Persistence

You glance at the reflection of your face in the stream in front of you, the outline highlighted by a combination of warm colors from the distant fire behind you and the slight flicker of the stars above. The image becomes blurry as you dip your cupped palms in the cool water. Bringing your hands to your face, you sip the current and feel the refreshment awaken your body. You know this is your last chance to gather yourself, so you let the drink linger on your lips for as long as possible. With your feet rigid, you lower your damp fingers in the shoreline resting at your bent stature, gliding the tips across the soil. You smear the fresh mud in long, clumped lines, on your face. As liquid slowly drizzles down your cheeks, you think about how it will keep the sun out of your eyes. You remember the day your father showed you this and how long ago that seemed.

You rotate your body and redirect your vision towards the firepit. Several men of the tribe gather around the blaze, embers illuminate their wide grins as they tell jokes to one another. Your father stands firm, motionless, amongst the group. You, too, take a few solemn breaths and close your eyes as you think about other lessons he has taught you. You reopen them as your he breaks character and begins to speak to the group, too remote for you to interpret.

After a few exchanges, your father nods to the men and approaches you. The distant laughter wanes.

“In a few moments we will head for that ridge,” he motions with his head to a darkened hill, barely visible on the horizon. You notice a large tree standing cocked to the side on the summit watching judgingly on the opposing valley below. Silhouettes of brambles can be seen lining the peaks dancing around the tree in worship. He places his hand gently on your back and lowers his voice, “remember, the wolf does not attack alone. He does not attack with speed; he attacks with intelligence. He is persistent.” You feel as if his voice emits a low grumble in God-like fashion, commanding, yet endearing. Respectful. He begins to walk towards the small hunting party that has already started to tread into the distance. You grab your spear and join them as they move into the corals, violets and golden hues of dawn. Your first steps.

The sun gently appears from behind the adjacent hills as you reach the crest. Light slowly spreads its way across the land before you like the long arms of a mother grasping for her child. The glow becomes ever brighter as it absorbs the fading radiance of the last few stars hanging in the once night sky. It tenderly awakens the world around you. White, creamy tufts speckle the newly formed atmosphere, the dew-covered flowers sparkle and rotate to embrace the warmth, fauna craves a deep stretch. The world takes a collective inhale and fills its essence with the rebirth of another day. You share in the breaths, communally. Your father joins you in silence, his furrowed brow scans the tranquil environment that spreads in every direction. He hands you a pitcher that sloshes as he does. You fix your lance into the ground as you reach for the refreshment and partake in a few gulps. The energy of the iskiate immediately fills your body as your nerves tingle in waves of vitality. The wind blows gently on your face and your hair dances in the breeze.

The group spots some deer in the distance. Three of them. Standing in a semi-circle taking turns eating grass and slapping their tails at menacing flies. Necks straining to lift their heads, tuning their ears to foreign sounds, eyes adjusting to any suspicious movements, stoic antlers dusted with velvet resting on their crowns. Always on alert, the deer is. The attack is going to have to be choreographed perfectly. Huddled together in a hushed council, the men decide on a plan: descend the hill at an angle which would not only bring us to the valley below in stealth, but also shift the wind to our backs as we approached, alerting the herd. Surprise is the best opening move, the instantaneous explosion of energy as they stride away from danger will immediately drain some of their reserves. The shock will instantly confuse their tactics.

The tree on the ridge still judges.

By the time you reach the basin, the sun has fully risen and illuminates every hiding spot, crevasse, trail and shelter. The deer have yet to notice the four of you as you hunker down in the tall grass. The men await, steadfast. The breeze propels itself past your shoulders and into the ravine ahead of you. The slopes on either side of the field, covered in brush, make a natural funnel through the surface. The animals raise their heads once more as the wind brushes their nostrils and fills them with predatory scents.

“This is it!” Your father shouts as you plunge out of your hiding spot and begin to bound towards the creatures. One of the men begins to chant tribal homages as the prey flee as quickly as they can in the opposing direction.

The ground under your feet propels you forward. Grass, dirt, rocks, roots and soil embrace your soles as they kick up memories in dust behind you. You are a part of your surroundings as much as they are a part of you, a harmonious relationship. A sweat begins to form on your forehead and beads down your face. You begin to breathe a little heavier than usual.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Your feet connect with the earth exactly as your heart beats in your chest, a rhythmic synchronicity that plays a tune only audible to yourself and the universe. Connectivity.

This is it; you repeat to yourself.

The temperament of the tribe is hyper focused, greatly adjusted from the amusement of hours prior. Your father, a few strides ahead of you, sets the pace of the group, sun heating his bare back. You, on the left-hand side of him, the two other men to his right, spears in hand, all transfixed on the targets leading the ensemble. While the animals still have a sizeable gap between your formation, you are not bothered, for it shouldn’t last long.

After a few miles, the creatures begin to act erratically, partially out of instinct and but mainly out of distress; the spaces between the animals widen as the herd begins to formulate their next moves, not as a pack, but as individuals. Unexpectedly, one breaks from the group and veers left toward the distant foliage. You immediately cut perpendicular in one step sending soil flying all around you. You stumble for a split second but compose your stride as you begin to mirror the movements of the beast. You dig your feet further into the ground to get an extra stride or two to try and close the gap between you and the animal. The sweat sinks into your eyes, temporarily blurring your vision.

As you adjust your sight, you realize the deer has plunged itself into the forest, creating another obstacle for you to overcome. Huffing, you try to find the trail and adjust your bearings to the new surroundings, you think back to your childhood, your father showing you various ways to track animals as you ran around hunting snakes and rabbits with your makeshift “weapons”.

“Panic leads to hesitation and mistakes. Panic is broken branches and bent brush and unpredictable noise. Panic is disorder. Panic is trackable.” Your father often pointed out signs of animals when you two would go out on walks through the forest. Find the panic.

You close your eyes and listen to the wooded area caressing you. You smell the air. You feel the soil between your toes. You experience the aura. You become the forest. You open your eyes and skim the earth. You notice a few trampled bushes in front of you, a wide berth making an unnatural path in the shrubbery. You follow the trail. It winds up the side of the hill, erratic. You can see where the body slipped a few times and had to regain its balance in order to proceed with its attempt at escape. You can see its poor judgement. You can see the panic.  

You, too, stumble a few times as you try to scale the angled environment. The exposed roots tripping your bare feet, the thick brush slowing your stride. The chase, however, never faltering, the voice of your father always on your mind. You use your spear to help balance your footing as you continue to ascend and descend the altitude until you come upon an open field of grass nearly as tall as yourself.

Suddenly, the deer erupts out of its hiding spot and fully exposes its body. You notice as it moves, struggling slightly, the exhaustion catching up with the creature and it does its best to avoid the vegetation before it. It scampers out of sight, back into some brush, gasping for air as you begin to advance in the direction of the animal. Thin branches whip your cheeks as you do the best you can to swat at them with your arms, feet hammered by the loose gravel and overgrown needles lying across the ground. You begin to subside amid the thicket, you can feel yourself slowing down in fatigue. “You must always focus on the goal. You may sway away from the path, you may lose sight of it, but you must press forward. The only way to achieve the hunt is to compose yourself, if you want it, it shall be.” We were hunting a rather large rat through the village that day. Your pursuit speaks from years of wisdom passed down through generations.

You realign your spirit, determined.

You dredge several hundred feet through the foliage ignoring the pain, the blurred vision, the deep breaths, you will find this deer. Your feet are heavy and your legs are burning from the continual pumping. The sun barely peeks through the canopy, but what does make it to your face lets you know that the afternoon is slowly slipping into the evening. The air dampens and cools as you trek deeper into the forest.

You hear a cry coming from somewhere to your right a few yards from you. You can barely make out the silhouette, but you already know what lies in the underbrush. The deer has all but collapsed.

Hours of chasing it on the plains, in the grass and forestland have caused it to keel over from the expenditure. You try to slow your breathing in burning huffs. Every part of your body convulses in agony. You examine the animal as it tries with all its might to avoid you, which you both know is unfathomable at this point. Its body heaves as it gasps for whatever air it can compose from its surroundings. Up close, it looks much larger than you imagined. You examine its physique, muscles pulsating as the legs kick in empty space, its eyes dulled in defeat. It flinches as you both hear another rustling coming from the forest and you quickly crouch down to cover yourself.

Your father emerges from the vegetation followed closely by the other men; his face brightened by a smile; mud nearly sweated off his face. He places his hand on your back as you grab your spear and turn back towards the creature. You are persistent.

“You’ve got this,” he mutters in support.

The men all praise your triumph as you decompress in the calmness of the evening. While a few of them process your treasure, you listen to the others tell stories around the fire passed down from the ancestors. Embers drift in midair, hanging on the breeze and fading into the starlit sky. Millions of shimmering spirits blanketing the heavens. Each soul embraces its energy and bestows it to the universe. Your father approaches you with a piece of crown he had dissected from the deer after it had been cleaned and stored for travel. He dusts off the remaining bits of fuzz, a subtle reminder of the shedding from the animal’s rebirth, “this is it.” A gift from your first hunt. A Successful one. You settle down and gaze back at the cosmos and notice a new star, gleaming brightly, that you haven’t seen before. It glows, powerful, as if it is the first time it has ever ignited in the darkness.