Winner
Terrain.org fifteenth Annual Fiction Contest
A very long time in the past, very near the place you and I reside, there was a stream that ran by way of a forest. The water was clear and icy. Beneath the clear, icy water, the streambed was a chute of easy brown and orange rocks and tremendous, darkish silt. The banks had been gentle, rubbery grass and funky moss-covered stones. Thorny sawbriar grew from financial institution to financial institution over the water just like the bows of a lined wagon. Like veins, maybe. And much above the sawbriar, a lush, inexperienced cover of ash leaves. On the time this story takes place, no human had ever been right here.
Elsewhere, a person who thought he cherished animals accidently caught a reside thylacine, identified to some as a Tasmanian tiger due to its quick golden fur and darkish stripes working down its again and tail. Aside from the stripes, it seemed to the person like a cross between a wolf and a fox. He had by no means seen something prefer it. As an alternative of placing a bullet into the fascinating creature and sending it to his taxidermist, the person determined to take it again with him throughout the ocean and preserve it chained on his property as a dialog piece. His company may throw the proof of his abroad exploits scraps of meat whereas he regaled them with the story. How thrilling. The person had no concept the thylacine was nearly extinct. It wouldn’t have mattered if he did. The person had no concept it was pregnant. It wouldn’t have mattered if he did. The thylacine, her foot clamped between two metal jaws, baring her enamel, made no sound to point she understood her life was over, however she did perceive. Typically dying takes a very long time.
She gave start to 4 joeys in a darkish cage in a ship’s maintain midway throughout an ocean. Two feminine, two male. They nearly by no means ventured out of their mom’s pouch. The pouch was heat. The cage wasn’t. Aside from that, they had been completely content material.
The ship landed. The cage was put right here. Then right here. Then lastly loaded onto a truck. A number of days later, the truck’s driver overpassed the highway in the course of a thunderstorm, in the course of the evening, in the course of nowhere. The truck flipped on its facet. When the driving force got here to, he discovered himself within the passenger’s seat, pressed in opposition to the door, his head bleeding, mud seeping in by way of the cracked window. He slowly crawled out of the cab. The factor within the cage was gone. After listening to the information, the person who thought he cherished animals by no means thought concerning the thylacine ever once more. He had already principally forgotten.
The thylacine didn’t acknowledge the land. The timber had been totally different. The rocks had been totally different. The filth didn’t style proper. Again residence, the biggest physique of water she knew of was within the course the solar appeared within the morning. So she traveled in the wrong way, following the solar day after day, stopping solely to sleep and hunt, extra for her joeys than for her. All she needed to do was discover the big physique of water and residential could be on the opposite facet. However regardless of how far she traveled, nothing grew to become extra acquainted. Simply totally different sorts of unfamiliar.
Increasingly, she needed to cease in order that her joeys may run and tumble and transfer about within the solar. Throughout the temporary moments the joeys had spent out of their mom’s pouch again within the cage, they assumed the cage was residence. Now, they assumed this was residence. They had been having a beautiful time. To their mom, they smelled just like the cage. They smelled like this place. She knew that wasn’t their fault, however she additionally knew she was working out of time. Quickly she wouldn’t be capable of carry them. They would wish to discover ways to hunt. They would wish to strike out on their very own. However they needed to discover residence first. How may she clarify that to them? She saved shifting.
At some point, she left her joeys within the elbow of two fallen timber and went off in the hunt for meals. She hoped they’d be secure there, however what was secure? Two coyotes heard their yips. They too had been removed from residence. Theirs didn’t exist anymore. They had been nothing however bones and fur. The lead coyote’s mom as soon as informed her some infants are higher left alone. What sort of infants had been these? She didn’t know and was too hungry to care. She approached from the entrance. Her brother hopped up onto one of many fallen timber, approaching from above. The joeys thought what was taking place was a sport and by no means really understood that it wasn’t.
The thylacine hit the lead coyote from the facet, sinking her enamel deep into the gentle warmth of the neck. The brother coyote attacked her blind spot, which solely made her chunk tougher. They tumbled and rolled, a jagged knot of limbs and wounds and bloody enamel. The sounds had been horrific. The coyotes ultimately broke free from the tangle to reassess. Two in opposition to one, the struggle ought to have been over by now. The thylacine ought to have been useless, however she stood her floor, her eyes blazing, her enamel brandished. The lead coyote was bleeding badly from her neck. Her brother was lacking an eye fixed and a part of his tail. Too costly. This should have been what their mom had meant. They bounded away a number of paces, turned, and glared. The thylacine made a noise she had by no means heard herself make earlier than, and the coyotes disappeared into the timber.
The joeys had been useless. Bleeding, shaking, the hearth of the struggle nonetheless burning inside her, she cleaned them greatest she may. She put them again into her pouch. She saved shifting.
The following morning, the thylacine came across the stream within the forest, beneath the ash leaves and sawbrier, dragging behind her a protracted path of blood. She was thirsty. She had by no means been so thirsty. She allowed herself a relaxation. She dipped her mouth into the stream. The water was cool and nearly tasted just like the water again residence, however she couldn’t get it previous the blood in her throat. She knew then that she would by no means rise up. The solar she was following moved on with out her.
Elsewhere, earlier, a deer surveyed his forest, shifting at no specific tempo, touring in and thru his mate’s scent. Typically loping, typically strolling, he would discover her and their fawn quickly sufficient. He at all times did. He wasn’t fearful. Her scent led him to a inexperienced dell the place his mate would typically go away their fawn curled in a ball whereas she went off to feed. Which she had finished. A person with a gun discovered the fawn and waited for its mom to return. When she did, the person with the gun shot her. Then he shot the fawn, who was nonetheless curled up the place his mom had left him and was patiently ready for all these horrible sounds to cease. The person with the gun informed himself that he shot the fawn as a result of it didn’t have an opportunity by itself, however actually it was as a result of he wished to see what the bullet would do to it.
The male deer smelled the trail his mate took into the dell. He smelled the place she died and the course she was dragged. He discovered what was left of their fawn. After leaving the dell, the deer wandered the forest for days. He didn’t know if he was in search of their scent or attempting to get away from it. Both manner, he would at all times discover it once more. And lose it. And discover it. It was not his forest anymore.
He ultimately got here to what had been their favourite place to drink. The stream beneath the ash timber and the sawbrier. There he discovered the thylacine. Shifting simply her eyes, she checked out him. Then seemed away. It was all she may do. The deer had by no means encountered no matter she was earlier than. She was clearly one thing that ate different animals, may eat him if she had been so inclined, however he wasn’t afraid. He knew what a mom seemed like. And he knew what dying seemed like. She was each.
He sat down within the grass subsequent to her, folding his lengthy legs beneath him. He rested his chin on her shoulder. She took a deep, labored breath. Launched it. Water glided throughout the rocks. Daylight flickered by way of the leaves. A breeze swayed the cover backwards and forwards as if the forest itself had been respiratory. It wasn’t residence, however she favored this place.
The deer stayed with the thylacine your complete time it took her to die. Earlier than she died, she typically forgot that her physique had given out. When she closed her eyes, she may really feel herself sprinting by way of timber and brush, her joeys heat pulses in her pouch. However when she opened them once more, she was proper the place she had been, her nostril inches away from water she couldn’t drink. When she lastly stopped respiratory, the deer stayed along with her a short time longer. Slowly, he bought up. He wanted to discover a place so removed from residence that he couldn’t discover it once more if he ever modified his thoughts. He wanted to maneuver and preserve shifting.
That small piece of floor was by no means the identical after that, radiated by what transpired. Nature’s radiation. To this present day it feels totally different. Not simply totally different from what it was. Totally different from some other place on earth. Coming into is as tangible as strolling by way of a curtain. Like strolling from daylight into shade. Or shade into daylight. You’ve been there. You’ve felt it. And as soon as inside, your sense reminiscence doesn’t fairly acknowledge the form and texture of what’s attainable and isn’t attainable. The place feels able to immeasurable cruelty and horror and sweetness and awe and magic and typically even forgiveness—although you recognize higher than to rely on that final one. You’ve felt all that and questioned why? What occurred right here that made this place this manner? And now you recognize.
Seth Borgen’s work has appeared in Story, Water~Stone, Inexperienced Mountains Evaluate, and elsewhere. His first e book, If I Die in Ohio, obtained the New American Fiction Prize. He obtained his MFA from the College of Mississippi and lives in Ohio.
Header picture by Vac1, courtesy Shutterstock.
