I called my Dad from the top of the tree on beautiful sunny day in the middle of the afternoon. “I've been treed by a grizzly. I’m in Yellowstone. I just want you and Mom to know that I love you. Tell her for me will you? No, I don’t have a gun - just please tell her I love her. I love you too. Bye.” After making peace, I let go and rushed toward a sure end. As I drifted from the top of the tree to the back of the bear I wondered who was in the tree with me. As my hands clasped fistfuls of fur the angry bear transformed into a lion. Once it was a lion, I no longer clung to it, rather I wrestled. I wrestled for my life in the trenches of sure loss. We tumbled through the forest, the lion swatting and biting at me with the might of its ancestors while I held it’s neck while throwing hay-makers with tornado momentum. Soon the lion settled, and I tamed her. Tranquility had settled in the heart of beast and man.
I walked to a small, unassuming cabin deeper still in the forest. The timber that made the walls stretched out as wide arms welcoming me. I fell in. As I opened the door, inside awaited my friends and family. We celebrated with a jubilation so radiant no mistake would be made, this was a festival in honor of the gladiatorial bout that had passed moments ago. All in attendance, all of you, already knew. News traveled fast here. As we drank and feasted into the night, the only pause was to dance.
Soon I was called back outside. I left the warmth and comfort of my family and friends to meld with the peaceful void of the night air. I walked alone. In the darkest of nights I walked, where a horizon was nonexistent and up was only known by moon holding her, as it led me away and into the valley. It was here, at the center of the valley, in the grey snow of the night I heard my father yell in the same manner he would yell for me when I was a child playing in the woods and fields of my grandfather’s farm. “Tyler - WOLVES!”
And with that thunderous beckoning, my eyes lifted to see hundreds of wolves descend on all sides of the valley. As they approached I did nothing except fill my lungs with the silence. The silence cocooned in my throat before floating away as the beautiful song of the wolf. I howled, and howled until every last wolf was in the valley sitting or lying next to me. Soon three magnificent wolves came from the forest, and as they stood next to me they shed their fur to become human. The middle wolf became a middle aged man with grey hair in a ponytail, and a beard to match. He smiled and his eyes beamed a warm welcome towards me. The wolf to his right became a man my age; it was his son. He too had a ponytail and beard, only black and not as long. He approached me, smiled, and shook my hand. Finally the third wolf transformed into a beautiful blond woman. She was his daughter and her beauty left a radiance in every one of my five senses. She smiled at me, I howled, and we started sniffing one another’s butts. Not in a glorious imagined fashion but, in the same excited stupid circle dogs walk when neither one of them will stop as they sniff. This was my dream.
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