The Awareness
Page 20
And then one night something happened, and when it did, it seemed as though this animal village had been secretly awaiting, silently fearing, this very moment.
A human appeared at the door of the converted store. An adult male. He had no shirt and his pink skin was blotched where the sun had struck him, his neck and back scratched where animals had torn into him. He was skeletal. His face was sunken with hunger, drained by thirst. His blue eyes darted around the storefront.
The animals who’d been busy preparing the evening meal stopped. The animals who napped during the early evening awoke. The animals who chipped or yawned or played with stones ceased those activities and focused on the withered being who had stumbled into their home.
The human was breathing hard. He tried to move back through the entrance, but something unseen pushed him toward the dozens of curious eyes lingering upon him.
The bear, who had been conversing with two stallions about the great mountains in western America, scanned the large room, sensing the change in mood. When he spotted the human, he did what he always did when he saw a newcomer. He went to greet him.
“Come. Sit.”
But the other animals didn’t crowd around the newcomer as they usually did. They didn’t strain their ears to hear his tales of war and peace. The bear clenched his jaw. He looked down at the cowering human. “Tell us how you arrived here.”
One of the horses had followed the bear. “Who cares how he got here?” he asked.
The bear turned. “I do.” He turned back to the human. “What do you need? We have food and drink.”
The horse glowered behind the bear’s back. The human continued to dart his eyes from animal to animal. He opened his mouth, but no sound emerged.
“It’s okay. No one will hurt you.”
And the bear’s tone made it known to everyone in the room that his statement was a fact.
“Things are bad,” the human said. “I’m not sure how I got here. Blind luck, I guess. Or fate.”
The animals began to crowd around him, smelling him, staring at him.
“I’m sorry,” the bear said. “But I think you can understand how having a human on the premises might be difficult.”
“I’ve heard of this place. I’ve heard it’s a respite from war. I didn’t really believe it existed. In fact, I walked in the front door by accident. We’ve been told that animals don’t like our vacated places. I had no idea I would find you here.”
The bear reached down and patted the human’s head. The human froze.
“Squirrel, set this man up with a bed. He needs rest.”
From a nearby shelf, the squirrel, who had instinctively hidden from the human, squeaked his acquiescence and went about his work.
The bear looked the newcomer over carefully. “You remind me of another human,” the bear said, “I met him a long time ago. I learned a great deal from him, although he never knew that.”
The human almost smiled. “You’re not the first animal I’ve talked to since I’ve been on my journey. But you have more to teach.”
The bear nodded. The human reminded him of something else, something he couldn’t quite identify.
Before the two could continue, another visitor surprised the room: a four-legged animal who burst in snarling, his charcoal mane frayed and matted with sweat and blood. His wild, iridescent eyes gleamed even in the pending dusk. The animal circled around the shivering human, and he howled.
The animals stood at attention.
“Wolf,” someone said in an awed whisper.
“The human belongs to me,” the animal said. “He is the enemy.”
Several animals cheered.
“He belongs to no one,” the bear replied. “We consider him a guest, as we do you. Can we get you something? Food? Drink?”
The animal looked out over the room. “I’ve heard of this place. The place the revolution forgot.”
“We’ve been called many things. Some worse, some better.”
“I have nothing against you, bear. But that human is mine.” He took a step towards the human, who inched backwards, as did many of the other animals.
“Please eat,” the bear said. One of the animals placed a dish of food before the newcomer. He sniffed it, but took none.
“I’m not here to eat. I’m here to kill.”
“We don’t kill in here.”
“But he’s human,” the animal growled.
“He’s no more at fault for being human than the mouse is for being a mouse or a bear a bear.”
“I’m not going to argue. While you all sit here quietly, we are out there, fighting. Dying. For the sake of the revolution, and honor and loyalty, let me take the human.”
Behind the bear a neat wall of animals had formed, listening and nodding. Now one of them stepped forward, like a brick falling out of place. A thin, scarred pig.
“Wolf,” the pig said, “you have the look of a great warrior. Here you will find many animals who have had just as much of a quarrel with the humans as you do. None worse than me. I joined the revolution, I fought bitterly, and I realized that I had arrived at another hell. And I was so tired. So tired. Like you.”
The newcomer looked confused and slightly irritated.
“What’s your name, wolf?” the pig asked. “Mine is 323.”
The cat, who until now had remained hidden in the shadows, stepped forward. “He’s not a wolf. He’s a dog.”
The animal took a step back. He could feel scores of eyes staring not at him, but through him, trying to see where wolf ended and dog began. They all knew the stories of dogs who had taken the sides of the humans, who fought against them. Here was one who fought for them.
“His name is Cooper,” the cat added. She stared at him, waiting for him to recognize her.
He started to speak, but it was as if the memory of his name, of the love he’d once felt when called by it, stopped him. He shook his dampened fur. He paced a bit, back and forth.
Then he said his name aloud—“Cooper”— and it hurt.
“Clio,” he said to the cat. They stared at each other, each seeing in the others’ eyes the worlds they had once known together, as well as how far they had grown apart. They both thought of a young woman.
“I won’t do this again,” Cooper said. “I can’t.”
“Do what?” Clio asked. She circled the dog, rubbing up against him the way she did when they were just two pets belonging to a friend. She purred.
“Let the humans get to me. Stop me from my task.” He paused. “You were the one who made me go.”
“I’ve grown up since then,” Clio said.
“How many have you killed?” another animal asked.
The dog searched the crowd for the voice. It seemed to echo off the ceiling. He thought a bat might have spoken and he lowered his eyes defensively.
“I don’t know. Many.”
“Did killing any of them make you feel better?”
The dog, confused, didn’t answer.
“I killed too, dog. I joined battles and fought and killed again. I tried to kill the right ones, but who can tell who deserves to die and who doesn’t? You can’t fix things by breaking them further.”
The animal pushed her way into the light and stood next to the pig. The impossibly large grey elephant stood formidable and proud, her ears twitching slightly. .
A boom echoed from somewhere far away in the war, snapping the atmosphere. The animals shifted their stances.
The dog closed his eyes. He felt the warmth of the cat near his body, just as he had when he was a puppy, and now once more he thought of that woman, someone he suddenly wanted to see.
“Why don’t you stay here for the night?” the bear asked. “Get some sleep.”
“What about the humans? There’s a party approaching. They were following me,” the dog said.
“How many are there?” the bear asked.
“Plenty.”
The animals burst into nervous chatter.
&n
bsp; “Enough,” the bear said, and the babble ceased.
The human spoke in a soft tremble. “Let me go. The humans. I can intercept them. I won’t tell them about this place. Just say it’s nothing but a wasteland. I can take them in another direction. And then I want to come back here.”
“And why should we let you come back?” the bear asked.
The human exhaled. His body was emaciated; his skin seemed more yellow than flesh-toned. He opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it. “Because I’m tired, too,” he finally said. He licked his lips, which were chapped and swollen. “I’m tired of the battle. And I know that you all must be, too.”
“So you want to come back here so you can rest?” the bear asked.
“Not to rest,” the human said. “To live. At first I didn’t understand why you revolted against us. Now I do. I want to come back. This is where I should live. This is where we should all live.”
The bear nodded.
“You would trust this human?” Cooper asked. “He will tell them where we are.” He glanced around. “They will kill you. Every one of you.”
“No. I will not do that,” the human said.
The bear looked the human over. Every part of his new awareness and his old perception were at work, every sense, every thought. The human looked straight back at him.
“What do you think?” the bear asked the other animals.
A confused murmur arose. At last, the bear answered for the colony. “Yes,” he said to the human. “But rest here tonight. You can leave tomorrow morning.”
“No,” the human replied. “They have the trail of the dog. They’ll follow it. I have to go now and cut them off, lead them elsewhere. I don’t know how I’ll get back here, but I will.”
The bear nodded. “Then let us feed you before you go.”
The animals murmured their agreement, now that the bear had found it for them, and they offered food and water. As the others attended to the human, 323 trotted over to Cooper and Clio. The three of them talked about their pasts and their lives since awareness. The pig’s soft, even tones calmed the dog, soothing his battle-scarred nerves. Clio occasionally licked the thicket of dirt and blood on her friend’s back, and Cooper responded by doing something he hadn’t done in a long time: He wagged his tail.
The bear and the elephant, whom the bear knew as Nancy, watched. “That pig is an unusually intelligent animal,” the elephant said.
The bear nodded.
“Do you think the human will do as he says?” she asked.
“Everything depends on it,” the bear replied.
“If he comes back, word will spread fast. It could make us a target. A human living among us.”
“I would like to think of it as someone good living among others who are good,” the bear said.
Nancy nodded. She leaned into the bear, just a little, so he could feel her weight upon him. In turn he leaned back against her for a few moments. Then, taking in a deep breath, he walked to the front of the store and rested one of his paws on the glass doors that he’d opened so many months ago. Outside, the wind swept loose leaves down the otherwise empty street. Some of them swirled up into an eddy, fell back to the asphalt, and then were picked up again and carried away.
Shifting his gaze, the bear saw in the reflection in the glass that the animals had moved. The pig was now resting comfortably on her haunches, talking to the elephant. The two animals laughed, which momentarily woke up the dog, who was lying next to them. He lifted his head, glanced around, realized there was no danger, and dropped his head back to the floor. The cat lay curled up next to him, eyes open. Next to her, the human was sitting on the floor, being fed by the squirrel.
The bear thought of the word “love,” he thought of the word “creation,” and he thought of his mother. He guessed that she would have liked it here, among the other animals in the colony. He imagined her, older and weaker, but still strong and noble, resting in the dusky aisles of the old human market, fattening up for winter, making jokes about the world, fate, her newfangled mind.
The noises outside, the sporadic sounds of war, were growing louder. But these commotions didn’t concern the bear; he neither feared them nor ignored them. He had faith in his future—in their future. He watched the human reach toward the resting dog and stroke the animal in a manner that seemed to soothe both species, and he understood that the past and the future were bound to meet at the present. He walked over to the dog, the elephant, the pig, and the human, and stretched his arms to touch all of them as best he could. If the present was destined to find them, there was no place he’d rather be found.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Edan Lepucki, Catie Disabato, Paul Bellaff, Linda Doyle, Miranda Spencer, and Madeline McDonnell for all their gracious help and guidance.
A special thanks to Luke Shanahan,
a great writer and a great friend.
About the Authors
Gene Stone (www.genestone.com) is a former
Peace Corps volunteer, journalist, and editor.
He is also the author or ghostwriter of thirty-five books, including Forks Over Knives.
A graduate of Loyola Marymount University,
Jon Doyle has been a restaurateur, screenwriter,
and a journalist. This is his first novel.
He lives in Los Angeles.