Game

From the moment our eyes first met, we both knew. From the moment our eyes met, we knew we were destined for each other. I could see it in his eyes, that…pause, that freeze in his expression. He knew he’d been sighted. Of course, he’d only been looking for trouble by stepping out in the open like that, so when he caught me looking at him from across the ravine, he knew.
There was no question about it.
He was mine.

I had made no effort in trying to hide myself, any further than crouching down on my haunches and staring straight down my nose at him. My ears didn't pull back with nerves, no. They turned towards him with intent. Now, of course, he didn’t just surrender right there, you know. He knew what he had to do. We stared at each other in a reciprocal freeze frame for a few moments, he took one step backwards, raised his white tail in alarm and leapt back into the bush. Now you can imagine what I was up against. He had a good 30 foot head start on me, plus that ravine between us. It didn’t matter. I hadn’t eaten in days, long days. I was famished and pissed off, separated too long from my pack, good and ready to rip him to shreds and eat my fill of him.
I’d waited too long.
Our time was now.

I surprised myself at how quickly I cleared both grades of that ravine but like I said, I was desperate. Once I bounded up the other side, I knew exactly where he was. I was looking right at that bouncing white tail before I could even see it, right where I expected him to be. When you’ve hunted for as long as I have, you’re able to predict these things. He was really moving. I could tell he was scared but I didn’t care. For him, there was the thrill of the chase, but for me- for me it was strictly business. It was nothing personal. We just looked at survival in different ways, I suppose. Different vantage points. So yeah, he was fast. He knew all the evasive measures. So many times, he had me backtracking, running around rocks he would leap over effortlessly, cutting slaloms around random trees. He knew these woods as well as I did. They were his just as well as they were mine. I just never lost sight of him once. In fact, I never took my eyes off him. The obstacles were nothing, his evasiveness was useless. Success, my success, was inevitable.

So eventually, inevitably, I caught up to him, hearing and feeling his weight pounding on the soil at every bound. I came in on his heels and swatted at them as they came off a stride, timing it just so. I sent his legs out of rhythm, out of their trajectory, their plane. His body followed helplessly. I broke his synchronicity and her forelegs buckled. He hit the ground hard and as soon as he did, I had his throat in my teeth. He thrashed, kicked, twisted. I could feel the passage of air through his throat as he forced out a hoarse cry in my ear. He fought to turn himself over, get himself standing again. It took all my weight, all the strength in my jaws to hold him still.

Death comes mercifully for prey. The fear, the pain is all in the chase, the struggle. Peace comes with surrender. There’s such peace in surrender. I always feel it when my prey ceases to struggle, that wave of peace that comes over them. I feel for that certain moment when the breath stops and the body relaxes, so limp as to be water. At that moment, I envy them. I’ve never in my life been able to sleep that deep, to rest so completely. I don’t want to die, but only wish that I could feel that kind of serenity. I’ve been finding myself wishing that more and more in recent years. There’s a perfect completeness to death that is just so lacking in my life.

So that’s what he did. He exhaled no more and became like water. He wet my face as I ripped him open and bit by bit, he disappeared into my stomach. I ate until I felt ill and walked away tired and stupid, smarting from the wounds and contusions he’d inflicted on me, my muscles quivering from exhaustion. Someone could have come along and kicked me over and I would be too stupid to fight, too full to run. That’s when I’m at my weakest, after I’d gotten what I wanted. Such a quick descent isn’t it? To fall from the power to take a life to the impotence of being unable to save one’s own. There was nothing for me to do then but find a safe place to hide and get some sleep.