be separated from their ocean of searing agony. The mind will separate the pain, and it will care for the body as it can. The pain pushes me to shift, to escape this body. The mind knows it cannot escape, that to shift to a human form would mean instant death, for I am injured beyond what a human can stand.
I am alive. I will be alive. I move one arm that is caught under me so that I can roll off the sharp pain in my chest. The arm is swollen and throbbing. but it moves when I command it. I move away from the chest pain. A leg bone grates. It is broken. There is something hard just over my head. A fallen tree. I have clawed my way into a ditch beneath a fallen tree, a safe place. The dawn is beginning, I think, and I do not know what dawn, how many dawns it has been. Can I feel my other leg? Is there another leg? Yes, there, numb. Perhaps not broken. The other arm is also numb, dull pain there, but no movement in the claws - broken. The spine is a long pathway of pain, lying like a broken column, the last crashing fall of a marble pillar, the geography book that Charles loved - I cannot think of other things, for the pain overwhelms me. I must go away now.
The sparkling eyes are there again. How long have they been after me, running across plowed fields, running in the ruts, a young boy running in the cold with the huge yellow moon just over the horizon. It draws him, helps him cry for help and brings that help to him in need. The talisman has power from the moon. They were not Indians. It was not a bear, only looked something like one. This is your totem, the moon, the bear, the shape changer. The sparkling eyed things are chasing some great bear across the unplowed fields, the fields that will not be plowed for centuries, but they will not catch him. He runs, laughing, knowing where they are in the dark. Now there are more, circling him, the choice must be made. I must teach you this and then leave you. Your need creates your being. Alone is safe. But you must search for the connection. We are still running while the sparkling eyes are behind us in the darkness and the fields are standing with corn now, with the moon hanging over us like a round skylight, a window on the universe that only we can see through while we keep running, always in search, while the shining eyes fade in the moonlight. I will teach you, the great animal says while we run under the moon, and we fall to all fours and run more swiftly than the wind, more clever than the fox on a trail, more powerful than the bear in defense of her home.
Something screams in my ear. I move too suddenly and the pain jars me awake. I am still under the fallen tree, and thirst is torturing every cell in my body. I must have liquid. I will make it rain. And I find myself weeping tears. Again I fall into the agony and the blackness. This time it is dark and painful all the time. I extend my senses very feebly into the painful areas, the worst ones first. The large, raging area around my heart is a group of broken ribs that move each time I breathe. And my one hind leg is broken, but not badly separated. It will heal if I can manage it right. The arm. I cannot find the center of the pain. It feels as if the whole upper arm has been smashed, but I can still move the claws on that arm. It cannot be that bad. Perhaps an early infection. The other arm is broken near the wrist. Not as much pain, but a large swelling that is already helping to hold the bones in place. My back worries me. But if it were badly separated, I could not move the legs or arms, and I can do so a little bit. I am not dead. I will be alive. I must first set the bones.
I close off and reach inside to find the spot, the sharp edges along the inner wall of the chest. The pain leads me. I feel the ends separated. Three must be held, for they move each time I breathe, stabbing me each time I try to move. I concentrate my consciousness on the receptors in the muscles around the largest rib until each
I am alive. I will be alive. I move one arm that is caught under me so that I can roll off the sharp pain in my chest. The arm is swollen and throbbing. but it moves when I command it. I move away from the chest pain. A leg bone grates. It is broken. There is something hard just over my head. A fallen tree. I have clawed my way into a ditch beneath a fallen tree, a safe place. The dawn is beginning, I think, and I do not know what dawn, how many dawns it has been. Can I feel my other leg? Is there another leg? Yes, there, numb. Perhaps not broken. The other arm is also numb, dull pain there, but no movement in the claws - broken. The spine is a long pathway of pain, lying like a broken column, the last crashing fall of a marble pillar, the geography book that Charles loved - I cannot think of other things, for the pain overwhelms me. I must go away now.
The sparkling eyes are there again. How long have they been after me, running across plowed fields, running in the ruts, a young boy running in the cold with the huge yellow moon just over the horizon. It draws him, helps him cry for help and brings that help to him in need. The talisman has power from the moon. They were not Indians. It was not a bear, only looked something like one. This is your totem, the moon, the bear, the shape changer. The sparkling eyed things are chasing some great bear across the unplowed fields, the fields that will not be plowed for centuries, but they will not catch him. He runs, laughing, knowing where they are in the dark. Now there are more, circling him, the choice must be made. I must teach you this and then leave you. Your need creates your being. Alone is safe. But you must search for the connection. We are still running while the sparkling eyes are behind us in the darkness and the fields are standing with corn now, with the moon hanging over us like a round skylight, a window on the universe that only we can see through while we keep running, always in search, while the shining eyes fade in the moonlight. I will teach you, the great animal says while we run under the moon, and we fall to all fours and run more swiftly than the wind, more clever than the fox on a trail, more powerful than the bear in defense of her home.
Something screams in my ear. I move too suddenly and the pain jars me awake. I am still under the fallen tree, and thirst is torturing every cell in my body. I must have liquid. I will make it rain. And I find myself weeping tears. Again I fall into the agony and the blackness. This time it is dark and painful all the time. I extend my senses very feebly into the painful areas, the worst ones first. The large, raging area around my heart is a group of broken ribs that move each time I breathe. And my one hind leg is broken, but not badly separated. It will heal if I can manage it right. The arm. I cannot find the center of the pain. It feels as if the whole upper arm has been smashed, but I can still move the claws on that arm. It cannot be that bad. Perhaps an early infection. The other arm is broken near the wrist. Not as much pain, but a large swelling that is already helping to hold the bones in place. My back worries me. But if it were badly separated, I could not move the legs or arms, and I can do so a little bit. I am not dead. I will be alive. I must first set the bones.
I close off and reach inside to find the spot, the sharp edges along the inner wall of the chest. The pain leads me. I feel the ends separated. Three must be held, for they move each time I breathe, stabbing me each time I try to move. I concentrate my consciousness on the receptors in the muscles around the largest rib until each
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