Husky
Husky stretches his feet in the new morning sun ruffling the covers along the mattress. His eyes, unable to focus from dreariness, stare out into the nothingness of the room. His muscles are soft and the pads of his toes have become tender. Many cycles of the moon have slipped away since he last felt the hard scraping of the forest floor between his paws. His fur has become full and soft. Every morning breath is deep in the quiet calm of comfort and safety.
Across the world, memories of the woodlands and sipping from the cool mountain stream hearken his heart. Husky lifts his head and turns to the window. Outside, the slow rain drizzles upon the rooftops of the city as the hum from the refrigerator reminds him where his next meal is, but there is no hunger.
Husky’s ears perk toward the sky. He hears voices travelling across oceans. They call to him. “Husky, my husky,” they whisper. Husky hears other voices from across the hall that he tries to ignore, it is the ones far off that are more meaningful. There is little in the crowded space of the apartment to hold his attention. His cold wet nose can sense the aromas of distant countries beyond the pale of those walls that nurtured that same need to seek out the wilds.
The days have all bled into one another with nothing to mark the changes between them. Husky has grown old having lived all the days to nights without devotion and reverence to the spaces between each beautiful moment. He reflects upon a block of time rather than a series of indelible memories that make the day. Every beautiful morning come and gone, not seized to its fullest, is a missed opportunity to shake Husky from this ease.
When the sunlight fades and the darkness comes, Husky ascends to his perch to look upon the shape and the glow of the moon. In its waning, there are haunting memories of the brightness of its face from the far side of the globe. Husky wonders how those, with the sun now shining upon their faces, will view his brand new moon when their turn comes. Through the fog, should that light be dimmed, might they succumb to fear and not recognize the beauty in what cannot be seen? When Husky imagines their fear, he raises his snout to howl out to the moon that it may relay a symbol of his presence. “When you see the moon you can hear my howling and know that I am not so far away. Your moon is my moon”.
The winds carry Husky’s call across the Earth. In his cries, there is a message for those who can hear it. “Meet me in the jungle. Meet me where the waves break. Meet me where the sun shines hot between the foot and the top of the mountain. Find me on the motorway, on the dusty trail, and in the towns of stone and fire below the wooden cross. Look for me in the petals and dewdrops and the beating wings of butterflies and hummingbirds. Watch for my sign in the roar of the passing cars and in the buzz of city lights. Hold on tight and walk with me along paths unknown. Let us grow weary from the hunt and lose our fur together. That our claws might scrape along the ground from such effort that they become dull and useless. And, with will and purpose retreating, we might know what it was for, and not grow old, full, and without fear, not having tested this door.”
