The Thing About Femurs...

By K. Bethune.

At the first light of morning, he slung his rifle across his shoulder and pushed his way through the clinging blades of knee-high grass. Down a valley, up a hill- past a stagnant, autumn-brought pond. Another hilltop, to a grassy-clearing: not a breath of wind, not a gasp of exhaustion from his own self, despite his hike. Silence. Silence, only golden because of its suffocating weight. There he stood, stock-still as a statue, ears attentive for the slightest breaking of a twig under foot- the promised sound came soon enough. From the grass came a rustle, a shuffle, a deep-throated grunt. The foliage parted roughly, to reveal a monstrous wild pig, all tusks and bristly black pelt. The animal foraged, pacing the ground with its hooves, and it sniffed the air tentatively.
"Go, before it catches wind of you," he thought as he raised the barrel and aimed.
The bullet blasted through the still morn, disappearing just as quickly into his targets chest. The low-slung body winced, squealed in fury, and promptly collapsed into the twisted bramble.
"But has death arrived yet?" He nudged it curiously with the point of his boot, just to ensure his kill- no twitch of life from the hunted. The growing pool of life-blood at his feet told him how true his aim had been.
Old and rheumatoid-riddled though he was, his wiry strength and brutal determination lay still unfazed by age. It took him little over an hour to drag the boar back.
Limbs bound, it now lay in the shade of a gnarled elm. With a bottle of whiskey beside him and a knife in hand, he set to work.
"Surrounded by death, we are," he thought, as he skinned the beast. Disintegrating flies, feet up on the window sill; leaves lying rotten where you wander; dead fowl, chicken, turkey, quail, all sold frozen in stores; once a piece of hamburger meat breathed and grazed. No human bodies in sight, however.
He pressed his fingertips against the taut, tendon-strung muscle of his forearm. Beneath the steady beat of blood filled veins, he could feel the ghost of a radius- or might it be the ulna? He could never recall which sat atop the other.
How does one acquire a skeleton without sacrifice?
Ivory pillars are encased and entwined with lightning-rod nerves, rubber band tendons and rivers of vermillion, crimson, the red, red wine that flows throughout the despicable shell. All held up by bones, the body is. He pushed aside the quivering animal flesh- through the murk, he could see the bright traces of a spine, arching and knotting its way through the hardy body. He'd never yet found a use for the boar skeletons- the legs were short and stumpy, the skull teetering and heavy, the back-bone little more than a long column of stacked puzzle pieces. Wasted, they lay by the hundreds, falling away into dust beneath the floorboards.
But the bones of a fellow man, on the other hand...
The things he could construct with such materials. An arm-chair, he could fashion one of those. Legs could literally become legs, arms to arms. He could snap the ribs to allow for a more comfortable back-rest- he could bind it all together with bailing twine, cut the leathered, hanging animal pelts as a seat. He might even use the skull (be it in one piece, that is) as a foot-rest or door stop. Or a candle holder, as old bearded Bill Shakespeare supposedly did. He'd always liked that Lady Macbeth character- he felt a slight pang of empathy for her and her incessant hand washing. He had found, over years past, that the moment blood soaks the hands, it is impossible to be rid of it. It clings there, beneath the nails, in the creases of knuckles, in the life-lines that cross the palms. The death of another’s traces the life of one's own.
The afternoon had come with cold quickness- he was now left with the framework of the boar as the flesh cooked in the smoking shed and the skin hung out to dry.
With a quick flick of his knife, the heart was free- there, clearly in the left atrium, had pierced his shot. Another flick and the bullet was held between his fingers. A sudden glint of light, from the nearby road illuminated the blood-smeared pellet in his hand. A pair of luminous eyes, headlights in fact, loomed in the sunset, causing him to squint.
It wasn't often travellers came past this way.
"Can you spare a minute?" asked the new-comer.
"Yes," answered he.
"I'm lost," announced the new-comer.
"I see," answered he.
"Do you know the way back to the highway?" inquired the new-comer.
"Let's see..." answered he.
It might be a left, or it might be a right. You might take the high road, or the one down the valley. Maybe you should cross the bridge at the base of the mountain... but following the river could lead you back...
He had taken the road innumerable times before, and was sure he could navigate the track blind-folded. But he had no plans of divulging the directions just yet.
With the eye of a carpenter, he scrutinized the frame of the figure before him. The narrow humeri were hardly spectacular - but at least there were two of them. Radius and ulna, also intact. Though a tad spindly, if he said so himself. Femur, tib and fib: long, with an undesirably awkward outward curve…
But nevertheless, he’d just have to make do with the resources at his disposal.
In a forced show of cordiality, he attempted to stretch a smile along his jaw- but neglect of the expression left him with the visualization of a grinning maniac. Hardly the impression that he wished to convey, if he was to have his way.
With rubber lips and bared, yellowed teeth, he continued to nod amiably and pivot on false directions.
The new-comer meanwhile, was appearing more anxious by the second- shuffling, pawing the ground with their feet. Appearing to sniff the air, in a gesture so animalistic, that he felt his own instincts alight.
"Go, before they catch wind of you," he thought as he opened his mouth.
But in a flurry of apologies and thanks, they were gone.
"Ah" he sighed into the thickening twilight, "They looked like brittle bones, anyhow."
And he sat and he waited.