My mind had had enough. My mind gave everything up. I gave it all up in the moment. I wanted nothing of me left, nothing they could put back together. Would’ve smashed it with a rock until you couldn’t recognize it. But that was just my mind. My body didn’t agree. My body wanted to fight back. My body wanted to murder them all until the walls were covered in blood and the floor and it smashed down the door to that place. My body knew what my mind did not.
Would there ever be a way out?
Dread coordinates. A compass in my head that spun wild. Picked up the scent. Found the trail. Disintegrated into molecules.
Fragments are what I have.
the coded sky and the scaffolding
brought to the other place through the eye
there came the blurring speed, the blurring of speed
and the stillness in the midst of motion
there was the burning speed and the stillness
the stillness and the burning speed
putting me to the torch putting me to
putting me where i did not
want to be
My house was full of holes already, so they sent me down another. All the burrows of the dark, of the night sky. The stars changed above me, but I was constant beneath them. I was astronaut and spaceship both. I had no suit. Just my fur. I had no instruments. Just my brain. Devoured, I vaulted space and time. Devoured, I became other other. Another.
What would be the story I made up to understand. I hadn’t the luxury. I had to know what it actually was. I had to know. And slowly … I did.
Maw tunnel burrow maw.
The first time. Wondrous terrible devouring but still alive. The four panels of mouth unspooling in breach and sough. All encompassing. Breathy and close. The wind rising with the glint of stars within. Oh that close, close friend, chained to me those many months. Untethered only a day, and now the Company fed me to the maw and kept feeding me. Told me to think of it as burrow, but no burrow plunged toward you. No burrow lay thick around and breathed. No burrow made of you in your bubble of air a morsel.
Implosion. Launched. Acceleration and pressure. Until nothing lay around me but darkness and fragments of time that slithered and knocked against me and with the rumble or growl the fresh green beatific scent of corpse. Was I dying to live? Was I released elsewhere as haunt or curling question where once had been flesh? I could hear as up above in the dark of throat a glimmer of deep sound, of sound that held me distant, that cocooned in sonorous discharge the friction of the travel. The hum of engines of flesh. The function of a creature that lived to transport.
O in the middle. Weightless. Thoughtless without guile. Without body. Without mind. The stars not wrapped around me, but something else. Something elemental. The worlds seen through scrim and skin. No space between me and … everything.
It was over in seconds or days or centuries. I was a fiery tail chasing a mind. I was a mind tumbling end over end until the halt.
Vertigo and bewildering color, too sharp for a fox’s eyes, and I came to rest on the verge of a vast plateau of wildflowers, their scent the pinprick of itch in some places and the solace of velvet in others. Over the edge to which I’d tumbled and dug in my back paws: a desolation of black ravines and riven places stuck through with machines like mausoleums.
Behind me: nothing. No old friend to devour me back to where I had been. No hint of what had delivered me here.
The shattered splinters of my bones reconstituted. The matter behind my skull bone floated, spun, reconstituted. My legs were my own again. My mind, some semblance.
Then, sudden, from eclipse: the sun. Earth, stung pleasant with the sweet of earthworm and opulent beetle. I dearly wished the joy of triangulation, the pounce based on a good ear’s geometry.
But what was I to do here, before hauled back, unwilling servant? Just be: here. All the dead told me that. All the other animals that had failed to survive this journey. Returned in seconds, rancid flayed broken smudges shoveled off to the side. Burned. Bagged. Fed back to other animals that wanted nothing of that meal.
My eyes were the Company’s eyes. I was their creature. I’d be caged again. I’d be chained. But I was a fox, nothing human, even now, and so I ran across that meadow like a blue flame. I ran and ran like something free and something natural and something that knew his destination. I hunted there in that strange place as if the past had never happened, could not touch me.
Until the next time. Until a hundred next times. Oh, I could not say there was no sting, no hind-thought, no scratch of leg on ear. But the grass felt so good. The grass felt so good.
By mistake, they’d gotten it right enough the first time.
Not the second. Not the third. Not the fourth.
A room is no longer there. Does it still exist?
All the false, wrong coordinates I would occupy. Occupying spaces I wasn’t meant to occupy. As they perfected the process. Screaming into the dirt. Screaming into space. Pulled under and through. Dissected. Disembodied. Sent out again.
They even made me like it, sometimes. They made me think of burrows. Of the underground. Of being an explorer. My first human thought. They petted me. They fussed over me. They made me feel brave. And when they tried to pry out my mind, instead they opened up theirs to me. Tunnels. Burrows. I dug my way into them and out into the light.
So I died and then they solved me again, as fox, and I lived again in time to be sent back, to another part of the map. As if I were compass and creature both. There came a whine in the tissue, in the sinews. I feel it still. From the stress of it. If I had not gotten free. If I had not stepped free of it. I might be dying still. Resurrected still.
I couldn’t stop them from extracting the intel like sapphires hidden behind my eyes. In my brain. Extracting them with pliers. I was the intent. Shining darkly on their sensors. Reporting back. Through my skin. Though I didn’t want to. Inhabited by the relics of worms and leeches and other things that lived inside of me. For a time.
But I grew strong in my invisible globe. They sought to un-fox me, but I out-foxed them. And in the end, they seeded their realities with me. By mistake. Too many microbes and parasites and symbiotes in their broth. Unintended ecosystems that spoke to me.
I remember Charlie, when I returned desiccated, husked, and they put me back together, gathered coordinates and data from me. Charlie did not in those days have an X by his name or over his eyes, sported not a bat head but instead a kind of smooth soft whiteness that wobbled like an imperfect satellite in decaying orbit.
“Was it beautiful?”
“You would not understand.” But I did not yet have the curse of human speech, so he heard only yapping.
“But was it beautiful?”
“Someday, Charlie, I’ll kill you, and that—that will be beautiful.”
But I never did kill him, and in time I almost forgot him, even though now he haunts me every night. Haunts me every day. Child, I can look down from this haunted spot and see him, but he’s forgotten me.
There were times I despaired. On missions to such faraway places. Entered such dark places fated to explore only death, where my thoughts wandered from me as if separate from my mind. Dark eyes staring from the corner of dank burrows. The glint of the eye, that was my trauma, barking back at me.
A terrible joy. A joy in sadness and in pain. A joy, even, in contemplating death.
In time, my fur turned blue. Unintended side effect? A color caught from the lab or from the journey? Anointed by something out there, in transit?
Nothing I say with words can be enough.
In time, the Company found what it needed, colonized, spread like contagion.
In time, too, I escaped, yes.
But I wasn’t free.
ii.
to the dead people
They killed us with traps. They killed us with poisons. They killed us with snares. They killed us with guns. They killed us with knives. They strangled us. They trampled us. They tore us apart with ho
unds. They baited steel-jawed traps. They starved us out. They burned us alive. They withheld water. They killed all our prey. They slit our throats. They filled in our burrows. They drowned us. They trampled us under horses’ hooves. They bred us for fur and bludgeoned us to death. They kept us in cages so small with so many we burst apart. They suffocated us with poison gas. They strangled us. They put us in sacks and beat us with clubs. They cut out our tongues so we bled to death. They skinned us alive. They detonated rock and stopped our hearts all unknowing. They swung us by our tails and smashed our skulls against stones. They murdered us in each and every year. They murdered us on each and every day. They killed us with traps. They killed us with poisons. They killed us with snares. They killed us with guns. They killed us with knives. They strangled us. They trampled us. They tore us apart with hounds. They baited steel-jawed traps. They starved us out. They burned us alive. They withheld water. They killed all our prey. They slit our throats. They filled in our burrows. They drowned us. They trampled us under horses’ hooves. They bred us for fur and bludgeoned us to death. They kept us in cages so small with so many we burst apart. They suffocated us with poison gas. They strangled us. They put us in sacks and beat us with clubs. They cut out our tongues so we bled to death. They skinned us alive. They detonated rock and stopped our hearts all unknowing. They swung us by our tails and smashed our skulls against stones. They murdered us in each and every year. They murdered us on each and every day. They killed us with traps. They killed us with poisons. They killed us with snares. They killed us with guns. They killed us with knives. They strangled us. They trampled us. They tore us apart with hounds. They baited steel-jawed traps. They starved us out. They burned us alive. They withheld water. They killed all our prey. They slit our throats. They filled in our burrows. They drowned us. They trampled us under horses’ hooves. They bred us for fur and bludgeoned us to death. They kept us in cages so small with so many we burst apart. They suffocated us with poison gas. They strangled us. They put us in sacks and beat us with clubs. They cut out our tongues so we bled to death. They skinned us alive. They detonated rock and stopped our hearts all unknowing. They swung us by our tails and smashed our skulls against stones. They murdered us in each and every year. They murdered us on each and every day. They killed us with traps. They killed us with poisons. They killed us with snares. They killed us with guns. They killed us with knives. They strangled us. They trampled us. They tore us apart with hounds. They baited steel-jawed traps. They starved us out. They burned us alive. They withheld water. They killed all our prey. They slit our throats. They filled in our burrows. They drowned us. They trampled us under horses’ hooves. They bred us for fur and bludgeoned us to death. They kept us in cages so small with so many we burst apart. They suffocated us with poison gas. They strangled us. They put us in sacks and beat us with clubs. They cut out our tongues so we bled to death. They skinned us alive. They detonated rock and stopped our hearts all unknowing. They swung us by our tails and smashed our skulls against stones. They murdered us in each and every year. They murdered us on each and every day. They killed us with traps. They killed us with poisons. They killed us with snares. They killed us with guns. They killed us with knives. They strangled us. They trampled us. They tore us apart with hounds. They baited steel-jawed traps. They starved us out. They burned us alive. They withheld water. They killed all our prey. They slit our throats. They filled in our burrows. They drowned us. They trampled us under horses’ hooves. They bred us for fur and bludgeoned us to death. They kept us in cages so small with so many we burst apart. They suffocated us with poison gas. They strangled us. They put us in sacks and beat us with clubs. They cut out our tongues so we bled to death. They skinned us alive. They detonated rock and stopped our hearts all unknowing. They swung us by our tails and smashed our skulls against stones. They murdered us in each and every year. They murdered us on each and every day. They killed us with traps. They killed us with poisons. They killed us with snares. They killed us with guns. They killed us with knives. They strangled us. They trampled us. They tore us apart with hounds. They baited steel-jawed traps. They starved us out. They burned us alive. They withheld water. They killed all our prey. They slit our throats. They filled in our burrows. They drowned us. They trampled us under horses’ hooves. They bred us for fur and bludgeoned us to death. They kept us in cages so small with so many we burst apart. They suffocated us with poison gas. They strangled us. They put us in sacks and beat us with clubs. They cut out our tongues so we bled to death. They skinned us alive. They detonated rock and stopped our hearts all unknowing. (Everywhere we walk, the desert gives way to the ghosts of trees, of streams.) They swung us by our tails and smashed our skulls against stones. They murdered us in each and every year. They murdered us on each and every day. They killed us with traps. They killed us with poisons. They killed us with snares. They killed us with guns. They killed us with knives. They strangled us. They trampled us. They tore us apart with hounds. (We walk forests like you walk a room you built.) They baited steel-jawed traps. They starved us out. They burned us alive. They withheld water. They killed all our prey. They slit our throats. They filled in our burrows. They drowned us. They trampled us under horses’ hooves. They bred us for fur and bludgeoned us to death. They kept us in cages so small with so many we burst apart. They suffocated us with poison gas. They strangled us. They put us in sacks and beat us with clubs. They cut out our tongues so we bled to death. They skinned us alive. They detonated rock and stopped our hearts all unknowing. They swung us by our tails and smashed our skulls against stones. They murdered us in each and every year. They murdered us on each and every day. They killed us with traps. They killed us with poisons. They killed us with snares. They killed us with guns. They killed us with knives. They strangled us. They trampled us. They tore us apart with hounds. They baited steel-jawed traps. They starved us out. They burned us alive. (But what is too much to bear?) They withheld water. They killed all our prey. They slit our throats. They filled in our burrows. They drowned us. (Not being alive.) They trampled us under horses’ hooves. They bred us for fur and bludgeoned us to death. They kept us in cages so small with so many we burst apart. They suffocated us with poison gas. They strangled us. They put us in sacks and beat us with clubs. They cut out our tongues so we bled to death. They skinned us alive. (So we kept being alive even as they destroyed us.) They detonated rock and stopped our hearts all unknowing. They swung us by our tails and smashed our skulls against stones. They murdered us in each and every year. (So we buried our secrets though they tried to extinguish our secrets with us.) They murdered us on each and every day. They killed us with traps. They killed us with poisons. They killed us with snares. They killed us with guns. They killed us with knives. They strangled us. They trampled us. They tore us apart with hounds. They baited steel-jawed traps. They starved us out. They burned us alive. They withheld water. They killed all our prey. They slit our throats. They filled in our burrows. They drowned us. They trampled us under horses’ hooves. They bred us for fur and bludgeoned us to death. They kept us in cages so small with so many we burst apart. They suffocated us with poison gas. They strangled us. They put us in sacks and beat us with clubs. They cut out our tongues so we bled to death. They skinned us alive. They detonated rock and stopped our hearts all unknowing. (Up until this very day.) They swung us by our tails and smashed our skulls against stones. They murdered us in each and every year. They murdered us on each and every day. They killed us with traps. They killed us with poisons. They killed us with snares. They killed us with guns. They killed us with knives. They strangled us. They trampled us. They tore us apart with hounds. They baited steel-jawed traps. They starved us out. They burned us alive. They withheld water. They killed all our prey. They slit our throats. They filled in our burrows. They drowned us. They trampled us under horses’ hooves. They bred us for fur and bludgeoned us to death. They kept us in cages so small with so many we burst apart. They suffocated us with poison gas. T
hey strangled us. They put us in sacks and beat us with clubs. They cut out our tongues so we bled to death. They skinned us alive. They detonated rock and stopped our hearts all unknowing. (They keep coming; they never stop.) They swung us by our tails and smashed our skulls against stones.
You couldn’t kill us all.
What is too much to bear? Not being alive is too much to bear. We kept being alive even as they destroyed us. We kept our secrets though they tried to extinguish our secrets with us. Still we died. Still we lived. Up until this day.
A fox must set itself on fire to become human, the old myths say. But they never say whether if you set a human on fire they become a fox. Perhaps because no human could live up to being a fox. You are a common species. Or were a common species. A common. In the commons. A common domain.
After I escaped, I lived in a cabin up in the woods for a time. Which woods when is unimportant.
Let me tell you a story about a story I read in the cabin. In the story, there was a parrot imprisoned for sixty years. At the end of the story, the parrot forgave his captor because his captor was an astronomer and looked noble at the stars.
After I read that story, I started killing humans.
Made a sport of trapping humans. I trapped them, I snared them, I poisoned them. I shot them. I cut them. I used arrows on them. I drowned humans. I crushed them. I drove over them. All around in clearings you’d see dead humans. No one took any mind. All the mind was gone, in the place I’d chosen.
It was like a nightmare. It was like a dream. But I was a fox. How could I do any of that? Maybe it was a dream or a nightmare. Maybe it was just a story.
What do you think, human? Do you think I could do that?
A vast golden hotel shaped like a ship had fallen on its side into a ravine and could not right itself. All of the people had sloshed out of the pool at the top of the ark, fallen to their deaths. Their bodies lay rotting and dull red. Ripped apart, vessels filling up with mold and standing water. Faces frozen in less a scream than a monumental disbelief that their monument had failed them.
Dead Astronauts Page 17