Circles in the Dust by Matthew Harrop

heavily to one side, weighed down with its crushing winter burden, threatening to snap from the stress. Flecks of blue in the bird’s earthy plumage grabbed David’s attention back from his scan of the valley. He watched the bird shift its attention from cleanliness to hunger as it began pawing at the bare patch of dirt at the base of a sapling. Keeping his eyes on the bird, David’s fingers groped beside him and he slowed his breathing. The inconvenience of sitting while hunting became painfully clear in that moment. His hand wrapped around the weathered frame of his bow, the quail still unaware of the predator just a few feet away. As David lifted the bow in one hand and fitted an arrow to the string with the other, he watched the movements of the creature, waiting for a sudden cessation of motion, a hesitance, a stiffening that meant the end of his prey’s ignorant bliss. The bird remained unaware while David lifted his bow to sight down the shaft, slower than a passing glacier. He could see the kill in his mind’s eye. Every muscle tensed and focused, his body an arrow intent on the hunt.
    Something flashed on the edge of his vision. There was a movement in the forest below and David let his fingers relax, his arrow flying off into a mound of snow and his bow forgotten and abandoned as he ran to the edge of the rocky outcropping, now vacant of any potential meals. He leaned over the edge of a large boulder as far as he dared toward the movement he had seen, willing himself to fly to the scene below. His eyes were wide, manic, his breath held while he scanned the panoramic view for that one dot of motion. He raked the landscape with ravenous eyes until he found what had lost him his lunch. A tree swayed lazily back and forth, a bright spot of green where its snowy coat had just sloughed off.
    David’s mouth dropped open, forming silent words, fumbling for something. His brow knit together, his face burned and his eyes stung. A lump formed in his throat, choking him, allowing only a brief sob to escape his tight chest. He fell to his knees, letting his hands fall into his lap, arms limp. He slouched over and nearly fell off the rock before catching himself and collapsing on his back, the sky occupying his vision, consuming his rapid, frustrated emotions and leaving him blank and bare. He let the sky have him. He lay there for a while, focusing on the sky, hating it, hating himself, hating the bird. He imagined chopping that deceitful tree into tiny little pieces, hacking at the bark and needles that had given him so much hope, throwing them into the fire, pissing on the ashes. It didn’t make him feel any better.
    He clenched his fists, screwed his eyes shut, and tried to return to himself. This was not him. This was someone weak, who couldn’t handle life out here, someone who wouldn’t survive. He couldn’t keep going on like this. He had to return things to the way they had been, regain the hardness that had kept him through all the storms this broken world had thrown at him. Weakness had no place out here. Especially now. He sat up and opened his eyes, forcing himself to stare out into the glare of the world. Tears of exasperation slid down his cheeks. He stared until he felt nothing, throwing a voiceless challenge at the world to finish him. He felt angry and violent, hot in his coat, like he was a bomb ready to blow and take this whole forsaken place with him into oblivion. That made him feel better.
    When he returned to camp, he ate his last can of peas cold, stumbled into his cabin, and collapsed from the exhaustion of having hope torn viciously from his grasp.
     
    The winter was milder than the one previous, following the pattern of recent years. The snow cracked his roof in fewer places, formed smaller piles around his cabin that had to be shoveled, and melted sooner. He split his time between lying on his dingy mattress where he stared listlessly at the splotchy tin ceiling and wandering aimlessly