Hacia Lo Salvaje Now

That night, he does not build a fire. He curls into the hollow of a fallen giant, a redwood that had died a century before he was born. He pulls his thin wool blanket over his nose. The cold is not an enemy. It is a sculptor. He can feel it carving away the soft parts of him, the excess. The man who worried about his credit score is gone. The man who felt shame for his failures is gone. In their place is only a vertebrae, still warm, still listening.

A wolf howls. Not at the moon—the moon is a sliver, indifferent. The wolf howls because it is a question mark thrown into the dark, and the dark answers with silence. Hacia lo salvaje

He smiles. It is the first genuine expression his face has made in a decade. That night, he does not build a fire