Songs of the Dead by Derrick Jensen Page A

delusional, snapping not at Travis standing in front of him, but instead protecting him as he did before and biting at the rabid wolf who gave him the disease? Is he seeing phantoms dancing before him, just out of reach, so each time he lunges, it is at someone who is not there at all?
    Or maybe Old Yeller fights with every bit of his emotional strength to not lash out at the humans who are his whole world, these humans for whom he has already many times offered his life. Maybe he feels like he has picked up some sort of addiction, a compulsion, and he just can’t help himself.
    Or maybe the virus has insinuated itself into his brain in such a way that Old Yeller now perceives the virus as God. He hears its commands, and knows he must obey. Maybe this God tells him that he must convert these others to this one true religion, and that in doing so both he and they will achieve everlasting peace and joy—and a release from the torment of this world. Maybe he perceives himself as thus giving these others a gift.
    We act according to the way we experience the world. The virus changed Old Yeller’s experience of the world. When Old Yeller acts—or when any of us act—who’s in charge? Who actually makes the decisions? Why does Old Yeller act as he does? Why do any of us act as we do?

    I always thank my muse after she enters me and gives me her words. Sometimes I ask her what she wants. Sometimes she tells me. Sometimes I don’t understand. Sometimes I do.
    I am asleep. I am dreaming.
    I am standing on a lawn holding a heavy mallet. Have you ever seen or played the arcade game Whack-A-Mole? In this game you stand in front of a large grid with holes in it, holding a plastic hammer. Plastic “moles” pop up from random holes, and your goal is to whack them as quickly as you can. As the game progresses they pop up faster and faster. This is what I dream, except that instead of moles popping up, it is men in business suits, it is politicians, it is CEOs, it is scientists. As fast as they pop up I hit them with my mallet, which in the dream is not plastic, but solid wood. I hear my muse’s voice, soft, a whisper in my ear, “Keep smashing cannibals. Keep on smashing them.”
    I wake up laughing. I’ve had this dream many times before. At first I didn’t understand it, but now I do.
    The morning after our third night together, Allison introduces me to Jack Forbes.
    We’re in her bedroom. I wake up laughing from my dream of smashing cannibals. At this point I’ve had the dream only a few times, and I don’t yet understand it. I tell it to Allison. She doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t say a word. She holds up one finger, gently taps my hand, and gets out of bed. I look at her long legs beneath the t-shirt she’d worn to sleep. I like what I see. She leaves the room, then returns a few moments later, holding a slender, brightly-colored book. She gets back in bed. Finally she speaks. “Your dream made me think of this.” The book is Columbus and Other Cannibals , by Jack Forbes. “This book blew apart my world. Forbes really filled in some holes for me.”
    I move closer. “I like filling in holes for you.”
    She’s on her stomach. She smiles and shifts her weight so her left thigh pushes against me. “I like you filling in holes for me. As often as possible.”
    I push back. “And?”
    â€œAnd what?”
    â€œForbes?”
    She rolls to face me. Her knee touches mine. “His take on the dominant culture’s destructiveness is different than anything else I’ve seen. The problem, he says, isn’t merely that this culture socially rewards destructive behavior—the acquisition of wealth, for example, at the expense of the community or landbase—or that it creates greedy, traumatized, unrelational people through childrearing practices, schooling, and so on. . . .”
    â€œAlthough both of those are