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Makai

It dances like two Thompson gazelle, this waterfall; males competing for a female. Their horns clash and their hooves strike the ground, pushing off. Dust drifting from beneath them, each strike a maximum expression of their ability to take and deliver pain. The clouds are falling and I see everything in their descent, the vast voluptuous waves of sand, cascading one into another, one into another. The metal beast that hissed eviscerating as it dropped, had landed some way away, the flames colouring the air a deep amber. Or maybe that was just my eyes bleeding across my vision. It hit me as I fell with a throttling indignation, I was falling, not the clouds. My back legs bent and braced, trying to find purchase on a platform that didn't exist. I threw up my paws, begging, was that not what she had been told to do all those times? I found nothing as I began to spiral, clawing, flailing desperately at the air.

The clouds were cold and damp to the touch.

It was beautiful, this waterfall, now so close and bounding towards me. The orb threw its pulsating light across its shifting scales, so much like the fish, yet there was no form to this. I reared up in the last instance, perhaps I could pull my body back from it, my tail curled tight against me.

Failure.

I had hunted the gazelle for the first, and final, time.

Darkness swept up to me as I fell. The water was long gone, I thought I'd be wet, but I felt nothing. I thought I would continue to fall, forever. I was not enjoying my first flight. I remember the heat as it fell, stiffening my fur and crusting my eyes. I blinked soft lids as it filled my lungs, I'd tried to cough but I couldn't get the air out as more rushed in. The steel hulk had fallen as a hurled stone down, down beneath me. Steel shards had torn from it, cutting me, crippling me, same metal as the shackles that had held me. Until they had come, with their petting and their soft, soft noises. Its show had ended far before mine. Fire. Heat. The grand finale of my closing act.

But now it was cold. I realised. There had been nothing before, but now there was cold. My fur stood on end and I tried to hunch up, to lie down, to conserve my heat. My paws echoed with excitement through my legs, and into my body, rippling with an anticipation hidden from the rest of me. I had felt this comfort before. The hands that warmed and comforted. I thought my show had ended too, but my body thought differently. The cold clambered up my body, but I was used to cold. I had always been fascinated by the snow at home. How it lay in wait, watching, until you were to breath on it, walk over it, bat it, nuzzle it, and it would melt away. Elusive prey was snow. He never worried that I might hurt myself, that the snow had dampened my body, had began to burn as the fire, as I slept in it. The blizzards occasionally bringing it into the tent, to fall across me in great swathes. Maybe it wouldn't have died if it hadn't touched me, sought me out seeking a playmate; why does everything I play with die? I noticed something had changed. My paws were quivering again, filling, an internal twitch no amount of itching would solve. Confusion caressed me. There was a brief remembrance of something having just been different, an inkling that what I was seeing wasn't what I'd seen, what I'd felt wasn't what I'd felt. I fell and I rose, I sat and I ran, I wept and I sang. They had said not to be scared, that it was over, that they would care for me and would feed me. That I was safe. Then they had fed me, given me water, stroked me. I had purred. An odd vibration alien to my throat, in all but those rare fleeting moments. The plane was finished and I was still on a ride, I wished only to lie down and to sleep. I sank and I rose, and finally, it spoke.

******************************

Makai fell through the air almost faster then my eyes could follow, I watched him disappear into the waterfall and vanish. I had tried to follow, but it was far, too far. I had run until my pads were reddened and burnt. I had been so alone in this place ever since I had left him, as he left me. Now he had left me again. There was a sharp sting in my step and I collapsed on my haunches, the sun radiated off my coat, a shade of innocence that sat ugly against me. The sun bore down on me and I lifted a large paw over myself to block it out, the dust spread out as I spread my weight across the ground, clouds that covered my coat in a reddened sheet. I looked out at the ambling limbs that dotted the barren landscape, as if some great being had cast out his bones from the sky and they had fallen here, sinking deep into the ground. I wondered if these were the skeletons, perhaps, of those that had died. Was my mother here? I buried my nose beneath my paws as the memories flooded in. My sisters? No, I told myself. The heat. Focus on the sun and the waterfall. Would I reach the waterfall and find a new branch where he had fallen, I wondered. I was the wolf, and the wolf was not to give into memories. I drew my legs in, beneath me, the stones and hard ground scraping against my soft fur and delicate skin. A long dust streak now lay across my leg as I rose, blinking into the sun I sniffed the cottoned air and followed the scent, always so distant.

******************************

"Makai" The oblittering voice spoke as a thousand snakes. It was as soft as snow and elusive as a cloud, a cloud of snow, Snow Cloud I named her. I recognised the voice, though they sounded like no one I had met, it was as kind as the blonde furred woman who had come first, the brown furred one who had fed me and bathed me, the red one who had petted me and given me water, and yet it sounded like none of them. The voices washed into one another, they were like the waterfall. They spoke to me of images etched into exultant peace, I felt the words as they flowed through every paw, every joint, every gently swaying blade of fur. I stood illuminated in the darkness, with every minute of every day of every year of suffering I had endured mingled with the joy, it blazed into life and cocooned me in emotion I had never before experienced. I remembered the faces of my life, the trainer who had struck and beat and taken, the women who had petted, cooed and fed, the crowd who had hissed, laughed, applauded, the plane that had fallen blazing brighter then even the sun it had seemed to me. Darkness chased silence. I let out a withheld breath, coughing. "Makai," it said, in a pitying tone, in a loving tone, "Look." I had thought of her as she had shown me her new wounds, noticeable only while the fur had been singed off, I shut my eyes. Bad memory. The whole world shifted, shook its head, "Look." Snow Cloud repeated, in stronger tones, as the darkness leant into me, I felt a hand comfort my entirety all at once and I sank into the touch. I watched.

The desert swept around me, removing the dark. I was again in the air, but I wasn't falling, I was moving along, parallel to the earth. The sky stretched blossoming blue above me, clouds of shifting forms lay far above, here a domed tent, there a cane, here a barred cage, now a wolf. And then there was a boy. A wreck. The plane wreck. A boy. A shivering boy. Alone. "Here." Snow Cloud said. "Watch." The view panned out and I saw trees, dunes. In the distance a river, grass, a forest. I blinked and I was at the forest. "Come" Snow Cloud continued, "Follow" I swept towards the forest, strange shrunken heads darted out to look at me, then zipped back in, birds fluttered out as a cloud sweeping past and through me. I descended down into the forest, into the claustrophobic dampened depths. The giant leaves were cold and wet to the touch as they brushed against me. Then I was gliding across the ground in the gloom until a light shone brilliant ahead. It looked like the lights of the city I had glimpsed from my cage during the fog. It grew in clarity and blinding brilliance. "You must come here Makai, you must lead." The pond filled me with such sensations as even Snow Cloud could not give. Then I was lifted up and away. I reached out for the pond but she carried me off, I spat and hissed and clawed but she pulled me up and up into the glorious starburst of the setting sun.

Confusion chased silence.

These weren't my memories, I never saw the crash from the ground as I'd landed in the water, far away, the endless barren land was odd, the first time I'd seen it from ground level had been just now. And the strange little human. I felt my focus sharpen. She, Snow Cloud, was holding my head as they used to do to show me something. I quaked to think what it was this time. The images flickered out with my fear, but Snow Cloud was not like those others, she was soothing, I calmed and they returned. And then it stopped. And then I stopped. I was back in the dark, now so much more focused then before. I wanted to ask who she was, what to do, who I was. Was I even Makai? "Makai." A warm, friendly voice. "Lead," She said, "Lead Makai. I...I cannot." I looked up, a face was forming, a silhouette of damp light. "They need you. Do not let them be led astray, only you may lead. You are pure, Makai, only you." I wanted to ask more, to speak more, "You have a voice Makai, use it" she chided. "Who are you?" I found myself saying, a strange sound, an odd sensation; I had never spoken to another before, only through action. Only one other had understood. "Makai," Snow Cloud spoke, "Not her." I blinked, wondered, confused. The face was clearing, the form clarifying, I stared hard. The walls cracked, the head lifted suddenly up and the darkness broke into a thousand brilliant sun shards. I flinched as water crashed next to me, the world leaping back into focus. My eyes red as I threw my head away from the world and the sleek, concern-furrowed wolf head that stared down at me. "Makai," she shouted, "MAKAI!"

Silent confusion pursued darkness, and I finally slept.

****************************

"You're wet," she declared, wet nose glistening in the midday light as her eyes danced disapprovingly over me, "and cold." I shivered and tried to stand before my rump collapsed to the ground, I shook out my paws. She'd dragged me to a tree, bristling with leaves nourished by the river that meandered near by, fast flung from the waterfall, and here she sat watching me with her back to the crashing aqua brilliance behind. My eyes narrowed at the unfair judgement, she would be to if she'd fallen into the bottomless torrent. "You're wetter, and your nose is cold." I retorted. She lowered her head as I lay at her feet, panting in the clawing heat, and raised her eyebrows. Disapproving. I looked away from the gaze, past her, at where I'd fallen. The grass was vibrant and thick in this narrow strand, running parallel to the river. The waterfall, through which the sun cast coloured beams that danced as droplets amidst the vast wall of water, soared from jagged ochre rock that towered above me, so much like the giraffes that were occasionally brought to the circus, only these would dwarf them, as if a hundred had been stacked one atop another and dusted, told to stand and not move lest they be beaten. Boulders also littered the bottom, great brown smudges in the grass that grew erratic, here a patch, there a patch, and across the desert a dusting of green. I worried that maybe one might fly off any moment and crush us, I tensed briefly before relaxing, she would drag me out the way. She, 'Sobaka' they had called her, was now licking her paw absent-mindedly, watching me watching the world. "Who bathed you?" I asked. Her coat was looking immaculate, a brightness I'd never noticed before, a soft white sheen that wavered in the light breeze, as if a river ran through her too, eyes empty hollows to the waters that ran deep within the creature-husk, "The same one that rescued you." She replied, staring at me fixedly, stopping her preening. I rose again, pushing myself off my side, curling my tail around me, like the statuettes of windowsill cats I had often seen around my old cage, my head scanned the horizon. No one was there. It must have been Snow Cloud, but I didn't think Sobaka really had been, Snow Cloud had been with me, not Sobaka. Sobaka was lying, and I told her so. Her brow creased in confusion as her head tilted, "No. There was no cloud or snow, there's no snow here, it's too hot. Anyway, I saved you. There was no one else around, I found you and I dragged you from the water. I saved you, no one else." The current bristled within her, I heard it pick up speed. "Where was I? How did you catch me?" I asked. She had been sitting, her tail flicking across the ground, a great white duster, sending up clouds of dust. Now she stood with her tail flaccid behind her. "I didn't catch you. I saved you from the water. I found you after you fell from the sky." But I'd been falling after I hit the ground, the water, had I been falling through water, had Sobaka swum down so far to reach me I wondered. "Maybe you saw Snow Cloud when you were down there? Did you see the boy? She liked me. Saved me from fall." The tail that had been so readily swishing moments before now stiffened, her teeth sunk back to reveal rows of teeth that glistened, the branch above her continued to rock in the wind as birds cawed over-head. She snarled deep, reverberations echoing through her body, through her chest, through the waters. "I saved you." She repeated, slow with emphasis on each word. "There was no Snow. There was no Cloud. There was no Snow Cloud, no Boy, no-one and nothing but me. I saved you. I crossed the desert, the sun burnt my hide, the wind was harsh and I went long days of walking. I reach you, I save you, and you're wet, you're cold, and you say that I haven't done anything. There is no joy. No welcome. You ignore me, and you say it is others that helped you. I helped you. I saved you. And I have no idea why. glupyj kot." She left, "Dasvidania Makai" And she began to walk towards the river, head low and tail drooping as I stared blankly.

*****************************

My skin cracked as I stood, looking about the blaze that fogged the air and clouded my mind. The sun sat slumped behind plumes of midnight smoke, coiling, melding into one sky that sat within arms reach. I spluttered and felt my throat tear, dropping to all fours I crawled away from the heat. Away from the smoke. Towards the few slithers of light I could see through tear blurred eyes. Cackling beside, behind, in front and around me was the fire caught in a fury that threatened to imprison me. Eventually, after I'd collapsed several times, I began to see more and more light, the heat began to recede and I found myself escaping the wreckage of the plane. I heard movement around me, shouting, crying, voices too distant to be distinguished, the light began to fade, not recede but dim, as if someone was covering me with a blanket, folding it over and over again until finally I was left in darkness. The sounds rattling through me like tin caught in the wind.

It took me a while to realise that I was conscious, and that my eyes were still open. I reached up, felt my eyes, felt the lids flutter open and shut. I rose to sit up, I scrubbed at my eyes, my dirt ridden hands stung as they touched the moist film beneath them. I held them open and swung my head back and forth, clenched them shut and opened them wide, brought my torn sleeve up to wipe at them, to scrape at them, to do all and anything I could to them. But there was still darkness. I couldn't hear another soul, just the soft crackle of the distant fire that still lingered in my mouth, the taste bitter and thick, causing me to cough up the foul-smelling soot that had settled in my stomach. Slowly and faintly I felt a new warmth rise around me, so much softer then the blazing heat of the fire, the smell began to recede and I could almost see the warmth as it crept towards me, a bright smell and soft hush of the land curled around me. A voice so distant, and yet so close began to speak but it was incoherent, but I felt them all the same. I rose to my feet and followed it, arms stretched out and each step a tentative foray into the abyss of my blindness. So close, yet so distant.

*******************************

As a young cub I'd grown used to the harshness of life, I was used to loosing those close to me, I'd taken those close to me. But my earliest memories were also what had taught me what the wolf was, what I was, or what I should be. They had taken everything from me, over the years, who I was, what I was, how I was. The strongest memory of my free years was the day I'd first met man, the first words had been arrows drawn in fear, "ubejte eto!", they had shouted, "Kill it! Kill it." The strange tongue rose and fell, but not in the beauty of the howl, it flickered and fell so much sharper then our own talk. Their tongue, no matter the sounds they emitted, were always ugly to my ears. I heard, also, the growl of my mother channelling the earth through her as she warned them off, every now and again it rose in intensity and broke in a snap that ellicted more excited yelps from the man-beasts. The lair stank where I sat fear-sodden, wet fur pressed up against me, impossible to tell if it was my own or my sisters. "Don't puncture her coat, a fresh one is worth five thousand dollars!" a high pitched squeak shouted to the other, of a slower but equally painful voice, who exclaimed "p'at' tys'ach dl'a neye!" My sisters squeeled and mewled and cried, they dampened the den and clouded the air with their stink. 'Stop', they cried, 'mother back', 'leave'...'abandon.' Abandon the den, to the snarls of the men outside. No, I thought, no. I told them I would go out, I would look for when it was safe, I wanted to escape their pitiful, disgusting quaking bodies. A scuffle of feet and snarl flew down the tunnel snapping our ears back, an undercurrent mingled, stay away. Stay back the pups flattened against the wall; I fell to the ground extremities flat against the floor, my head, before creeping on. Though I was neither the oldest nor the youngest, I'd always been the more curious of the pack. I'd slinked through the clenching cold after my mother, despite her threats to stay in the den when she hunted, to watch and learn of the hunt. I had watched during those hunts as her feet fell with grace and delicacy on each thread of earth, avoiding loose twigs, crisp leaves, anything that would alert her prey to her presence. I mimicked her, far afield, I watched every step as I tottered forward, flinching every time a twig snapped under foot staring off towards mother in case she turned, chased and bit me. It was bitter freezing out in the open air as I left the tunnel, a flurry of snarls, growls, barks and cries caught the outside world in it's gaping maw. This was not the subtle beauty of the stalk, but the frenzied wildness of the hunt, the killing, the silencing. After their eyes had met, after the exchange of hunter and hunted, the simplicity of who can run the fastest, fight the hardest, who's the strongest to overpower the weakest. This was the moment when the flesh was ripped from the white stone that lay within all of us. I would have retreated were the air here so much fresher then the petulant underbelly of the earth that lay shrieking behind me. I would have retreated were the fear of seeing greater then the fear of not seeing. So I stayed to watch the events unfold. There are times if I wonder had I not watched, would I be different? Would things have worked different? I wondered if now, if I don't go back to Makai, if Makai doesn't come back to me, would we be different? Will things work out differently? I wondered if he cared about me, though I knew I cared about him.

"Sobaka," a low to high squeak lifted my ears, the soft patter of his feet across tiny pebbles as he ran towards me, I looked back to see a dust filled face, bright wide eyed staring at me, shivering emerald "thank you Sobaka." I looked him over, mock distaste crinkling my features. "You're still soaking wet, drenched little thing." He looked himself over, then turned to me. "No I'm not," He looked at me and then up, "Sun orb. Dries fast. And I'm not small" "Oh really? Well, I suppose you weren't that wet. And by the looks of it you've been rolling around in the mud like the kot you are." He looked ready to take offence, so I stepped in quickly, "And Makai, sorry. You're not stupid." I turned to face him. The precipice and waterfall crashed over from beside us, the vast plains fell into the distance behind us, before us great sand dunes rose around the string of grassland that followed the bordering torrents of the river. The sun was setting, red streaks slicing through the air, as if pulling apart the seams of the sky, filling with blood. I stepped lightly towards him, graceful for my bulk, and pushed my head against his, the short brush fur tickling against my thick coat as we pressed against each other; sharing each others company and scent for the first time. Our jaws opened in unison to utter the phrase that had held our minds for so long, neither of us had to speak. I'd missed him. And I knew if I hadn't followed, if I hadn't run, if I hadn't killed then neither of us would be here, neither of us would be able to meet free of bars. And for once I found myself thankful as I nestled deep in the joyous-vibrations of the neck of my dear, old friend.