“The sheep bleated this wild, mad sound; its life drained out by the wolf’s teeth. I don’t blame the wolf any; it did what it had to do but what is that like? Dying, I mean. What was it like for that sheep to have its life taken away from it? I assume it saw this brilliantly harsh color, a deep awful red or something, and then just black, pitifully cooing until it died.”
“Fuck you say?”
“I’m talking about dying. That’s what I’m talking about. I don’t want to die. “
“Nobody wants to die, idiot.”
“I know but…”
“Shut up and go to sleep.”
I had never met anyone like Charlie. His mind creaked along on one track. If it was time for sleep, it was time for sleep. There was no deviation. When we watched the sheep together, he didn’t make a noise except for the occasional click of his rifles safety. His lids would close half way down onto his iris and pupil leaving a little bar of brown and black. The pupil, like the bubble in a level on uneven ground, would shift back and forth on an incessant search for hungry intruders. He didn’t complain much; rather, he spoke by necessity. That’s not to say that I didn’t like Charlie. He was a nice enough guy, I guess. Except for the murder. That was pretty fucked up, but I’m over that now. Anyway, Charlie and me were shepherds. Let me rephrase– Charlie was a shepherd, and I just happened to watch sheep herd. They paid no attention to me; I was another bleating sheep. Baaing at them like every other docile idiot grazing in the vigorous sunlight. They feared Charlie though. To them Charlie was a wolf. He could look at one of them, bark a command, and poof, all its wool would be in a nice neat pile waiting for Charlie to pick it up. The man was fearsome, and like I said, one tracked.
“Pass me a biscuit.”
“Pass me a biscuit please? We may be wild Charlie, but you could at least say please.” His eyes never left the sack that held the biscuits, not for one moment. He didn’t even register my condescension just repeated himself, like the biscuits magically appeared in his hands by command.
Open says a me.
He shoved the biscuit in his mouth. I have never seen a man eat a biscuit without chewing, but somehow Charlie managed to fit the whole thing down his throat and straight to his belly. It was like watching a snake eat a mouse.
“That’s disgusting.”
He didn’t respond. He never responded. I talked to Charlie all day most days, and if I were lucky I’d get a ‘fuck you say?” or a nice guttural grunt. That dark night was no different. Charlie took no interest in me–not that I had a particular desire to be friends with Charlie but it was that or the sheep, and they, like I said, paid less attention to me than Charlie did.
After we had finished our meal of biscuits and buttermilk–stale biscuits and soured buttermilk–Charlie went to sleep. Charlie liked to eat light ‘makes it easier to catch hungry animals if you're hungry too.’ I tried to sleep but that poor lamb I had heard earlier weighed on my mind. I kept thinking about what it would be like if I died. What would it feel like? Would it feel like anything at all? Or would it just be sleep without the waking up? What would I see? Would I see anything? I tried engaging Charlie in conversation about this, to have some sort of philosophical discussion on the manifestations of death or some such bullshit. I figured even a man who doesn’t care for anything but food and work would have something to say on death. Might even be enlightened on the subject. I was hoping that I could forge a connection with Charlie.
“I can’t go to sleep. What if I don’t wake up tomorrow, huh? What if I don’t wake up?
“Then you're dead. What the fuck do you care then?”
“Because I like living, Charlie.”
“And I like sleepin’ so shut up and let me do that.”
“No.”
“Fuck you say?”
“Indulge me just once. Please. I talk at you all day, I’m going fucking mad talking to myself up here.”
“Yourself?”
“Talking to you is like fucking talking to myself Charlie. There’s nothing up here. No one around. Just you and some poor idiot souls.”
“Indulge you, huh? Indulge you?”
“Yes. Please.”
“You wanna know what it’s like to die?”
The light from our fire died down, and the darkness skulked in. I could barely see Charlie, but I could sense his brown-black bars searching for me in the gloom.
“Before it happens yeah. I’d like to be prepared for dying.”
“Death creeps up on you. A wolf in the dark. Bares its milky white teeth and sucks all your life out, without you ever knowing what hit you.”
“That’s not very…”
Enlightening. That was the word I was going to say but didn’t get the chance to say. He had the safety clicked, the hammer cocked, and the trigger pulled before I had a chance to breathe. I didn’t see anything. Didn’t feel anything. No harsh reds, or even black–it was an indescribable nothingness. I wish I had died like that sheep, bleating wildly, and cooing pitifully when the wolf drained it’s life, but I didn’t. Maybe if I had, Charlie might remember my wretchedness when death comes creeping up on his poor idiot soul.
- A. W. Fentress
