Humanity seems ever more like a dream. Was I a man once? I do not think so. I was always hungry. Always roaming. Always seeking. Even if I had a human body, I don’t think I was ever truly human.
At the beginning I thought I knew who I was, but as hours and then days passed it began to feel as though I was only ever this form. The moon grows full, then wanes again.
I am animal.
Only animal.
While roaming, I catch a familiar scent. I cannot place it, but I know it smells like home. I orient my nose to it, and follow it. Slowly at first, but then with greater urgency. It is at a great distance, but I know that if I find the source of it, everything will be okay.
The journey is long. It continues through the day, into the night, and through another day. I have roamed far and wide in my furred form, and covered more ground than I realized.
Another day fades into night. I feel the pull of the moon, the hunger of my stomach and my soul. I cannot get sustenance in this form. I am weary. I am starving.
Each step seems to take more effort than the last, and the freedom of four paws begins to feel like a burden I yearn to put down.
Finally, I draw close. The scent is coming from narrow gaps between smooth panels of something unnatural. I nuzzle at it, get my nose up under a latch and push until something clicks.
The scent I followed washes over me, rich and feminine and healing. I look down and I see that the animal is receding finally after three continuous days.
I have hands.
I can fit in a seat.
I slide in and I close the door, quietly promising myself I will never take an opposable thumb for granted again.
* * *
Lydia
I’m still out here in the forest, though weeks have passed, and I am pretty sure I’ve been let go from the job that told me I couldn’t be let go of. Veronica wants to move on. Someone has petitioned the court to declare him officially dead so that assetscan be transferred. I stay out of all of that. I keep myself in the only place that makes sense to me, out in the wild.
The professional searchers left weeks ago. They said it was too unlikely he’d be found because they couldn’t get a single scent or find a single trail. I’ve stayed on, wandering the woods, looking for a man who melted into the wild. This is the only place I can still faintly feel him.
Every night, I make noodles in the lifted rear of my car, then settle in behind the steering wheel to do a little more work. I’ve transcribed a lot of his material now, and I think I am starting to understand it, though that might be arrogance on my part.
Yet again, I fall asleep in my car. I expect nothing to have changed when morning comes.
And yet, it does.
A bad smell comes.
The stench is so ripe it filters through into my sleep. It smells like animal. Like a big wet dog, or a wild thing that needs to be taken in. My eyes open with the dawn and I turn to see a naked man asleep in my passenger seat.
My scream fails to wake him up, which makes me terrified that he’s dead. A big, hairy, dead naked man in my car. That’s about the worst I could imagine. I wonder if I’m even properly awake, or if this is a nightmare my brain has manufactured just to torture me.
Then, slowly, it dawns on me that I do recognize this man. He’s more bearded than I ever knew him to be, but it’s him. It’s definitely him.
I am so relieved I could cry. I am crying.
“Simon!”
Finally, he wakes up. He opens his eyes and lunges at me in a hug. His arms wrap around me and the feeling of loss I have been struggling with for weeks, the yawning hole in my heart, fills up in an instant.
“I missed you so much,” I cry against his bare shoulder. He is filthy. He smells like an animal, and he smells like the wild, all dirt and moss and hunt and decay.
“I’m sorry,” he rumbles. “Have I been gone long?”
“Three weeks, almost. They’re going to declare you dead.”
