Nature’s God

Life is good. The air here is so fresh. I never thought the automatic rhythm of breathing would provide such euphoria. A feeling that says you’re alive. You’re here. This is now. Don’t you dare let it pass.

I don’t know where I am, or how I ended up here, but I hope to never leave. The mountains look like a painting, and the morning dew covers the tangle of weeds and grass like a sheet of ice. The moose drink slowly and peacefully from ovals of water. Chipmunks and squirrels chitter beautifully as they scale the sides of great oaks like daredevils, explorers, fearless observers of the law of nature and its speechless beauty.

The forest is endless and quiet, like the mouth of paradise has opened wide just for me to frolic. There’s no fear. No reprehension. No doubt that a meal is within hopping distance. Perhaps in the tall fields, where lilies, and sunflowers, lilacs, and lavender stand like stilted Gods of unblemished beauty. It’s perfect. Almost too perfect.

Then the sound. Followed by lightning bolts that shoot through my small frame. I scream out in pain. And all of a sudden, this dreamscape turns into a vivid nightmare. The world of colour, of peace, of love, gets sucked into a vacuum of endless black.

I look down and sharp metal teeth are wrapped around my hind legs. My blood is soaked in the steel and I hear a pair of footsteps rustling through the fallen leaves.

“We got one. We got one.” A voice calls out, and I look to it.

In his eyes is an unfathomable darkness. He will not let me go. I know this. He would watch me suffer for his own amusement. But, next to him are soft, caring eyes that are scared and filled with regret.

They’re both dressed in the colours of the forest, and wearing vests of fluorescent orange and yellow. I cry out. I cry and I cry, and I hope I can reach those soft eyes through the only common language we share.

He points a barrel right in my face, but his hands shake. And in those muscle vibrations, I hope I can convince him to release these metal teeth, and let me on my way. For what good am I to them? A rabbit without much meat on his bones. What good could I provide?

I make sure to lock eyes on this man as the other tells him to kill me. “Shoot it, James. Shoot the thing. Christ. Shoot it, or I’ll do it.”

I’m not concerned with the killer. His mind is made up. I’m concerned with the other. The hands, the eyes, the body of someone who doesn’t want to do what he’s doing. I can see that. I can feel it. But will he do it, anyway? Will he do it, because the devil is breathing down his neck?

He lowers the barrel. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I can’t.”

He bends down as his knees touch the forest green. With a strong grip, he pries the steel teeth off me. “Go on. Go on.” He says, as the devil laughs, and points his barrel at me, “I knew you weren’t man enough,” he says. "It's just going to die anyway. But slower and more painfully." Then he laughs.

The pain is beyond anything I’ve ever felt. But I waste no time. I hop towards the lilies like a rabbit with no blood seeping into its fur. I hop with a speed I’ve never reached before, and eventually the devil puts down the barrel.

They turn around and head back from where they came. I breathe a sigh of relief. I am hungry. I am hurt. I limp into the beauty of the tall fields.

But the eyes of the forest can smell pain, weakness, and especially blood.

I know they’re coming.

But I’m feeling confident. I’ve just made a narrow escape. Why not another? But even I laugh at this. And the soft blowing wind sounds like the sigh of Nature’s God.