Chapter 4: Day 2

Sleep was fitful. I had a great many wondrous and frightening dreams. In one, I was sitting, trapped at the bottom of an abandoned well, reading a novel by Haruki Murikami, while wearing a red bandana tightly around the nape of my neck. I found myself tightening the cloth, tighter and tighter. With each draw of the knot, it was as if the trapped energy of my soul was being released up to the faint light above. I could hear three brother wolves circling the top of the well opening.  Their song was a plaintive cry, like a million howling dervishes spinning into infinity.

I was awoken by a swift kick to my jaw. I turned, startled, and saw the outline of a small creature.  It was hard to make out the exact shape, because my eyes were still soaked and stinging from the sweat caused by my nightmare. Another kick jostled my adrenaline and I could see clearly that it was the young girl with whom I had shared the previous day’s adventures. How odd. I have such a vivid memory of taking to my bed chamber alone. Had my guest somehow apparated in the middle of the night? Surely, I would have heard the creaking of the door, or felt the tiny body climbing my bed sheets and stealing my covers had she merely walked in and taken her current position. No, it is as if she had magically teleported, arriving unnoticed and without so much as stirring the dormitory’s fetid air. 

Suddenly, I was struck about the face again.

Upon further inspection, I saw that she was fast asleep. Then how was it that she was able to deliver such crushing blows, and with such precision, to maximize damage with such minimal effort. In university, I had done research in sub-primates, and had known certain genus and species to have developed defensive sleeping postures to protect against nighttime predators, but never in any of the literature had I come across an animal capable of “offensive” sleeping behavior. A creature that, while sleeping, can proactively attack its prey? Truly astonishing.

Unable to sleep, I was greeted at dawn by a sound both familiar and unfamiliar: a lone wolf howling. The unearthly noise was coming from the direction of the boy’s sleeping quarters.  I was pulling at my hair, racking my brain, trying to rationalize how such an animal could have entered the house, and what could cause a beast to make such guttural sounds, when the young girl stirred awake behind me. She turned to me, with the coldness of a thousand compress packs, and simply stated, “Brother is hungry. Go to him. Bring him Cheerios.”   

Humbly yours,

Captain Timmy

Post Script. I did go down the stairs to fetch the boy his Cheerios. To my amazement, more than half of our two pound supply was spilled about the floor. However, upon cleaning up the scattered grains, their collected mass was 3 lbs. What a strange observation.  I will add this to today’s agenda of scientific inquiry and will report back my findings.

Continue to Next Chapter »