22
PARTISAN REVIEW
me as if it knows what I am doing.
It
knows what I am thinking.
And
all
the time I think of Them and how They are down in their
place sitting inside Their shelters because it is cold with their safe fire
burning and They talk to each other in Their high birds' voices and
sometimes one talks and the others listen.
Why am I not like Them, why cannot I come to Them, why do
They hunt me and make traps for me? Why cannot I be like Them and
not a big clumsy ugly hairy beast like my brothers?
Sometimes I think I will go to the cliff near the top of the mountain
and jump off it. Then I would be dead and the heavy pain inside me
would not hurt me. This thought frightens me. I am sure I have never
thought anything like it before. I am sure if I said it to my brothers they
would not understand. They do not understand what I say now. I cannot
say to them what I am thinking. But this strong hard smooth thing on my
leg sometimes seems to talk to me and I don't like what it is saying. I am
a pnsoner now.
There is a thing I can do, I can use my teeth and gnaw off my foot
and then the smooth hard thing would slide off. But how could I live
without my foot? No, I think when the snows go I will go to the high
cliff and jump off it. I do not want to go on living with this heavy pain in
my chest. I want to go to Them and tell Them what I feel, but now They
are not my friends and I am afraid of Them, but I think of Them
all
the
time and when I go to sleep I think of Them, pictures of Them are in my
sleep and I seem to hear Their high birds' voices and I feel their soft
hands stroking me and I feel the Female's face in my fur and the wet from
her eyes. I think of Them
all
the time. I want to be with Them. I want to
be Them. Why can't I be Them? Why are we so different I can't be
Them?
