“Fiddleshits!” I yelled. We were so close. “Migisi, the Angry Bird has to fly again! We have to get that rope back!” Migisi circled above the tigers and the filthy plush toy, both of us looking for an opportunity to swoop down and snatch that line. But the cats had the reflexes of, well, cats, and all it would take is a swipe from one of those massive claws and Migisi and I would be dead as door handles. Migisi chirped.
“Not yet, look; that one is watching us,” I told her. And he was, with a ravenous look I’d given many a Cheeto®.
And just like that, in the manner of cats the earth over, they got bored. One of the brothers prodded at the Angry Bird half-heartedly. Another yawned and squished himself into a motorcycle sidecar that was too small for him. The third, the smallest and fastest, kept his eyes in the sky, at the bird on the bird that had been puppeteering the stuffed bird. It was becoming a tiramisu of complication.
“Get up, you prison-striped meat loaves!” I screeched. The tiger looking at me as though I should be slathered in basil aioli threw his head back to roar at us. The other two were no longer focused on the Angry Bird.
We had lost them.
“What do we do, Migisi?” I asked. “It’s like herding cats!”
I heard a desperate yell. Pressa. “Come back! We’ll figure something else out!”
A hollow feeling burned inside. Failure. The tiger spilling out of the sidecar stood up, slinking over to his brother, and the pair turned toward a tree line. The brother with the anger management issues took his eyes off me, turning to join them. They were leaving. It was all over.
And then Migisi’s back muscles tightened. Suddenly, my stomach and eyeballs felt like they were suspended in the air above me. We were falling from the sky. Migisi dove, launching us toward the trio of tigers and yanking at a striped tail with her beak.
She was not a deliberator. She was an adventure eagle.
I called out, taunting them.
“ZzzzZZZt! Here, boy!”
The brothers turned and snarled, showing me the sheen on their fangs and a ferocity that chilled the air.
“NO! Don’t! Come back! They’ll kill you!” I heard Pressa squawk. Even Ghubari started screaming for us to stop. But Migisi screeched and dove again, stirring up our scent for the carnivores and narrowly missing a paw swipe. She swept past two of the brothers and their raw meat breath, snatching at the ear of the third with her talons. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
The brothers chased us down the length of the road. It was on! Migisi flew fast, swift, and low, keeping us as bait to engage them in the hunt. And then we were approaching a cluster of familiar western white pines and a horrible acrid smell filled our noses. The outstretched fingers of pine limbs loomed before us. Migisi dove to avoid them. My skull rattled, filled with a thunderous roar. A tiger had caught up. Migisi tilted hard to avoid the tiger who thrust himself into the air as she’d lowered. I felt his claw swipe and barely miss us, a cold gust on my feathers. I was thrown from Migisi, smacking down onto overgrown grass. I jumped to my feet, orienting myself. Migisi hovered close by, above the tigers, all three of them now stalking her, inching forward, teeth and wrinkled noses and rumbling fury. Her great wings beat the air like twin cloaks. Her legs thrust forward, deadly black talons clenched and extended like two grappling hooks. Glassy eagle screams rose to the pine crowns. She couldn’t see the western white pine right behind her.
“Migisi! Behind you!” I yelled.
She didn’t see the gigantic, intricate web—a silver tapestry knit among pine limbs—or the encased body suspended in its sticky grip. Her left wing swept backward, colliding with the gluey mass. And it stuck.
“Migisi! NO!” I shrieked. She screamed back, thrashing to free her left wing. The wing was pinned, delicate dark feathers fused to slime. Now she was within lunging distance of the big cats. The smaller tiger, the one with hunt in him, crouched. He would be the one to take her down. His brothers had accepted this. He readied to pounce.
“Wait!” I screamed. “Look! Come for me! Look at my shitty wing!” I sprung forward as fast as I could, dangling my droopy wing as bait, hoping I’d get there in time, hoping I didn’t have to watch them tear apart an adventure eagle.
My head darted, eyes searching the ground around me—tools, MoFos use tools. Rocks; there were rocks around. I snatched a sharp-edged stone in my beak, but it was no use. I was still too far away. The tiger was about to vault.
A deafening sound sliced through our skin. It sounded like a train scraping on tracks. We flinched. The tigers spun away from Migisi, ears flattened. We had company.
Strange creatures, neither MoFo nor arachnid, focused their hideous heads—those black eye holes—on the three big cats that paced in panic. Then the tigers stilled themselves. They lowered their bodies and I saw a ridge of fur rise on their backs. One let out a huffing sound, a low, shuddering warning. In response, one of The Weavers let loose a metallic scream. I hurtled to the western white pine and the horrible web that imprisoned Migisi. She thrashed violently, in danger of snagging her other wing.
“Stay calm! Don’t thrash! Use your beak now. Quick, you have to bite at it, Migisi!” I yelled from the ground below her. She stopped flapping, hanging by her captured wing, raking at the tangled white mass with her knifelike beak. With a sharp rip, she slumped onto the grass next to me. A small snowing of feathers fell around her. Migisi righted herself, mouth open in a panicked pant, and stretched out her wings. The newly freed wing was fused with sticky web and wouldn’t extend. Our eagle was flightless. She hopped helplessly. Her beak pecked desperately at the glue on her feathers. I looked over at the tigers creeping toward The Weavers, then snatched a stick from the ground.
“Don’t move! Whatever you do, don’t touch the web strands!” I told her. I lifted the stick in my beak to her wing, rolling it over the silver strings. They adhered to my stick in shiny sugar-spun wisps like the cotton candy cones at the Evergreen State Fair. I rolled the strand, teasing the last of the web from her dark plumage.
Migisi’s wings spread like some great mythical creature, power in every pinion. She burst from the grass, snatching me up in those great black grappling hooks, lifting us up into the tree crowns. She perched on a thick branch with trembling legs and worked hard on her breathing.
And then came a fight. The tigers formed their formidable triangle as The Weavers launched toward them. They moved as spiders but with heads craned forward like sick MoFos, mandibles leaking fluid as they screamed their wrath. The tigers used their power, claw and tooth, to rip off limbs. The Weavers bit and swiped their angled legs and used their size to hold ground against the cats. The largest tiger brother took on two of The Weavers, standing on his hind legs as he delivered powerful blows, roaring to bring the sky down upon them. The Weavers outnumbered them—five I counted; their movements were mechanical and fast and they drove their mandibles into orange fur causing the cats to burst into frenzied attack. Three Weavers scuttled like great ticks toward the second tiger. One screeched, snatched the striped tail between its fangs and palps, bit down hard. The tiger bellowed, whirled, sank its teeth into the face of the hideous creature—right near those black, black holes—and the two other Weavers, waiting for their chance, leapt onto the great cat, knocking him to his side. They sunk their fangs into him mechanically as he thrashed and fought beneath them. One opened its mouth and let out a sound, a dental drill’s wail. Then they lifted their dark abdomens where there were openings and out from those openings poured slimy silk. They moved quickly, wrapping their binds around the cat who fought and fought.
“No,” I said, under my breath. “No, no, no…”
The three Weavers worked in unison, mimicking nature’s mechanical engineers, wicked and strong with the prodigious powers of a spider.
But the tigers had something else. Two of the striped cats each pounced on a Weaver who spun a tiger in silks. With one vicious swipe, the largest cat tore a Weaver’s face off, clean as sliced
sushi. Migisi cried out, cheering on the carnage. The second largest tiger brother lunged, sending his claws to his brother’s aid, driving the horrible creatures—one now faceless and twitching—away from his web-wrapped bulk. The bound tiger wriggled and roared, slicing himself free of slimy binds. He leapt to his paws, shaking off slime. His eyes filled with fire—cats fucking hate to be wet. His body tensed, readying to join his rescuers in their attack. The tigers had evolutionary advantage. And this is what I’d been banking on. They were masters, commanders of nature’s killing instincts. The Weavers were new, underdeveloped, and were about to get ripped to shreds by their seasoned opponents.
We watched them getting dismantled, with their foul-smelling saliva and their sickly gray skin. I had learned about tigers from a National Geographic documentary that had triggered this whole bait idea, from a channel dedicated to MoFos’ reverence of the natural world. Two million years of predatory instinct could not be denied and as a Weaver’s head was swiped clean off its twisted body, I allowed myself an iota of relief. The power of instinct had killed my Dennis and now I was harnessing it to save our skins. Below, the mood changed. Where there was war, there was now a little playfulness, and as the largest tiger continued his work dispatching the faceless Weaver, his younger brother picked up a sickly, pallid limb, dragging it to the base of a pine trunk. He would dismantle it in his own time with the cool confidence of a cat.
Our work was done here. Migisi had rested enough to take to the sky once more, this time back to Dennis. Ghubari and Pressa close by, we swooped down, my heart chiming at the sight of the elephant herd, still in close proximity to Dennis, though no longer by his side. Now, they pulled the leaves off nearby trees with their trunks, their soulful presence a welcome zen. And I was about to disrupt it all. Ghubari and Pressa screamed and squawked, raising the alarm. Great gray ears and powerful trunks lifted upward to take in the odd sight—a crow, an African gray, and a bald eagle being ridden by another crow (very handsome). Raccoons saw us, goats did, lascivious squirrels and moles and blue-bottomed flies. But they weren’t who I was looking for. I was looking for the domestic dogs, who were all still there, milling around near Dennis where we’d left them on 164th Street. They all looked up to the sky with the other animals and cocked their heads at the cluster of birds and their cacophonous rally cries.
Migisi swooped right down in among the packs of dogs, Labradors, boxers, spaniels, and shepherds, brushing their fur with the tips of her flight feathers. I could smell their earthy doggy smell, which lit a fire inside me as I puffed out my chest and in my very best Big Jim voice yelled, “ZzzzZZZt! Good boy! COME!”
The first to leap to their feet were the shepherds, retrievers, a Doberman, and the collies. Fur along the ridges of spines stood to attention; black, wet noses lifted to the sky. Then, perhaps caught up in the excitement or by the familiar calls from another life they must have missed in their marrow, others leapt up and joined us. Instincts. Migisi, my fearless friend and majestic beauty, stayed low with the mass of slobbering canines, some lightning fast, others plodding but with that contagious fervor that is second nature to a dog. And I sang out the MoFo words, “ZzzzZZZt! COME! Let’s go!” and they pounded after me with their moist panting and their irrepressible enthusiasm and hearts as big as blue whales.
We ran, with a sky full of cheering birds adding to excitement that already split up the sky with its lightning streaks. And it might be hard for you to imagine, but we ran like this—dog pack following low-flying eagle and crow speaking MoFo—for a long time. Migisi didn’t give up. I—part MoFo, part crow, and proud to be caught in the middle of the two—didn’t give up. The dogs didn’t give up (well, some of them did, but French bulldogs and pugs have respiratory issues). More birds joined us in feather and spirit and more dogs trailed after the gargantuan pack. And eventually, we were at Bothell Landing.
The air at the park was dark with mobbing birds. New murders had joined our Sky Sentinels and were attacking The One Who Conquers from above. The orangutans had arrived at the park. The young ones threw rocks from the safety of the grand firs. Their mother was at ground level, advancing toward the wolves, the birds mobbing them, buying her time. The male orangutan bared his teeth and coughed out warning calls as he swung his weight behind his fist and struck a wolf across its muzzle. The wolf yelped and fell, springing back up to sink its teeth into its enemy—the long, ginger arm. The orangutan’s hissing clowder of cats—streaks of ginger, brown, black, and white—arched their backs, swiping and lunging at predators many times their size without mercy. That insane tabby threw himself again and again at the wolves, evading the white menace of carnivorous canines, fueled by an endless ferocity. The wolf pack had done a lot of damage and the grass was littered with the bodies of fallen brethren.
I couldn’t yet bear to look for Kraai. I had to focus. With one final, “ZzzzZZZt! Let’s GO!” Migisi and I drew the pack into the clearing in the park and drove the mass of thundering domestic dogs into the wolf pack. And the wolves, who were so greatly outnumbered and sharp enough to recognize it, scattered. Migisi perched and we watched as the mass of domestic dogs—terrorizers of squeaky toys everywhere—chased away The One Who Conquers. Even the four snow-white sisters, tails tucked between legs, vanished into the tree line like distant moons.
Chapter 35
Coming Up For Air
(the song of a humpback whale)
The soft prayer of seaweed; kelp fronds sway their salute
at the mercy of the waves.
Listen, their song holds the key to unlock living,
like brain coral’s clever creases, its grooved wisdom
or the sparks from the sentimental skin of an eel.
Ocean’s voice is old, graveled with salt,
crusty as a barnacle whose life was spent
dreaming of wings.
The whims of a minnow echo in dappled liquid light,
magnified one million times so that they flash and flaunt
like the spray of my breach.
There are no small splashes.
Our fins follow a journey made by a pulsing map
in the chambers of our hearts,
driftwood dreams of warmer waters
guiding us past a great garbage patch;
the last of Man’s excess spilling into world of wave.
All is not lost.
Whoever forgets to come up for air
will wash up on shallow shoreline.
Beach.
Filling lung or gill is an act of faith;
swim forth come ripples of blue or ribbons of blood.
Baleen ballad and spume smile,
we will remember to count blessings like grains of sand,
and always come up for air.
Chapter 36
Nomadic Wanderings Across Washington State, USA
(Sho’lee`tsah, female wolf of nomadic blended wolf pack)
There is a great change in the world and we feel a greater one coming. And so we must keep light, silent as the snakes that sway the grass. Watching you from the shadows, our golden eyes are filled with flame. We are led by the sisters, white as bone, who paint the land with their paws on borrowed time. We are hunted.
We sing by light of a Great Moon who dances in silver along the rivers and reminds the ocean how to breathe. We, all of us we, sing as one. Our song is for those who have left us, for those who are brave in their bones, for those who cannot sing. We sing to remember. We sing to celebrate a cloudy wisp of breath. And always, we sing for The Pack.
Howl out old pain. It is a soft and sonorous magic.
The Changed Ones are all around us, growing their packs. Swift on our paws, we must cover more ground and find refuge in the secrets the land has buried, listening to the wisdom of the water. The woods carry sounds in their slow rhythms, sounds that only a heart can hear.
Fight for your family. Protect the land that holds you.
We move as one because we are one. The code of wolf is
family, The Pack is why we rise. We wander for miles, home in our hearts, guarding our pups with the fiery wrath of a sky storm. For our enemies, the end is swift and red. You will not see us coming.
But now, we are hunted anew.
We must roam, guided by the season’s smell and the toothy gnaw of hunger. We are mountain wild and never lonely. The Pack will fight to thrive, for the dream of a den and the loud smell of a newborn pup. We all begin and end in blood, life’s liquid. Roam, rove, conquer the land with our bodies. We are never lost and we never arrive, as The Pack seeks the journey. And as we protect The Pack from the hunters, we will fall in love with each moment, singing to a moon that has loved us since we were stars.
Chapter 37
S.T.
Destination Unknown
We had been successful in driving off The One Who Conquers and, for now, had earned ourselves one of the luxurious moments of this life—stories shared by a fire I built (a match-in-the-beak party trick Big Jim taught me and now they all thought I was Hermione from fucking Harry Potter). We enjoyed each other’s company, and a bag of marshmallows that we tore open and roasted on small twigs, as I extolled the virtues of MoFos, such as the varied histories of different cultures, the beauty in their physical differences, their creations, laughter, and love. I told them about how MoFos dedicate an hour to happiness every day with Pabst Blue Ribbon and heavily discounted tater tots. I told them about how even though MoFos weren’t born with wings, they made their own and put them on airplanes and maxi pads, and about how they flushed all their poops out to Echo—the crows thought this was super hilarious. I explained birthday cake as a spongy mattress of awesome with hidden rivers of delicious goo to celebrate having stayed alive a whole year. I explained how MoFos measured time in German boobs and how their eyes rained when they were sad and also happy. I demonstrated—with a lot of flair—how moonwalking was different from walking on the moon. I had a hell of a time trying to explain Christmas, so I summarized it as “a fat MoFo in a red suit died and then came back and cached his treasures in a big red bag and sometimes MoFos went to the mall to sit on his crotch.” I taught them commercial jingles and Seattle’s signature song “Smells Like Team Spirit” and we practiced the “hello, hello, hello, heeelloooo” part. We practiced the impossible pronunciation of “rural brewery” together. I told them about dancing and the wonder of books and the world’s greatest poet, Jon Bon Jovi. A favorite thing was when I talked about the food palace called Denny’s and its magical dish of eggs and ham and cheese and sauce—man, they fucking loved that shit. Sometimes out of nowhere they’d just chant, “Moons Over My Hammy! Moons Over My Hammy!” Honestly, they became big MoFo fans; I’m pretty sure I converted them all. There were, sadly, some things that were just impossible to explain, like the plot of Inception and CrossFit.
Hollow Kingdom Page 27