Grizzly Bear
art by Ananya Sairaman, writing by Jenny Vu
It is spring again. My teeth grow tired of the bite. River thunders around my legs. Strong, cold, and unchanging. Every year the fish are here, different in size and face, but the snapping of their bones stays the same. Crunch! It’s in my maw, wriggling just like its father did. And it stops, just like its mother did.
Blood and fat taste of nothing, except for this thudding, molten ache in my callused jaws.
“The waxwing prepares to winter in a summer that I will never see.”
High above this river, I suddenly hear it. A familiar, boasting note rains down from above. The waxwing swims through the clouds, whistling poorly once more. Every breath backs another loud, off-key note. Through the canopy of the trees, it is the only thing I can see. Its feathers command the winds and carry it to where this river meets oceans. It only stops to grow drunk on berries, flitting where water can’t reach it. This time last year, it had already left me. I remember it swooping downwards to meet me on the ground, and the stinging sound the breeze made when the waxwing shot back to the sky. The year before it had returned late, still carrying the scent of a land I couldn’t recognize. Today, it has decided to stay a bit longer. Only one thing remains the same each season.
The waxwing prepares to winter in a summer that I will never see.
“There, inky black gilds my sores and coats my eyes.”
Meanwhile, a ravenous gnaw sculpts my willing marrow. These pangs are earth-bound and blood borne. Hunger burns my throat and scalds my insides. In the morning, prickly roots are ground between my molars. Salmon bones stick to my gums. Berries and blood stain my teeth. They all quell an overly satiated appetite I can only fill but never satisfy. Eventually, it’s enough for me to crawl back to the stones, deep within the earth. There, inky black gilds my sores and coats my eyes.
It’s dark as a dream that never rests. Under the frost, I sleep, unable to peel the old cramps from my muscles, unable to peel the stripped kills from my claws, unable to walk back the steps I took to hunt.
I crave to give back everything that has made me as splittingly full as I am now.
“Once again, the waxwing will return from a winter of forgetting…”
The night lasts the season, sinking me into a world where I can’t remember my name. I slumber through the snow I can’t feel and dream about that icy bite. How would it feel?
The waxwing would know.
Suddenly, knocking on the door is the wonderful, terrible thaw. It is the only piece of winter that I can remember. It calls to tell me that it is time to emerge from the dark. Once again, the sun will warm the soil. Once again, I will find prey to sink canines into. Once again, the waxwing will return from a winter of forgetting that I spent it asleep. In those months of night, my hunger retreated. Now, in the light, it is back like it never left. I fear it never did.
But, I want to hunger just a bit longer.
I want to hunger wholly like the waxwing, who has never been full enough to sleep.
