Journey Home

It had been a long time since he'd caught anything.

He always remembered his younger days. He walked swiftly, crossing leafy forests and climbing rugged but bountiful mountains. There, on heavenly heights, the trees sang to him, the breeze laughed, and flowery butterflies fluttered over his watchful stride. The sun greeted the fiornitos croaking all around while the bushes and vines made way for him toward an unknown path.

One fine day he looked far off, as he always did. And he saw, close by, his home.

"Doesn't look like a long way," he thought. The trail was winding, but the scent that had captured his intuition pushed him on. His canteen was already half empty, but by his reckoning, it would last.

Now the memories vanished from his brow before his dark outlook. He was lost.

At first he had taken it philosophically. No cliff is bigger than a heart full of gratitude.

But now his canteen was as dry as his time-worn enthusiasm. His feet tripped over each other and, exhausted, demanded rest.

He did not give in. For him, resting meant staying there until his body melted into that nauseating ground that already set him shivering. Surrender was not a choice he could consider, if he wanted life.

One fine day he looked close by, the only way he could look by then. And far off, just as his body was giving out, he finally saw possible prey.

It was a creature of striking beauty, grazing innocently beside a proud stream.

Excitement lifted him. An energy that smelled of freshness and vigor shook him to the marrow. His once-tired feet raised him with new momentum. He remembered that he had always been grateful for those days of plenty, and so he would never be abandoned by the gods who watched over him. He remembered what had brought him there, through leafy forests and toward rugged but bountiful mountains.

Struck by that boundless force cracking the ice within him, he nearly fell again. But surrender was still not an option.

He remembered that he was lost in a desolate place, and that he had to focus his gaze not so much on his target as on himself. Before throwing himself into the hunt, he urgently needed to ride his painful weariness, straighten his aging muscles, and kindle from the center of his being the spark that would light up that remote world.

Nothing more was needed. The skies were his by right, just by filling his chest with them.

It no longer mattered whether he succeeded this time, for he had come back to life. The place was still as desolate as it had always been. But something was different: he trusted himself.

Stalking, he fixed his eyes on his purpose and, with elegant skill, leapt.