The wolf was as tall as a Great Dane but looked like a cross between a German Shepherd and a Husky in the face, except for that snout and those teeth which made this snarling canine look like the Godzilla of coyote kind. It had shinning white teeth, with fangs over an inch long, sprouting in saw-toothed rows from black gums. Its eyes were glassy blue, as if their light came from the robin’s egg sky and not the sun.

The other five wolves milled around behind this one, seemingly primed to dart around the giant bear carcass that Pozer and the wolf were facing off over.

The Condor set down on his shoulder and spread its ancient wings, shielding his addled mind from the rays of doubt cast by the unseen sky. With the Condor on his shoulders he felt calm, little worried by the great snarling wolf, which gnashed its teeth like a steel trap. This felt like the time at the Chinese man’s house, The Man in the White Suit, when the big guard dog had leaped at him only to pull up short as if a wall of glass separated its crushing jaws from little Posie. Posie had been strangely unafraid. Then, just as he thought about approaching the still snarling dog he felt the hand on his shoulder, and the dog whimpered, back-crawling and whining as it dragged its belly repentantly on the grass.

He looked above and saw The Man in the Gray Suit towering serenely above him. Just when a usual adult would look at you before speaking, The Man in the Gray Suit instead looked at what he was speaking of, and Posie, through long practice, followed his eyes to the target and listened.

“We need only let them see us for what we are Posie. We are special. We are the Condor. Think of what you want of this beast; think it with the grace of your gliding spirit; let him know he is Us. One word not a word; one sound not a sound—as a feeling we walk into his soul.”

Posie just wanted to be friends with animals. He could not have normal kid friends because of his being special, and being too strong to play with the non-special without doing harm. This large dog with the spiked collar, now so terrified, was after all special in its way, too strong to play, had been consigned to the misery of being chained all day.

He walked toward the whimpering dog as it tried to shrink into the rich thick lawn, even raking the blue-green turf with its spiked collar.

The dog was still whimpering, and now pawing the turf in a panicked state as Posie—barely half his size at seven years old—walked up to him with outstretched talon; a carcass-rending animal-snatching talon, now configured as a soft monkey hand, wanting to pet and groom and free its new friend from his cruel bondage…

He was a sheet of falling water, a waterfall of despair and doubt—then the gray-winged Condor plunged through him and he was free, bursting into the droplets of eternal rain, free to be We.

The great wolf was no longer snarling and stalking for the best angle to grasp his throat, but sitting back whimpering in the snow, its pack milling nervously behind him as if their world was coming to an end.

Pozer was upset—extremely so—that his new friend feared him. He knew his friend also to be painfully hungry, a recent death among his pack under great crushing feet having marked their last unsuccessful hunt. He reached within the gaping ruin that had been the head of the giant short-faced bear, and retrieved the lightening scorched shard from the splintered tree and withdrew it with a great sucking sound. With that he could feel their hunger, was one with their hunger; was infused with a gnawing urge to feast.

Pozer used the arm-sized knife-like splinter to remove the hide of the great beast, for somehow he knew he would fall prey to the cruel cold come night, could feel it like a premonition welling up from his bones. As he worked they paced and whimpered and whined behind him. At last, the entire back of the bear hide removed down to the flanks, he cast it aside—to which a scampering of paws announced the skittish nature of his friends—and cut out a flank steak. As he pressed the flesh into his parched mouth and began to tear pieces off, the blood streaking his chin, he thought, Feed and they descended on the mound of recently belligerent flesh with a single multi-faced snarl.

He soared above the grand house where lived The Man in the White Suit, and was comforted by the sound of the Gardener’s clippers snipping the large domelike hedge that resided at The Center of the World. All was right with the world—then he heard it, the sound of a chainsaw wafted upward on a brutally informative updraft. The Gardener had a chainsaw. His clippers gone, the assassin disguised as the Gardener revved up his chainsaw so that it sounded like many snarling snapping tearing jaws—the Gardener had come to cut the heart from The Center of the World.

As the chainsaw struck the World seemed to shudder and tilt, the wind that normally caressed it and bore him serenely aloft, now scouring the land and sending him spiraling out of harmony and into discord.

To be continued in Out Of Time #13: WorldSmack