by H. Robert Barland
Her scent was that of the warm grass of summer. And sunflowers. I still smell her now, I think, but the scent dwindles as does the image of her in my mind. I try to hold onto it, pull her grey furred shape into focus, but the more I try, the more she slips away. The ghost of her memory wafts through my paws liked winter fog. I wince. Concentrating… it makes my head ache.
To keep her from disappearing altogether, I direct my focus elsewhere, to the machine, the Contraption. It sits a tail-length beyond the safety of my hide. The gleaming steel bar is poised to strike. Today it is baited with a fat pumpkin seed. It’s a trick. I see through its false promise. I turn back into my hide, to await the day when the Contraption works its magic again, when it transforms from a machine of pain to one of wonder.
Oh, I know they think me mad, my fur matted, my teeth grown so long. They think the blow to my head — that split open my furred scalp to the bone and cracked the same — shook something loose. They are wrong. They don’t know the Contraption’s promise. The secret that took her from me.
For now.
I remember her. And that day. A frolicker, that’s how I’d describe her. She loved to frolic. The mediocrity of walking wasn’t for her. Whenever we went anywhere, it was always at a run. And she’d jump. She was fearless and lean. She soared when she leapt, laughing all the while. I couldn’t help but laugh, too.
It had been her idea to sneak into the human’s house that day. Adventure drew her forth, a siren’s song that sang a melody of new places, new things, new experiences. She drew me with her. I loved her and her frolics. How could I not?
We widened the gap in the wall of the human’s house. In front of us lay the device I would come to call the Contraption. I wasn’t fearless like her. I was wary and remained in the wall, always the shadow to her light, but she tumbled thought the hole and ran to investigate the machine. I could smell newly-sawn wood and oiled metal. Such smells worried me, but not her. Under those alien smells, was that of sunflower seeds. She loved sunflower seeds, her namesake. I remember the way she’d looked back at me hidden in the wall; the way her whiskers twitched with delight, as she poked her head under the raised arm of the Contraption and began to nibble at the seed on the plate.
That moment is lost in the fog of my head. I remember the snap, or at least, I think I do. I remember being startled and falling. When I awoke, dried blood matted the fur on my head, and she was gone.
The Contraption remained, its arm raised again. A crumb of fragrant cheese now replaced the sunflower seeds. Pain filled my heart. I could still smell her scent mixed with that of the Contraption. I’d sagged to the ground and fell into a shuddering, fevered sleep. It was then the Contraption spoke to me, offering a dark promise of reunion.
* * *
The snap wakes me. Some idiot pup, barely out of the nest, has tried to take the seed. I hear the Contraption being bashed against the wall. I poke my head out of my hide. The steel arm has caught the pup across the back and his hind legs are limp. Though diminutive, he had the strength of youth. His struggles have flipped the Contraption over. His chest rises and falls, his breathing laboured. His bulging eyes catch mine, pleading and I see that strength fading with each breath.
I do nothing. I will do nothing. He does not comprehend the importance of the Contraption. I turn away before the rise and fall of his chest ceases.
He has been judged, and he is unworthy.
* * *
The Contraption snaps again. This time I do not look. Crouching in the dark, I turn in circles. My claws have shredded the surface of the beam. The wood looks like fur. Her fur. My stomach issues a complaint, and I am forced to obey. I nose my way out of my hole. Pain lances through my skull as the weeping wound on my head brushes the edge. I suck in a hiss and wait for the pain to recede, a throbbing that undulates in time with the beating of my heart.
By the time I reach her, the doe is already dead. She was old, exhausted. She would have died soon anyway. Blood trickles from her snout, seeping into the coarsely sawn wood of the Contraption.
The metallic scent of the blood obscures that of my Sunflower. Anger flares within me. How dare this doe allow her filthy blood to contaminate Sunflower’s memory? I rip bread out of the dead doe’s mouth, plunging the soft morsel into my maw. It is wet. I grimace at the sensation and remove it. It is stained red. I hadn’t tasted the blood, or if I had, I hadn’t cared enough for it to register. The blood glistens, crimson in the dark light.
My stomach complains again. I retreat to my hide. I eat, thinking of my mate. Sunflower had been chosen, chosen to go wherever the Contraption sent the worthy. It had to be a special place. She deserved that and it couldn’t be anything less.
I must be patient, to wait for that wondrous day, when the sunflower seeds appear again and when the Contraption will sing its song to me. A siren song of sunflower seeds and spring steel. I will go to it and be judged worthy.
And I will see her again.
* * *
About the Author
H. Robert Barland is a teacher, Viking re-enactor and black-belt martial artist. A former climber, film extra, and resident of the UK, he has now returned to Newcastle, Australia where he lives with his wife and two boys. He considers himself well adapted for life on land and can be followed on BlueSky (@hrobertbarland.bsky.social), Instagram (@h.robertbarland) and X (@hrobertbarland).