shattered image - january 2023
After reading “The First Five Pages” by Noah Lukeman, the following is what I’ve sent to my critique partner for review.
Draft - Shattered Image - January 24, 2023
“BAAAAA!” Honeybee, my lamb, jumps and screams in terror as the flock scatters, an explosion of woolly chaos.
“NOOOO!” So fast, my sling is in my hand and the stone knocks the wolf to the side before it can sink its teeth into Honeybee. When it leaps for her again, the second stone hits it right between the eyes. A third stone ready to throw, muscles tense as a bow string…the wolf fall into the tall grass.
I grab Honeybee up in my arms when she reaches me, frantic baaing and breathing, she buries her woolly head beneath my chin. “It’s okay. You’re okay.” I croon in her ear, the low-tone calming her down. I keep my eye on the place the wolf fell while I rock her like a gentle breeze in the sails of a boat on a lake, calming my pounding heart as well as hers. Humming the melody of the song my mother sings, she stops struggling against me.
“Mhaa.” Her nose pushes against my throat and the smell of warm lanolin from her wool rises as I feel over her back, tail, and legs just to be sure the wolf didn’t bite her. Lifting my fingers to the sun, no blood. She’s getting heavy, but I’ll hold her for as long as she needs.
“Hooeyip, hooeyip.” I call the flock to me. They come back baaing, wary of the place where the dark form lay.
Honeybee looks out from under my chin, then struggles to get out of my arms. I put her down, but she leans against my leg. Sniffing the wind, eyes bright, emboldened by the other sheep around her.
Picking up my staff, I stalk toward where the wolf lay. The sheep watch as I cautiously approach the shadow in the grass, their baaing and raised heads, giving me courage. It has not moved since it went down, as far as I can tell, so I poke it in the shoulder with my staff.
A snarl surges from its throat, and the sound of slapping sticks rings out as its jaws snap at me.
Determined fear brings my staff up, and the tremor through the wood as it crashes down on the wolf’s forehead pulses into the air along with the yelp that echos over the hills until only the breeze hears the sizzle of death.
A stampede of panic and fear and resolve to protect, protect, protect pant in my every breath as I nudge it again. The wolf’s tongue drops out of its mouth, and the partially-closed eye doesn’t move, sightless. “You shouldn’t have come after my sheep, Wolf.” A hollow feeling echoes down, down, down into my soul. I don’t like to kill, but I will to protect what’s mine.
I plant my staff in the grass, holding it’s strength in my grip as I look away from the gauzy eye of the wolf to the rippling blades of grass in the warm breeze, then up into the tent of blue above. The warm air filling my chest laps against the hollow feeling trying to wash it away, while the caressing rays of sun touch my face. Birds are gathering already, floating on scents of violence. Death always bothers me.
Where did the wolf go, the breath that kept it alive?
I leave the wolf where it rests for the birds, “Hooeyip, hooeyip,” and lead the flock away.
Do we follow our breath when it leaves us? If so, where do we go?