Marmoset, Raccoon, and Fox by Karen Schauber

My fingers grip and coil around slender shoots as I hoist myself up into the arboreal forest like a feral animal. Tackling the steep incline, I scramble to keep up with the older boys who sprint ahead like sound waves. The mountain air is fresh, and I am invigorated, powerful, and free. Cedar, musk, and bergamot sit on my tongue smooth like suede.

No one tells me what to do, where to plant my sneaker, how to alternate between my left hand and right foot. Being a forest creature has become second nature. I am marmoset, racoon, and fox. I am one with the timberland, thick with evergreen. Above me, sparrows and robins flit through the trees. I echolocate the intermittent hammering of a pileated woodpecker, its red head excavating a rotting wood stump nearby. I do not need or want guidance or encouragement. I trust my physical intuition and prowess. I am in charge of myself. 

This is the only place where I am.

A rush of adrenalin surges as I realize I no longer hear the clambering of feet, swish of shorts, or sense warm bodies in the brush ahead. I am well beyond the network of serpentine paths surrounding the lake far below, and high up on an alpine trail gone cold.

I am alone on the mountain.

From my vantage point, I can just make out the dock and kayaks through the trees. Mist hovers above the beach as the morning sun is slow to burn off the dew. A haze of bulrushes and pampas grass frame the water’s edge genuflecting lightly. It is so very quiet, yet I can hear the faint cries of children playing far away; the sound carrying long and wide across the lake. I turn back to my quest.

The prize is the Boy Scouts’ hideaway, hidden between the sentries of pine and towering oak. I am determined to see what earned them their master craftsman badge. I would never have told my parents what I was off to discover. I would have been held back.

I press on. Let my body lead. My intuition is finely tuned, and I move like the needle of a compass. I am not afraid that I will lose my way, or that I will not find my destination. I am a homing pigeon. After close to an hour I come upon the fort. I am beyond thrilled, proud of how my body knows the way when my brain does not.

There is no one here.

The boys have already moved on, to where, I don’t know. I feel like an intruder. I have come upon their secret enclave, and I tread carefully, knowing this is not my domain. They probably thought I would never find my way, never discover their hideaway. I do not sit inside the fort.

I know I am not wanted.

I leave the way I came. For the first time I am nervous about the way I must travel. Navigating back down is not as clear to me as the way up. I descend, my knees shaky, maybe from being tired and hungry, but likely more so because my confidence has been shaken. My animal spirits gone. I am back in my place of just being a girl.

*

The Story Behind the Story:

This piece came out of a 2019 Kathy Fish ‘Fast Flash’ Workshop, as many inspired pieces are won’t to do. The title “Marmoset Raccoon and Fox” was coaxed onto the page with Kathy’s creative touch. And I loved it, it took the piece in a spiritual direction. This was a memory I had carried around for decades, a memory from my youth, when I aspired to be a tomboy, when I loved exploring in the forest and mountainside in the Laurentians (Quebec), and when I had some freedom to so, while my parents were focused elsewhere with their busy social lives during the summer months at our cottage by the lake. There was a group of older boys (teenagers) actively pursuing hiking, camping, and water sports, who paid no attention to us younger kids, and I was fascinated by their independence, confidence, and prowess. My peers at the time were content with playing with trucks in the sandbox, but I wanted more, I wanted to explore. So off I went. I felt so accomplished on this adventure and came back changed. No matter how infantilized and held back I was by my family, inside I knew myself at my core. At eight years old I was clear about my capacity, and my competency. That core Self is still present all these many years later. Kathy has a way of pulling these gems out.

Karen Schauber’s flash fiction appears in Fiction Southeast, OJAL, JMWW, Disappointed
Housewife, Ghost Parachute, Storgy, New World Writing, Cease Cows, Bending Genres, Spelk,
mac(ro)mic, Ekphrastic Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Journal of Compressed Creative Arts
and elsewhere, and has received nominations for Pushcart, Best Small Fictions, Best
Microfiction and a spot on the Wigleaf LL. Schauber is editor of the award-winning flash fiction anthology The Group of Seven Reimagined: Contemporary Stories Inspired by Historic
Canadian Paintings (Heritage House, 2019). She curates Vancouver Flash Fiction an online
resource hub. In her spare time she is a seasoned family therapist.
https://KarenSchauberCreative.weebly.com.

“Marmoset, Raccoon, and Fox” was originally published in New Flash Fiction Review.

Photo by Steven Kamenar on Unsplash.