfall festering in clouds on the horizon and dragged a spare tarp out from the cellar. He cut a series of holes through the fabric and went about tying it over the hole in the wall with pairs of bungee cords nailed into the walls. The heat from the fire reflected off the face of it, but he figured that it would hold up and in the end it did. The tent, once it had dried, he pulled into the bedroom and folded thrice over in the corner. He sighed and stared into the air. The confinement of the cabin assuaged his fear for the moment of whatever had been lurking about the camp, but it did not put his heart at ease. The food and the leg still worried him, despite his improved health and maintained food stores.

He collected all of the flashlights he had that still worked and congregated them beneath a box that was emptied of supplies. He’d amassed a considerable pile of food cans that now littered the floor of the cabin and he began to gather them slowly, bending down on his good leg while the other one swung back into the air and picked up each can one upon the other until all the filth had been gathered and piled into the adjacent corner.

Once he had the cans lined up he cut them into thin, sharp pieces with the knife and placed them by the wall and until soon he had over three-dozen tiny blades. He forded the western wall beneath the tarp and took to nailing the jagged edges facing out from the wall. In a short time he’d nailed all of them in, and anything that was bigger than he would have a miserable time scaling that entrance if it dared to try.

The work tired him and he thought to lie down for a moment by the fire and when he opened his eyes again the night had passed and he was staring out at a new day through a hole in the tarp. He stood up and stretched before limping over to the wall to look at his work. He scanned the surface of the wall, checking every protruding blade, until he found what he sought: one of the tips was coated with blood, and a patch of mottled black mass. He reached out and retrieved it. Oily, black, not quite fur, but not flesh. The blood was black. He held it up in the light and examined it. It reeked of death and rot. Something had been sniffing around the grounds of the cabin while he slept, likely the same shape as before.

At this thought he took to the floor and began sharpening the blade of the ax until it held a razor edge.

He passed through the days to come in a fugue state, each after the other a repetition of gathering wood, dragging it back to the cabin, throwing each log over the side, and then dragging himself in carefully around the defenses. There was a strip of wood left uncovered by jagged blade of aluminum and slid between them.

The weather became violently cold, enough to keep him inside for days at a time but for the need of wood to keep the fire going. He stayed wrapped in the ragged clothes and swaddled in the stinking sheets, caring little for personal hygiene outside of his leg. He etched the days into the side of the cabin by his bed, each line carved and left to build upon the others. The shadows darted and crawled at times, and he would shake his head to ward off such sights that he knew to be false.

Each night he watched for the thing to return in the night, and one late December evening it did.

_____

The sun had just set, and he dragged the last of the logs over the divide and sealed the hole with the tarp. He had twelve cans of food left, and was fallen to rationing out his meals to single bites of food. He savored a mouthful of mushroom stew, which he had heated over the fire, and laid back against the wall with a sigh. The fire hissed as one of the logs boiled out sap from within. A wreath of star clusters hung above him through plumes of smoke that ejected from the cabin.

Shaun perched on the old medical box, now completely empty, and went about sharpening a thick piece of wood he’d pulled down that morning. The edge of his knife cut clear patches from the wet bark, revealing a dry center beneath. When he was satisfied he took up handfuls of soot from the ring of the fireplace and massaged it deep into the wood. When the entire shaft was covered in ash he held it over the fire until the wood had hardened. He took it in both hands when it had cooled and smacked it against the floor three times. It held.

He watched the night turn and held his weapons close. Something stirred deep within the mountains to the east, too far from the camp to hear, yet felt in the bones of the earth and the sinews of his heart. It oozed down the tumbling slopes, shifting through the darkness and tearing through the undergrowth. It thundered through the creek and drew still, nose bent low to the ground, catching scent. It slipped silently through the low moonlight and into the night again.

As Shaun began to nod off there was a scratching at the side of the cabin directly behind him. He shuddered out of sleep and grasped for the spear as a rolling growl carried on the breeze and into the cabin. It seemed to reverberate inside of his ear. Shaun stood up awkwardly, placing all of his weight on his good leg, and made for the open wall. The thing had lumbered against the side of the cabin again and was sniffing about the grounds between long, panting gasps of air. The light from the fire rebounded off of the tarp and cast a massive shadow into the forest beyond.

Shaun stood in the opening, spear clutched in both hands. His knife was in his pocket, and the hatchet was in his belt. The thing outside drew close to the opening, panting breaths heaving plumes of heat into the air that he could now see flowing out from the corners of the tarp. He could see it’s fanged mouth swinging low over the ground, dripping saliva in the snow.

Suddenly it loomed, massive, in the gap between the walls, it’s eyes horrific and reflective in the light of the fire. The thing was neither bear or wolf, or mammal whatsoever. Its jaw jutted forward and its body seemed to the curve the light away. It let loose a tremendous growl that became a roar that shook the foundation of the cabin. It smashed against the cabin. The bulbous, hairy body tore the tarp away from the cabin and out into the night, whereupon it returned, naught but the red eyes glaring at him from the blackness. Shaun screamed and thrust toward it with all his might, bringing the tip of the primitive spear to the thing’s face. The sharpened point connected beneath it’s hanging jaw and the body of the spear snapped in his hands with the force of the blow. The thing bellowed with a terrible anger forcing Shaun to fall back onto his bad leg. He covered his ears and smacked the back of his head on the floor.

It loomed in the opening again, a primordial wrath glittering in it’s eyes. The hide was closer to that of a fly than any creature he’d seen in the woods before. It smashed two massive claws against the side of the cabin and tore at the wood. Brittle can blades were swept from the wall with one stroke of its claws. Without thinking, Shaun pulled himself up and kicked the fire with all his strength, directly into the face of the creature. Sparks blasted out in every direction, scattering about the floor of the cabin. A swath of embers took to its fur and began to sizzle the matted hide. As it reeled back from the fire Shaun tore his knife from his pants pocket and drove it deep into the face of the monstrosity. It shrieked as Shaun’s blade slammed into flesh and bone again and again. It swung wildly at him, and he ducked, narrowly avoiding the six-inch talons that embedded in the wood next to his head. He lashed out once more with the knife, reaching as far over the partial wall as he could, and connect with the thing in the center of its wide, alien face. It howled and vaulted away from the cabin, off into the dead night, leaving behind a spatter of dark blood on the floor and the ruined wall. Shaun’s knife had been wrenched from his hands and he looked around desperately. Scattered chunks of smoldering log and embers burning bright littered the floor. He quickly diverted his attention to clearing the place before it went up in flames. Once the embers were out he drew the ax from his belt and limped to the opening, where he gazed out into the blackness. Elated, he let loose a cry, hoisting the ax into the air like the first victory of man. There was silence, before a horrific roar tore through the night, inhuman, unearthly, an answer and a challenge unlike anything anyone in this world could be compelled to conjure or has ever known. He froze and the sound of it shook the forest, and then all was still once more.

Morning light soon drew across the sky. Shaun had dozed off in the corner, surrounded by the destroyed boxes, clutching the knife to his chest. The floor was scored with black streaks of ash, and the tarp was completely gone. The yawning expanse of forest outside the cabin was tipping with pink sunlight. Shaun rubbed his eyes and stood up slowly. His knee popped loudly and he grimaced in the low light of the morning.

He looked around the entrance to the cabin. Claws marks were etched into the walls, and at the base of the structure was a large pool of blood that had coagulated and turned a deep black in the crisp white snow.

He scaled the cabin wall gently and surveyed the land around him. Ragged, intermittent claw marks had shorn the entire side of the cabin, and the earth around the base was loosely mulled and shifted about; these were markings, perhaps. Limping along, he sifted through the snow, searching for his knife. There was little chance of finding it, but it was all he had besides the ax and he had to hope..

Little chunks of wood were littered about in the snow, as were flecks of blood innumerable from when the thing had torn itself on the can spikes. An hour of searching left him without reward of the knife but he did find the tarp some fifteen feet away wrapped in a bramble thicket and he resolved to string it up again by the end of the night. By the time he was finished with his work sweat stood out on his brow and grey curtain of clouds had blanketed the horizon.

That night the air warmed, and a rain came to wash away the snow. The holes in the tarp offered no protection and the cabin would have flooded had he not strung up two of his thick, wool-lined raincoats over the opening. They were waterproof, the real deal, and he was pleased at the lack of leakage when he woke the next morning. It was January first, and though he did not know it, a new year was upon him. The sun was shining.