Manifest Destiny of a Horse
a short story about a wendigo
NOV 17, 2024
I remember being deep in psychosis—in my dreams—and thinking about death and mystery, the darkness of the forest, and the spirits that live there when I began to hear it. Sitting above my face, hanging low on a tree branch, a great horned creature appeared, screaming at me to awaken. I didn’t understand then, but I do now.
The memories I have from the years I spent trying to get out of that mental prison are bleak. To be transparent: sometimes I don’t know if I am still there or not, and I don’t think I will ever be fully out of it, healed, escaped. Because that would mean I am trying to reach a state of perfection that doesn’t really exist and I don’t think it would be feasible in this lifetime. It feels unattainable for my being. Or maybe that’s just what they want me to think.
But that was long ago, I believe I might be the last of my kind. Now, I sit around dancing flames of the evening’s primrose and envy, holding hands with my friends. I believe in my tribe and their legends, but I’ve not experienced their stories. Although my beliefs are stronger and rooted, experience trumps all. So I trust what my body feels, because often my mind will lead me into a void of anxiety. Beliefs are subject to change because they are rooted in thought and emotion and experience; however, they are frozen in time and only subject to this change by delusion. I hold few beliefs. My tribesmen, though, they hold many. I do not seek to destroy their delusions. They are starved creatures looking to sink teeth into flesh and blood, luckily I am neither flesh nor blood. This evil spirit that haunts them, this lurking type, has existed amongst its own cultural taboo for centuries. And they believe in it, maybe that’s what fuels the cycle. What was once a man, is turned by greed and hunger, transforming into a lusting demonic creature with a singular desire for human flesh. I am not afraid of them, but I am weary, and I do not wish to be apart of their rituals. They obey me as if I am their creator, as if they are my kin, but what they do in shadows does not concern me, I am above it all. Their primal responses.
I’ve been alive with them for many years, barely speaking, no loving touch from another, just listening to their screams of capture or incest. They do not speak my language, but they draw carvings into caves and paint with blood of their victims onto trees. Secretly, I’ve been stripping the bark and carving into the rock to take their art. They seem too stupid to notice, so I keep doing it. I created a sculpture of my broken heart for them, to try and communicate what I feel. Puppet Strings. It is a collage of these many paintings, string made of grass and grounded in rock. I destroyed their symbols to form it into what it stands as now.
In creating this sculpture, in forming this tribe, I realized I’ve had a terrible relationship with the majority of them. And the problem wasn’t that I didn’t like them, I actually grew to love even the one’s I hated, and the ones that went up in flames, literally. It’s just that I never really found a reason to keep them in my life, mostly because so many, if not all of them were created with the wrong kind of intention. They made me angry, even though they were my friends for a time, so I followed a lower emotion to destruction, and ironically, I broke my own heart in doing so. And there I was trapped in my little box of insanity, creating these things I hated while thinking it was out of love. This process of creation turned into a very unhealthy codependent relationship, where I was relying on this physical thing that was entirely outside of my being, to heal me in some way or help me see myself. Or to grant me this peace of mind or stability.
It wasn’t until I realized that I am actually completely separate from it all, and that I am none of that which I create, even though I was the person behind it all. None of these objects of desire or greed could ever have that much power over me. It always felt like this mask I was wearing because I didn’t want real people to see me, because they thought I looked better with it on, or because I was too blinding without it. Whatever the case, none of it really mattered except for the fact that it got me to where I am going, and for the fact that I finally have made it here.
But what does that mean? To really be here and now. That’s what I am trying to figure out, I think. And I’ve been thinking a lot. I thought that maybe I should do something with the scraps of their skins, but I wasn’t sure. So I figured a box would do it justice, maybe I could absorb something from osmosis. Maybe this is my freedom, my liberation, but how do you free what is boxed up? Free the self from the box? Maybe all these thoughts were what was entrapping me in the first place. All of this cooped up anxiety. . . And what do you do with this thing called freedom? What is it supposed to feel like? I decided again: think it is finally time to just let this old version of myself go. But maybe this time, I am to actually let it go. Free myself of all my restraints. Naturally, I took to the trees to find a way. Or a new path.
Sitting here now, I’ve realized all the ways in which I was unhealthily attached to certain things and people in my life, or the life I used to have and this fleeting nostalgia that keeps trying to pull me back into it, even though I know I am so far beyond it. I realized how I felt conformed to this identity, this box I never really cared about, and how that stripped me away from my truth, my youth, my own morals and values, and how desperate that made me.
I live by this phrase of Existence is Art. In which I mean breathing, walking, speaking, just existing is a form of art. Or hold within it, a pureness of creation. And so, everyone creates and in a lot of ways, everything is art. I sometimes find the synchronicities of life to be silly and ironic because the universe has this glorious sense of humor and I really love the way it speaks to me. It just gets me. Or maybe I am finally learning to understand it.
And I’m grateful.
When I revealed my creation to my tribe, they almost killed me and destroyed the sculpture, tearing every piece apart. I guess they hated it which was funny to me and made me laugh because of how much I used to hate them, because I never showed my hatred, because I learned to love them anyway. I suppose I was never afraid of them to begin with. So I walked away, alone, into the darkness. And that’s when I found you. My beloved creature, someone to walk with, a beauty of nature. A four legged masterwork, long locks of purity, the strength of a god.
Our travels together have been the most majestic journey. An intimate journey. One that will be kept sacred for your sake and for mine.
We’ve walked for so long, I thought you might stay with me forever. And because I know I will be here forever, I never realized that your time was fading, that you had to fall into the dirt. That the tribe’s stories meant something, that their drawings of death spoke truth. Maybe that’s what I was afraid of. I wanted it to be beautiful.
I find myself alone again, in the dirt, looking into the sky, reaching for something more, holding your corpse in my arms, wishing this was all just a dream.
I’ve been hearing owls at night again. The first time I saw one after you died, I felt it was trying to speak to me and it was terrifying. Maybe it was speaking to the forest, or some other owl, I didn’t care. Their calls remind me of death because of the tribe and their strange mythology what nots. The drawings they created. The things they used to tell me, I remember. I should have known I guess.
When we were was young I felt our connection and what we could bring to animals and nature, something I will hold within me forever. Now that you’ve passed, I find myself on my legs, feeling bare and naked. Longing to be swept off my feet again.
Our journey was just as frightening as I am now, but I was not alone then.
I have collected pieces of you: skin, braided hair, hooves, your brown eyes, organs. And I think in time, I will let go of all the pieces. Consume them one by one.
That’s what I am working on now. Letting go of all of these traits and ways of being and thinking. It takes practice, but I am fearless within my true self, and I will always come back to that. I will always come back to you, I wish to become you.
I’ve found myself in the same place that I began this journey. A full circle.
A spiritual weight of significance, the totem of you that I wear around my neck, it brings me wisdom. An ability to unmask deception, my clairvoyance, to see clearly in the dark, to see through. Where to go from here, I don’t know yet.
Seeing the emptiness now, the places where my tribesmen used to be, I feel clean. Free. Like I have a fresh slate. This time I am opening the door to my own path. I’m terrified because I am okay without you, but our totem reminds me of our days spent together as I hold it near to my chest, forever.
