jacob and i are broken up but lying in bed . chris is at the upstairs window calling down. we're moving houses. the others are sure to find the hundred grand in the old house that we forgot in a safe that is cold,open, alone. fishermen are camping out on the banks of Pringle creek . salmon run, orange tent and others. it's raining. im in bed with james too. jacob is jealous and pulls me over, under himself. too forceful. i push him away. he's bare chested. i try to downplay the rejection. there's a conflict in my heart. we must retrieve the money before the others take it.
jacob and i leave in the rain. so chris calls down to us, she remembers seeing the money still there. there are black bear tracks in the mud that jacob touches and disregards. we look around the corner to a grove of them, dirty, dusty, small and skinny. beyond them, wild boars. beyond them, more boars, spotty,dusty.
i say we'll have to wait, it's too dangerous, but he goes, singing through the line of fat boars amongst the dry, forested stone columns. it's alright just ignore them don't make eye contact. he's jolly. he gets around the corner, out of my sight. I'm calling his name and can hear that he's surrounded. they've bottlenecked behind him and his voice ends. I'm screaming and swing the river bank corner to a ledge to see his legs and torso under five snouts mucking into his ribcage, blood-slippery hands reaching in, sliding in place of tusks.
I'm completely alone and surrounded, terrified. i grab foam pool toys, giant nerf gun foams and push the boars ahead of me, stepping over them and up to the river bank behind the tents. the fishermen don't help me. the women-boars are coming after me in song, giant, fleshy, reaching, pigs. i say you're too far away as they try to cross the creek, dark and muddy. but they advance.
i try to push them but they're pulling me in. but then, the song changes: we're female together, i oblige them and their beauty, make them feel the men want them and they take a bald fishermen. each time i deflect a hoof they say stop patting me, as if i love it. they go downstream, surfing on bars of mud, a mudslide, now, as beautiful women. we sing the story. I'm finally safe but i go into shock.
i feel a second self emerging, my hands are violently shaking, looking at my phone, my inner dialogue is taken over and split, external. I'm making up music with this externalized shadow-self and laying on my back. i recognize my singing is 'good' and try to record our duet on my phone but my shadow doesn't let me. she leads the way. I'm terrified but improvising, untrusting. a new black, inky anti-figure slinks up the side of my bed as I'm paralyzed in fear. another shadow self, morphing and singing.
we're grind-dancing, her front to my back and singing stand by me. i recognize she means me no harm. she says the police will come and find jacob and tells me to say nothing. i say but, they will have to know about the boars. she agrees. i don't know if i found the money. i lean in to the shadow and whisper that chris' mitch is a good man.
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