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september

20662

Features

 

poetry/fiction/essays/etc.

the other pres

 

Fear itself was an alert and artful predator, and it slipped it’s way stealthily into the dark corners of

his consciousness, blurring the contrast between good sense and the absurd. He almost laughed out
loud, his fear had brought him to the edge of sheer hopelessness! How naive we humans are, how silly
our thinking. Wild animals are wild animals, trained by instinct—the need for survival, they are
experts at stalking prey. To even think he could detect them, that they would give clues perceptible
to humans—creatures so far down the survival chain, what clumsy arrogance! He was at the mercy
of the very heart of nature itself!

He struggled to calm himself and just as he did so, the cold plunged down again, sweeping its cloak
around him. He became aware of the rain again too, and it finished the job, bringing his senses right
back to the here and now. He had to press on, walking faster than ever. Looking forward, he blinked
the droplets from his lashes, he thought it looked as if the sky lightened ahead. He leaned into his
stride and stared up as if to somehow simultaneously pull it closer with his eyes, yet it seemed to move
with him step for step.

The uneven rocks between the tracks turned his ankles inside his soggy boots.

© r hoover 2002