14
Jul
First light is at 7:08 but we can see the edge of the swale against the backdrop of paper birch and jack pine. There’s no movement except for the specks of white that float around the periphery of vision. There’s the boom of a rifle way far off to the south. Or maybe west. David pans slowly next to me, a human marshmallow of insulated polyester and blaze orange, a tinny whine to the rotation of the repurposed office chair beneath him. He makes the comment that all shades of gray and orange and yellow eventually registers in some part of the brain, and is stored away for the purpose of deciphering the next incongruous movement should it not be just the movement of nature herself but be interjected with the hide of a buck not ready to die yet.
”It’s colder than a witches’ tit” he whispers, close enough for me to feel his coffee breath instantly hit my face.
”Would you shoot a witch?” I ask back, testing the lower limits of my whisper.
”Absolutely” he says, lifting his rifle and gently placing it on the window of the blind to scope the pond.
”Out of self defense, menace, or meat?”
”A and B.”
”Witches tit would keep nicely if the idioms are true.”
“I’m not eating a saggy titty.”
“Speak for yourself.”
The wind picked up enough for the bog birch to rustle its catkins. It was cold but not freezing. The walk to the blind was far enough for us to break a sweat and we were now sitting in the musk of our relinquist.
David and I talked about the ethics of what we’re doing from the perspective of religion and non–. I gave my thesis for vegetarianism but had no answer for why it’s right to take a life before us, not spoken of, but spoken about, 8 horns and more muscle than I could ever hope to have in this life or the next. Who are we to take life? If there’s an overabundance of deer there’s an overabundance of people, I say and swing the rifle barrel under my chin—David not yet getting it—waking up from a soft doze, eyeing the open barrel resting on my lower jaw, then the grin on my face.
Dude, he says, and