Utopia

The place she lived in was rotten with powder worm and sagged precariously under its luxuriant burden of ferns and moss. It was one of those cedar shake, geodesic dome things, haplessly constructed and doomed from the start to be digested by the relentless forest.

When will it stop raining? I asked. Never, she said - her name was Pixie for God's sake ! and her limp brown hair was filigreed with the trails of slugs. She ducked back inside and left me there outside to shiver in the penetrating drizzle. What little light there had been when I got there was already fading from the leaden sky. It was then I decided to kill myself, or at least find a quick way to die.

Perhaps sensing my intention, a wolf started to howl somewhere near the crest of the ravine. There was no way I could see it with the thick cedar boughs obscuring everything more than a couple of yards from of my face. I decided to head toward the sound anyway. Maybe, I thought,  the wolf could do me a favor and put me out of my misery. I imagined it might choose its moment and jump me from behind, sinking its fangs decisively into my yielding throat. With luck it would be a quick death and I wouldn’t feel a thing. Quite a poetic way to go (actually) I figured.

I never found the wolf, or it didn't let itself get found. Maybe it just wasn’t that interested in me or my desperation. So I just kept trudging through the gloom and dripping conifer needles until somehow, I don't know how,  I found myself back at my Airstream. It's still a mystery to me how I got back there, wandering aimlessly through the blackness of infinity without a flashlight. I popped open the creaky aluminum door and fell face down on the moldy slab of foam I used as a bed.  I cried myself to sleep, too depressed to get out of my soaking clothes. The next morning I woke up with one hell of a cold, but for the time being, I was cured of any further desires to be eaten by animals.