The Universe Is Always Listening

If I die in here, will it be tragically ironic or the karmic answer to all my life’s manifestations?

Seriously – I spend my life dreaming about chasing storms and exploring “romantic” decrepit, falling-apart buildings in forests, and now here I am, waiting out a raging thunder and lightning storm, huddled in a barn so old and decayed it can hardly be called a barn any longer, in a forest so dry that the barest thought of a spark will surely set everything ablaze in a matter of seconds.

Really. Did I ask for this? Is the universe laughing at me and my naivety, or benevolently offering me a way out, perfectly designed and created by my own obsessions?

I admit, I went a little overboard this time. I shouldn’t have come out here, by myself. In the height of fire season. To a forest I’ve never seen before, searching for a trail that hasn’t been followed in decades.

I wanted to see what it looked like before colonizers took over and “civilized” the Pacific Northwest. I wanted to see the wild, the forts, the forgotten pieces of history hidden so deep in the forest that humans haven’t even started culling the trees yet.

I found a wild, forgotten, stupid barn, alright, but now what?

Now I’m stuck in it. The roof is hardly a roof, not that it matters – there’s no rain with this thunder and lightning.

It’s actually kind of beautiful. I can see the entire sky lighting up in pinks and purples with every strike. The storm is so close, my hair is floating and I can smell the electricity in the air.

The forest is eerily silent. All the birds have evacuated.

As I notice a darker, moving shadow outside the non-existent door, I hope all the other creatures have too.

Oh yeah, I forgot, mighty universe, my passion for protecting the predators.

Save the bears. Leave the mountain lions alone. Bring back the wolves.

I guess I can’t complain if I end up serving as the last meal to a hungry puma? Survival of the fittest and all that. I wouldn’t last in a fight against a beaver let along something truly carnivorous.

The shadowy shape is definitely moving in.

I can see the glint of eyes as the animal moves through the doorway. A flash of lightning lights up the space, stopping my heart.

The resounding boom rattles the loose boards of the ancient barn but I'm frozen in place, staring into the yellow eyes of a Gray Wolf.

My heart forces a painful beat and I remember that I have to breath. I think I’m too terrified. Face to face with a wolf in my immediate present is much more real that theoretically burning to death in a lightning-induced forest fire.

Is this terror?

It feels like awe. Am I supposed to take note of how stunningly beautiful this animal who is no doubt going to eat me is? Oh, how I would love to pet his fur.

He doesn’t look like he wants to eat me. He’s just watching me.

I can feel hot tears evaporating from my cheeks, the overwhelm of the situation pouring the emotions that are too big for my mind to comprehend out through my eyes.

What am I doing here?

What on earth possessed me to go traipsing through the woods solo, for no good reason, when the entire west coast of North America is under extreme heat warnings and half the population is already evacuated?

Do I actually have a death wish? Is a staring contest with a bloody giant Dire wolf my version of my life passing before my eyes?

Why am I not more scared?

He looks calm. Understanding even.

He’s probably just trying to find a place to weather the storm as well. Maybe we’re kindred spirits.

If I survive this, will anyone even believe me?

Pics or it didn’t happen. I can already hear the response. But of course my phone is dead. No pics. Didn’t happen.

It probably isn’t even happening. I’m probably hallucinating from dehydration or something. Smoke inhalation?

Wait.

I do smell smoke. There really is a fire. I really am going to die here in this disintegrating barn with a wolf as my last companion.

Is it wrong that I more scared for the wolf than I am for myself?

“You should run,” I say out loud, watching his ears perk up slightly.

“Go on – run and save yourself.” I’m speaking in a quite voice out of some sense of self preservation. Part of me assumes that a loud voice will shock him into action and that action will be eating me. Another part of me knows he wouldn’t attack. He’s not interested in hurting me. But there’s still no reason to shout.

He continues to stare at me, as if waiting for me to do something else.

Unsure of what to do and certain that I’m going to die soon anyways, I stand up slowly. I make shooing gestures with my hands.

“Go. Get out. Run away Mr. Wolf. Can’t you smell the smoke? You’ve gotta get out of here.”

He stands still, watching me with those yellow eyes.

I take a step forward. He turns.

I stop, grateful that he’s going to leave. Hopeful that he’ll be safe.

But he stops too, and turns his head to stare at me again.

I take another step toward him, hoping to encourage him to move. After three more steps, he moves forward. As soon as I stop, he stops. And stares at me.

Almost like he wants me to come with him.

Now I’m definitely going crazy. I may read a lot of fantasy books and fairytales, but I don’t believe in them.

But you do believe in the power of the universe, a stray thought enters my mind.

If I can believe the universe would set up an elaborate death in the style of all my pseudo-psycho passions, why can’t I believe the universe would send a wolf – a wolf I campaigned for years to save – to guide me away from that death?

Besides, what have I got to lose? I can hear the fire now. And see the red in the distance above the trees.

If I stay here I most definitely will go up in flames.

Or I could follow a wolf. And maybe be eaten. But maybe not.

So I take another step. And another. I’m almost beside him now.

My heart – previously forgotten about – makes itself known by pounding to a tempo usually reserved for a crowded, drunken dancefloor. My fingers ache to reach out and touch his fur but I mentally restrain my arm from allowing this to happen.

Respect the apex predator. Don’t touch the creature with the sharp teeth.

But he starts to walk. And I start to follow.

Everything is crunching and cracking. The reality of how dry this forest is sets in. It hasn’t rained all season. How fast does fire move?

The wolf isn’t in a hurry. He sets a pace I can easily follow, even with my poor human eyesight and clumsy human non-stealth.

We walk through the trees and the smoke gets thicker. I start to notice small creatures running, terrified, past us. Badgers. Squirrels. Things too small for me to see, even when the world lights up as another electric spike threatens to breathe new fires into life.

Then the larger animals start to dash and dodge by us. Foxes. Deer. I’m pretty sure I saw a bear, but my mind refused to accept that possibility. One potentially deadly animal within arms reach at a time.

The wolf kept his pace.

I started to cough, my breathing challenged by the burnt air sizzling in my lungs.

If I wasn’t delirious before, I definitely am now.

I stumble more and more, the wolf patiently waiting for me to right myself.

Until I can no longer stand, and I follow him on my hands and knees instead.

It’s cooler down here. I feel so small in comparison to the wolf now, and incredibly inelegant. But I can breath a little better.

So I crawl. And the wolf leads.

Eventually we reach a river. I fall into the water, welcoming the cool wetness that contrasts the hot, dry air of the forest.

At this point, I’m willing to take my chances staying here, in the water, but I look around for my four-legged guide to see if he’s joined me.

He’s standing at the water’s edge. Watching me. I can tell he’s willing me to get up and follow him again, but the water is so blissful. Surely even a forest fire can’t touch a river? I must be safe here?

The wolf lifts his head and howls.

I’ve never heard anything so heart-breakingly powerful before. It’s sad, and courageous, and intelligent, and commanding, and desperate. It’s everything I’m feeling, brought to life through sound.

I can’t deny the wolf.

I stumble, soaked, out of the river and crash to the shore, choking once again on the smoke in the air.

As soon as I'm back on dry land, he starts to move again. I crawl after him, determined not to give up. Determined to answer his howl with my own commitment to follow him, even to my death.

I can barely hold my head up, but from the upper corner of my eyes I can see his tail, glinting silver in the moon and periodic lightning strikes. I follow the tail.

The crackling fire is getting louder now, I’m sure of it. But I can hear something else? We’re still following the river and it sounds like water, but…not the river water. It sounds like running, pouring water. And it’s getting louder.

A waterfall. That’s where he’s taking me.

I lift my head to see the wolf has finally stopped. Standing at the foot of a waterfall I had no idea existed anywhere in this forest. I can’t even lift my head high enough to see where the water is pouring from, it’s as if it’s a stream of water falling straight from the heavens themselves.

The wolf walks into the falling water and disappears. My heart contracts and I can’t breath.

I’m suddenly alone. Too alone. More alone than I’ve ever felt in my life. Being abandoned by the wolf is the most painful grief I’ve ever experienced. It’s as if a black hole swallowed all my insides when he disappeared.

But the emptiness only lasted a second. With the next flash of light breaking the sky, I see two yellow eyes, watching me from behind the water.

It’s a cave. There’s a cave behind the waterfall. I’ll be safe in the cave.

I throw myself forward, through a wall of crashing water and cough up my lungs on the hard, wet stone on the other side.

Madly searching the space, I lock eyes with the wolf once more.

And then, feeling more safe and protected than I can ever remember feeling, I closed my eyes and welcomed the oblivion of sleep brought on by panic, exhaustion, and too much smoke.

***

Birds.

Water.

Cold water.

I’m wet.

I inhale and instead of air I get a lungful of ice cold water.

Sputtering and coughing, I push myself up off a bed of rocks and hack as much water out of my body as I can, feeling a painful burning in my chest.

Blinking against a bright sun, I look around.

I’m sitting in the river.

In front of me is a smoldering forest, reduced to little more than ashes. I turn my head. The other side of the river is untouched.

There is no waterfall. There is no wolf. No prints other than my own.

I don’t know how, but I’m alive.