Late night auto-biography

A boy wandered aimlessly through the tall grasses of the pasture. A storm was building in the west, towering thunderheads darkening the late evening sky. The warm damp air was thick with the buzzing of insects and the muffled rumblings of distant thunder. Scents of wild-flowers and grass born on the westerly breeze took on a slight tinge of ozone, a promise of things to come. Shivering in anticipation, the boy eagerly made his way to the edge of a nearby pond.

The rotted out remains of a great fallen oak tree lay alongside the bank. As the winds began to pick up, he shed his boots and socks, and clambered onto the trunk. Playfully dipping his feet into the water, he stared off into the distance at the looming stormfront. A hazy wall of rain stretched from ground to clouds, all briefly illumined now and again by arcing flashes of lightning. It reminded the boy of a play, in that short time between scenes when the darkened and curtained stage hides the hurried rearrangements of props and settings.

He began counting the seconds between each thunder-clap as his father had taught him, and reached six-mississippi before the next rolled over the pond. The ground trembled with its violence, and from behind a nearby clump of brush out sprang a large dog. Balancing on one foot atop the log, the boy gazed curiously at the new animal. He quickly realized it was no dog, but a coyote; lank gray hair covering a rail-thin frame, and long muzzeled head capped with large pointed ears. It caught sight of the boy, and it's muzzle opened wide in a snarl, exposing long sharpened teeth. He stood rooted in shock until the next peal of thunder sent the animal bounding back into the tall grass.

The wind gained in fury, the branches of the trees about the pond whipping against one another. The thunder was coming in quick succession now, and flecks of moisture splattered against his face. He dropped back to the ground, and ran up the trail to the dirt road leading to the farm. The increasing violence of the storm spurred him onwards, the rough gravel giving way grudgingly to soft bare feet as he recklessly flew down the road. Thick sheets of rain lashed down on him, thunder boomed in his ears, stabs of lightning blinded him. The tree-lined drive of his home appeared before him, and he crossed into the soft cool grass of the lawn with a leap. His mother stood framed in the doorway of the porch, lit by soft electric light, and hurriedly beckoned him in.

* * *

In the morning, the boy set back out for the pond to recover his socks and shoes. Though this time with much more care, tredding on bruised and swollen feet. The storm had left little mark in passing, and he found the clearing about the pond much as he had left it, save for one tree that had been struck by lightning, huge splinters of wood jutting from it's ruined trunk and angled towards the fallen remains of it's body.

As he gathered his shoes, idly examinging the new sight, he spotted an animal stuck under one of the tree's branches. He made his way to the ruined tree, and tried lifting the branch. It was large, and heavy enough to have killed the animal it covered. To his amazement, it was a coyote. Probably the same one from last night, he thought, dragging the branch aside. The muzzle was again open, but frozen in a rictus of death. He stared in fascination and disgust at it's swollen tongue, grossly lodged between two great canine teeth, and the slash of blood matted hair where the branch had caved in the coyote's chest.

He was suddenly overcome with an urge to tear out the canine teeth of the animal. A friend at school had a necklace laced with two large age yellowed teeth. He wasn't able to boast having collected the them himself, though. The boy reached into his pocket for his clasp-knife. He flicked the blade open, and squatted down beside the ruined animal. Gently prodding the tounge away from it's teeth, he realized that he had no idea what to do. Not pausing to doubt himself, he plunged the tip of the knife into the animal's gumline. In angry embarrasement, he simply hacked away at the bottom of one tooth, leaving a bloody mess of pulpy tissue under his knife. But the tooth would not come.

Stubbornly grabbing it between his fingers, he pulled and yanked, blinking away a sudden rush of tears and swallowing back a spurt of bile. The tooth came out with a sharp pop, and the boy fell back onto the ground. His eyes wandered from the bloody tooth to the ruined maw of the coyote. Getting slowly to his feet and rubbing his sleeved arm against his eyes, he looked around him at the lush tangle of wildflowers surrounding the pond, and the bright clear summer sky. A cool breeze stirred the tops of the trees and sent rolling waves through the tall grass. He gave one last glance at the ruined animal, and cast the tooth into the pond. He bent down to the water to clean the blood from his hands, then gathered his shoes and quietly made his way back up to the road.