THERE IS NOTHING OUTSIDE THE FOREST, PART 5

   I did not know what to say.

   ‘I will go with you,’ he stated.

   ‘What.’

   ‘I will go with you, and see if there is an end to the forest.’

   ‘No… I mean, why?’

   ‘Now I want to know. Do you want to go alone.’

   I thought about this for a moment, ‘No.’

   ‘Let’s go.’

   He strode to his bull, it bowed its head and he held one of its horns. It swung its head up so he could climb onto its neck.

   ‘Join me,’ he said.

   ‘No.’

   ‘Why?’

   ‘If we were made to ride, we would not have feet.’

   He laughed. He never sounded happy when he laughed.

   We travelled together, following the ever growing river. His bull walked, but still it was hard to keep up with its massive legs.

   When it grew dark I was hugery.

   ‘Wait here,’ I told him,’ I am going hunting.’

   He nodded, and patted the bull. It lay down and he jumped off.

   I stalked the forest untill total darkness, then I caught a rabbit coming from her home. I walked back, wonderering how he could hunt in the company of that bull, silence would be impossible. I was very hungery, but I wanted to share the rabbit with him, so I did not scin it. I remember thinking that he must be very bored and hunger after sitting on his bull for so long.

   When I found him, he was eating some fat bird that I did not know the smell of.

   ‘What is that?’ I asked.

   ‘Meat.’

   ‘What meat?

   ‘Duck.’

   ‘What is duck?’

   ‘Ah… You would not know them. The duck are a swimming bird, they live only where water gives them room to fly and swim. Here, where the river is wide, and at the Great Lake.’

   ‘How can a bird swim? … And what is a great lake?’

   ‘You will see.’

   I was angry with him. I ate my rabbit, and did not speak again.

   When I climbed a tree to sleep, he did not climb a tree. Before I slept, through the darkness, I saw him lye on his bull; like a baby on its mother in the nest.

   In those days I did not know what sort of animal he was.