Coyote Rendering

When coming in contact with other humans, which for me only occurs a percentage of the factual time, and even if just over the phone, I encounter the same exact dilemma, day after day after day.

Most always one of the first things said is, “How are you?”. My conditioned response then takes over and I mindlessly say things that are not entirely accurate. Worse than that, and by way of my own inattentive thoughtlessness, I ask them the same senseless question.

How does this continue to happen? Habituation I suppose.

Even when giving the matter hours of precise consideration, I still cannot always catch myself in time to represent me-as-me honestly.

Amongst my proprietary vocabulary ‘honesty’ means no parts of the truth are withheld from the conversation. Oh sure, there may be circumstances where it would cause harm to expose the entirety of the factual situation, but then I just stand soundly on my position of truthful semantics and tell no lies.

But when concretely oriented on the high step of no-holds-barred honesty, I long ago vowed to do better, meaning I would strive to go further and make my position clear.

Much of my modern day holdback, when without exactness avoiding saying how I am, I think it is me not wanting to add to the stress of others. Believing everyone is overloaded with enough of their own struggles, who wants to listen to someone else’s story of nothing less than bunnies and rainbows?

Rhetorical, likely no one.

So I glass it over.

I dull it down.

I respond to say, “I’m fine”.

Or, “It’s ok”.

“Pretty good”.

“Not horrible”.

“Could be worse”.

“Good enough”, that is one I have utilized often in the last handful of years. Or if they suggestively trust that I am doing well, I might send back an agreeable short simply saying, “Well enough.”

And I wouldn’t exactly be lying.

Because I am not battling a disease. I’m not bed ridden. I’m not missing a hand, nor without the use of my legs. There’s drinkable water flowing from the pipes. I can see, I can talk, I can still operate under my own power. I have an automobile which runs ok, and perhaps most profoundly, I can still ride my bike. Plainly, wholly, I’m still alive. So on the surface, my response of, ‘fine’, would be congruent with my factual state of affairs.

When slowing to think more about what I say before I say it, I instead try to ask, “How are you feeling today?”. I like that question better. It seems more real, not so abstract or problematic, more precise, less fake. I also prefer the provocative challenge of such a question, if it is perchance proposed to me directly. Because then I would be forced to think along different lines. I would need to pause, almost halt in place, and wait to respond. Creativity would become more of a daily requirement and not just a side hustle or afterthought. I couldn’t just blurt something out with hope of alignment to what was just asked of me.

But maybe I should just zip it, and not say anything apart from what I think other people want to hear. I could worry more about myself, and not so much about truth. Maybe minimize my stature. Simplify. Focus on something else, something different, something other than what has consumed me for decades. Yeah, maybe that.

Perhaps then travel a bunch, journeying only to new places, not historically beloved ones. Maybe move to a different country where I know no one, start over. Maybe shrink, you know, grow quieter, get smaller, less visible, more private.

Maybe pull back and stop giving so much of myself away.

Well no, factually-actually that wouldn’t be helpful at all.

Thereby I would be violating my own authenticity.

So then as it is and with resolve I speak up, and talk honestly, even when unfavorable or uncomfortable to do so.

One key component of my effective listening process includes that when initiating a conversation, I first ask if they have time to talk. Usually they say yes, yes they have time, but not always. Maybe when first claiming yes, they have time, they do not actually possess enough minutes to speak literally. Yup, I think that’s some of it, many of us avoid topics of conversation that cannot be covered in five minutes or less.

It has been my experience that when asked how are you feeling today, most people don’t really want to answer the question. Or it could be they don’t have the time to formulate an adequate reply. Or they lack the patience to give it enough thought in the first place. Hah, maybe like me they don’t want to bother anyone else with a literal recital. Maybe they believe I am just trying to be nice by asking, but don’t really want to hear their answer.

So instead we just say, “I’m fine”.

These here days I myself display visually as fine, if you were to see me.

I operate ok when moving about in the world.

And I sound pretty good, if you were to hear my voice.  

On the outside I do a commendable job smiling, laughing, and engaging with others, quite charming actually.

So under the microscope, as I think more about attempting to formulate what I am literally trying to communicate with you, quickly I imagine a self-reflective role play. Meaning it’s now me practicing my retort of the ho-hum age old query, “How are you?”.

But can I better align with the person I believe myself to be, or at least come closer to who I am trying to become with what’s ahead? Meaning highly intentional.

Let us see.

Well, as I might start out…thanks for asking, do you REALLY want to hear it?

If so, (want to hear it), I would be lying if I didn’t say I am feeling moderately unsettled.

Maybe it’s even worse than that.

Zooming out to view through the macro lens, I’m not overly concerned about the future or stuck on the past, so that’s good. More so, I am feeling out of sorts in the present.

Out of sorts in the present. Out of sorts in the present like I’m on a smallish island. The island is maybe a mile or so wide, and a few miles long, at best.

There’s a paved road around the perimeter of said standalone landmass, and several swaths of blacktop crisscross the interior so to connect the outer loop. The exterior course is built for continual flow, while the middle intersections feature four way stops. Roads include traditional markings: Edges are painted, intersections have crosswalks and stop signs, and a safety-style centerline exists on all thoroughfares.

There are also sidewalks about.

I do not know any better but it would make sense that at one time there were cars and trucks. And motorcycles and bicycles. And scooters and skateboards, strollers and inline skates, rolling carts and wheelbarrows and lawn mowers and shopping carts on the island. Yes, that would in fact make sense, because the infrastructure and capacity remains for the modern day utilization of those things. But strangely, not a single contraption has wheels, not even a toy.

Daily I see men and women moving about, some younger some older, mostly middle aged but the recall of children escapes me. We saunter during the day, but at night the place is quiet, I presume all are off to bed inside our private abodes.

We humanoids are required to travel under our own power, intending to say without the aid of mechanical devices speeding our trajectory. Remember, no wheels.

There is a shoe store on the island who’s operator does a respectable business repairing and replacing our worn footwear from all the walking. It would be a stretch to say I observe a communal weariness, yet I cannot believe the thought to be a lie.  

I cannot say that the island has a name, or even enough of a reputation to gain a nickname or given moniker. Perchance I just don’t know the place well enough to learn such detail, or to gain such insight. But that also seems strange, because I have lived here my entire life.

There is an awkward emotional silence that looms over the place, like a thick blinding fog atop a New England fishing village whose residents beg for the weather to clear so their ships can leave for sea.

The while and for multiple days collected the sky appears quite gloomy, very little light, although no clouds or obstructions block the sun.

No one has a job except the lone overextended cobbler, and he works for free.

Strangely I can’t remember ever having a conversation with anyone. I see their faces as we pass each other on the streets and sidewalks, but cannot discern the color of their eyes, and haven’t recalled anyone’s mouth ever moving.

Every one of us lives alone. One person per living space. It seems to be understood, not like it would be breaking the law to cohabitate, but more so it just is what it is.

Music plays throughout the place. It is piped into every quarter mile, seemingly in some sort of grid design. By the ways and means of the public audible there is a hum of a tune in the back of the heads of us citizens as we stroll around. The notes are propelled from the tops of 25-foot poles but there are no speakers to be seen, and no lines or wires are visible. There must be a sort of electronic system running inside the poles, I guess. It’s a recycling playlist but with a fair amount of variety and overall, it does not continue on a maddening loop-repeat.

But the publicly played songs are foreign. Not spoken in a foreign tongue, but consisting of a rhythmic mathematical format that nonsensically is portrayed as music. Almost like the soundtrack of an alien horror B-movie made in the 60s. It is also by the way and sad to say, the sum of the music on the island, for no one owns their own devices. No smartphones, no i-Pods, therefore no means to play stored or shared music. No radios, no record players, no disc or tape decks. No CD’s, no cassettes, no vinyl albums, and not even an 8-track exists anywhere. The result is more deadness, a sort of trance through the street level stratosphere because of lacking the romanticism with meaningful notes. But honestly that’s looking from the outside in, so none of us truly know any better.

There is a TV inside my place that was there when I moved in. I watch it every night. But I grow bored of the programming fast, then just turn it off and go to bed. The same studio must produce the moving picture broadcasts that also tend to the public audio airplay. The box translates nothing but gibberish, and I only watch because it is implied that I am supposed to. TV life behind closed doors is different than with rhythm walking the streets, but the two hint of a shared machination.

Oh well, it’s ok, because otherwise there’s not much else to do.

There are no books here. No magazines. No produced or published reports. No printed articles or essays. No folklore, no fairytales, no scary stories, no shared daydreams or eked-out nightmares. No fables, no fiction. No authors, no artists. No musicians, no poets, no sharings of yesteryear. No medium for media, news, or diverting amusement is present whatsoever. Hence no pens. No pencils, and no paper. No crayons, no markers, no paint. No charcoal, no watercolors. No chalk.

Other than shoes no one builds anything, everything is already here. There’s enough food in my kitchen to eat, and I never run out. No existence anywhere on the island provides anything edible, again there’s no need. There are no gardens, nothing grows or gets harvested.

There is a central urban space that is paved, like a pedestrian mall. The entire scene is excessively sized. The venue appears fabricated to support a few thousand people on its grounds, not a couple dozen.

A ginormous whimsical clock sits high on the face of the symmetrically central building on the square. Every quarter hour ‘til or past, a mechanized knight pops out from the face of the clock and slays a dragon who had tried to first devour him. Each half hour, a dozen little minions protrude from the dial and buzz around each other while producing the most amazing accord of Bavarian children’s church choir. And on the full hour, a prince speeds the outer ring riding his valiant black horse vowing to rescue then marry the princess his bride-to-be from the clutch of a demonized giant man eater.

The at-time survivorship shows maybe twenty five or thirty people on the island, at least whom I have seen.

Could something have happened here whereas once upon a when many more individuals moved freely betwixt each other, and in cars and buses once filling the now vacant roadways?

But I don’t know how that could be, because there is no airport, no airplanes or helicopters, and there are no docks. No ships, no boats, or watercraft of any kind. There is no wreckage or junk yards of old rusted vehicles. Were the land sea and air vessels whisked off into outer space when no one was looking?

In totality, society accepts the summation of life here without a hint of debate.

No public gatherings occur. No meetings either. No one is protesting. Everyone seems ok. Nothing is horrible, it doesn’t look like any one is suffering. No one appears to be lost, disadvantaged, or without direction. All inhabitants of the island act to know what they are doing, even me.

Every once in a while seated or strolling the island I sense a twinge that I should force myself to think or feel something else, but then the notion goes away.

Henceforth if I were more than I am I might question the validity of it all, and better define my depiction of ‘out of sorts in the present’ but instead, hum…I will conclude to simply say, it is fine.  

In Wisconsin, today is Tuesday. Exactly one week ago the sky was clear, the sun was high, and the clock claimed time as its own, 1PM in the afternoon.

I came across a coyote on my property.

I was a little ways away, about 100 feet, and the animal was moving slowly across a clearing. Appearingly something was in its mouth. The first thing I thought of was a momma carrying its baby around. I moved closer, because I sensed distress. The situation was neither natural nor normal. As I approached it cautiously went into the woods but kept turning to look back. With certainty I was engulfed with a subliminal message of, “Help me”.

Quickly I found out why.

It was either a glass jar or plastic jug entirely surrounding the coyote’s head. I assume it stuck its face into the container to get some remnants of food and quickly became trapped. My heart sank, and I tried to follow then confront the animal, all to no avail.

Panic and desperation flooded me.

The while, I assumed some realizations that this creature was likely facing. I felt strangely displaced from my own shoes, quite sick to my stomach actually while trying to imagine myself wandering around unable to eat, drink, and barely able to see.

For a crafty critter who normally stays far-far away from humans, this one allowed and almost welcomed me to 30 feet from where it stood. I turned to pay notice to a car driving by, hoping maybe they would stop to help us. When turning back to where the animal just was, it was gone.

I felt the restriction. My breathing shortened, and tightened.

I recognized the dilemma.

Moving lethargically, it seemed to me this poor darling had been trapped like this for a while. Although still operating and on the go, I could not see that if aggressively pursued the coyote would be able to escape an attack.

I called Department of Natural Resources. Then I rang Fish and Wildlife. I filed a report. A local DNR animal biologist returned my call and said they received another message about a coyote with a container stuck on its head, another message besides mine, called in last Tuesday. He said thanks, and will follow up if anything develops.

For a creature conditioned its entire life to violently avoid humans, I wonder if the coyote recognized these same two-legged beings as the only ones able to rescue it? If taking a chance on a walk-about surly soul, the animal might surely be killed. But if coming across someone like me, the utmost tenderness and care would be administered. Yet how could it earthly know?

I imagined making my way through streets and woods without the means to survive.

Some tears were shed.

Some sleep was lost.

Excessive rumination remained for days.

I became more of myself than I have been in quite some time, while metamorphosizing into something else entirely.

The gamble of life became more real.

I could taste the anguish.

Literally, I felt the transference of confusion.

A weird noise filled my head. It disguised itself as music.

I tried to act normal and go about my days, as I thought I was expected to.

But something’s wrong.

Something is out there, in the woods, it’s in trouble and needs help.

I felt a dullness, a darkness, an isolation.

I felt akin to the sensation of being stranded, abandoned, on the run and without a place to shelter.  

I wanted to hurl.

Blech.

Same-same the bitterness fills my mouth still.