“Ware’re we going? D asked.

“To the old farmhouse,” I replied.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“You’ll think I’m crazy.”

“I already think that,” Stated D, “So, why are we going to the old farm house?”

“I feel I was called,” I replied self-consciously.

“Your a nut,” he said, “but it’s always an adventure when you say those things . . . you like her don’t you?”

“Last night,” I answered, “was amazing, I love her, D.”

A star lights in the sky, the first star I see, or is it Venus shining alone; we are never alone.

“How do you know?” Asked D.

Alone is all I know “I don’t know”, I answered with sadness as we walked, walk, walking, walking and dream, dreaming, dreaming and talk, talking, talking, until Nyx finished blanketing of the sky. A soft caress of of cold, the sweet perfume of the damp air, and ten thousand points of light in the sky above, as apposed to the lights below; little points on the banks of the slow moving river.

A white fox crosses the path. A path black as pitch, dry poison for an easy trek.

One, two, three and four, five, six and seven, eight, and nine lights in the sky and countless more to count and connect; making patterns in chaos that represent emotions, our ways, and heroes lost in perceived time. We idealize the stars and look to the sky when we should look within. Of all the stars and lights inside our beings, Venus alway stands out and sits alone.

“To me, she’s the only one to stand out in a sky of countless choices.”

“What makes her standout? Out of every person you’ve ever fucked, out of every one-night-stand, every person on the streets, why her?”

“She’s unperdictable; one moment a beautiful embrace, the next a hateful glare from across the room; she is chaos.”

“But others are chaos, others fuck the same, love the same, and others that have the same fire.”

Why is her fire special? To the sky my eyes wander to Venus; alone but why special? Eyes move to the seven sisters, but count only six; one hidden, the unnamed sister, “It’s unknown”, I’ll call it Sophia, “that’s the only way to explain it”.

“Better than nothing,” replies D.

Silence in the air, no sent, sound or motion; “this area is death”. One step brought us in and another took us out. A nightingale sings an excess of notes, some have said it waists its breath and song and looses its words, but how can a song be waisted and words lost when everything is the word. The song fades, distance increases, pase decreases.

Seemingly endless, narrow, and winding its way through the river valley; trail on cliff, to an small neighborhood, down a hill and up again to the edge of water. Fluid conversations in motion with the harmony of conflicts against the eroding stone and fallen trees of floods long past. Across the snaking, near waterless river, a pack of coyotes laugh at us. Hungry and slaves to that hunger.

The river is no boundary for the commands of starvation and blood lust.

“D?” I ask in near panic.

“Huh?”

“Across the river.”

D curses, we run, and they in pursuit. Smirking with jaws frothing, a hint of euphoria in the laughter; howling and yelping and barking and running, as we run and run and run. Each step for us was three steps across the river for them. The beasts are bound to overtake our overly exhausted pace. No counting those behind, but one blocked out path ahead.

“Damn it.”

To the left a sheer sand stone cliff, high and imposable to climb. To the right the river to slow us down.

Dew is now frost, cold is the air. Hot are our bodies sweating adrenalin; I feel no pain, I am alone. D at my heels and a coyote lunging for my jugular. [Arm raised] A successful block, but the pursuit ends now with the clenching jaws tearing at my arm, however protected with a thick leather cote. The extra weight drags me to a stop.

D climbs a tree, kicking the predator while ascending.

The pack is on us; no me. Two jumping and snapping and laughing around D’s tree; many more attacked me, a shameful cry came from D, but I’m glad he’s safe. Jaws on my legs, pants torn; teeth on my arm, jacket pierced; two more pulling me down by the back of my jacket, many more circled waiting for my fall. Panic was coming to me. Mad fright of death coming.

Another coyote lunged and jumped. Everything got slower. A peaceful anger burned within and the eye inside opened. Passion was within. Thoughtless passion is the way of the body, and body is the way of the animal. I am animal. I was of the beast, but I am bigger. The purifying pain of pierced flesh. The flying coyote in perceived slow motion, knocked down to the asphalt by my free arm, crunching bone is heard over the laughing.

Grasping the neck of the dog latched on my arm, pulling him closer, while pushing with the arm he held. Skin rips, and the pain shoots, the animal squirms in panic as his jaw dislocates with a yelp of his surprise and agony. Released. He runs his jaw flapping, two follow, most likley to consume in cannibalistic need. It makes me sad.

Pain from my thigh, torn flesh and exposed bone. Fist to K-9 face, a wine with my blood flying from the wound to the black top; dead dog lying next.

Then three more on me. A whence from D’s tree. Then two more. I’m overwhelmed. I can feel the bites and the tears. Force of will depleting. But I’m still stronger. Grabbing the closest, it’s slammed against the sandstone face, his bones break, and his neck snaps, falling limp to the ground. These animals are not apart of this world, the natural coyote does not attack people.

The endless struggle continues, but for each one that falls two more take its place. Soon I’m pulled to the the ground. Blood is lost, and vertigo sends me falling. Force of will gone, the perception of time slows further.

A voice: “Do you like solitude?”

“What?” I ask of the voice.

“Do you like being alone?” Agony jets through my body like nothing before; migraine and melancholy fester as a boiling ooze.

“Who are you?” Deep inside I knew her.

“Answer my question.”

“Yes,” I answer. “Now answer mine.”

“I am the hell that will save you.”

“I don’t want your help.”

“Why would you refuse me?” Time seemed motionless, my blood was not flowing; the coyotes latch in the morbid feast, stuck. But just as time seemed to be motionless, frozen is this fork on my path; but I have an iron will and my soul burns with the black flame.

“Leave . . . me . . . alone . . . ” I didn’t think I could refuse but I did.

New strength came.

Both hands grasped the closest coyote and in-caved her eyes and pushed into the brain; dead. Grabbed the ears of another and tore them off; ran away yelping. The one tearing at my thigh I crushed in a role, snapping its neck. And more and more came, an unnatural swarm. With each one dead, again two more came. No clothing was left untorn; no skin was left unstained by my blood. Another coyote dead, strangled by my hands, but more came rending and tearing. And more blood is lost. I continue to kill. The more that died the more life I felt.

I can feel it in my arms, life draining from the dieing dogs. Life rising into mine. Life fron animal to human. Life drawn towards life. Life slithers from the beast to mine; I don’t want it, but it forces it’s way. This was the purpose,  not to kill but to bring me to a savage ectacy. I don’t want it, but it compels me.

Another coyote in my fingers , slowly strangled. His eyes are awesome, deep almost human, sad and in pain; don’t die. Too late. These creatures of night time stalking are natural, however being controlled by a malevolent force. Please son’t die. Too late.

Limp . . . empty . . . dead . . . A shell holding symbolic meaning and acting as a physical representation of the life he once held. The eyes are open, but with out depth. A reflection seeds the center of its pupal . . .

Stop.

In the dead eyes, a reflection within a reflection, divine like the virgin but more like the black Madonna. A reflection now thrice fold of the remaining coyotes; they pass before the divine mirror. Each emanating anger within the hollow and glazed eyes.

I no longer have the strength or will to resist, so I close my eyes and wait for the rending of flesh.

It doesn’t come.

The only sounds are the sounds of circling; it’s defining to my mind. Stars shine high above. Weeping in a tree. Venus to the right.

Stop.

Temperature set to a cool comfort. and a kiss is placed on my brow [eyes open]. Four coyotes circle; one for each direction. A stunning woman, naked as the sky stands in the path. Silence in the tree. The depleted blood has taken its tole; spinning but motionless and the sky sparkles.

I hold to conciseness with a childes grip. Above, the stars shake and a voice speaks from earthly eternity, “do not sleep”. Not the voice that cane to me one day, it’s not a whisper but a projection of clarity and a lively, living calling; the stunning reflection of a naked woman.

“Help me,” I ask. In her steps the coyotes follow gracefully in a sort of unholy innocence; different than the patient stalking of hunters; more of a dance in melodic step with the one he follows, but none in the lead.

I seem to be caught in a fog, or is it a dying vision.

“What woman can walk with the coyote,” I ask.

“Living?” With a kind smile.

“What’s your name?”

“Quiet . . . and rest.”

“What’s happening to me?”

“Shh . . . Sophia’s coming.”

“Sophia?” I mumble, “who.”

“She is merely Sophia,” The name is familiar.

“I don’t understand . . . “

“Yes, you do . . .”

[fade . . . ]