Bear Mountain Transmutation

I was turning into an animal. The worst of it was that everyone had sensed it but me. I was no longer civilized, polite, or on time. Everyone I knew avoided me, afraid of contracting some new insanity that would ruffle their stifled conditioned habitual patterns and lifestyle. A nearly extinct mountain species was taking turns with my body and shapeshifting in and out of it. I slept in animal skin by night and felt the long white ear tufts, the sharp, lethal claws and the low guttural growl. Grrrrrr. The whole concept turned a corner and got out of hand. The remote control autotuned in by default to only one channel preprogrammed to the Wild. Lynx energy transferred in somewhere between Grizzly Peak and Brittle Silver Mountain, a vortex, a star gate for pristine purity and naturally aware liberation. Ever since the mystery mechanic mapped out the whereabouts of a lair by the Bear bowls I was obsessed with a complete return to the other way that worked better. And what good was this body anyway? You know, the one that got me into trouble with men, pregnant or married off to some thankless captor with a regard for only dinner on the table by 6 and great lovin’ by 9? And who could really blame them? I had a set of January Sports Illustrated headlights and a perfect rest to match that didn’t need the latest trend in miracle or wonder lingerie to visually deceive men. I was a miracle without a mate. I was too wild to tame. If I could have a human mind and a lynx body, an all-good solution would result. So I didn’t cry anymore, I howled. I wanted to pee, discretely in the snow, out of range of mankind and clearly mark my territory. The good lynx then lay down in the snow and watched the town below turn on its lights as the sun retreated westward. She watched in the silence of the snow curled up warm in the den of delightful distance.

I caterwauled miserably upon awakening like a wounded beast. To be in full fur, warming up on a rock on a winter thaw afternoon was my heart’s desire. I would come down in the early morning hours before sunrise for meat scraps put out by the mystery mechanic, the man who would never hurt me because I wouldn’t get close enough, the man who didn’t know enough about me to get a thrill from the capture. The animal angst wished that he, too, could feel the complete exultation of metamorphosis, to be freed from the work-a-day world. I licked my paws and smiled a big cat smile with fangs and tongue. I envisioned a running mate to nip, chase, and roll with in a Deer Creek clearing by Delbert’s deserted mine shaft. But I knew potential mates were nearly extinct and I was the last female of this kind up here in a cut off animal corridor. The elk and mountain sheep were coming down from the snowfields to feed. Rabbit tracks were freshly imprinted in the snow. Straight fox tracks followed. It was a fitting moment to consider the possibly of enough marrow and bone to gnaw on all week.