SET-UP:
On a white water river, Joel, 24, and his boss, is swept away by the river. Joel's efforts are futile as the raging river takes them both...........................
Without his wade boots on the water is instantly cold and instantly seeps into his leather shoes and saturates his socks. The ice water whipped at his leggs, stinging. Knee-deep Joel could not get a footing on the teetering stones below and fumbles. The swift current, like a blunt force delivered behind the kness, send him submerged and tumbling. He gasps from the shock if the icey waters and sucks it up his nose. He comes up choking and gasping for air. He at once become part of the raging river as it carried him downstream. Joel tumbles and rolls at the mecy of the river and tries to stay on top, to float, to breath and orientation. He feels his heart pounding loudly in his head as he is swept by the current bludgened against the rocks. The frienzy of the turbulent air bubbles fill his hearing and brain. He rolls again and again crashing into the stones. He covers his head for protection
THE FISHING WITH POLE TURNED INTO SPEAR FISHING.He had selected a greenstick of cedar the day before, a young cedar straight and a good ten foot long, it had grown tall and slender to reach the small alotment of the sunlight taken by the competeing forest "I MEAN IT JOEL I DON'T WANT TO BE IN NO BOX. JUST DIG A HOLE AND THROW ME IN IT. OR DRAG ME TO THE CLIFFS AND ROLL ME OVER. THROW ME TO A HUNGRY BEAR. JUST NO BOX ARE YOU HEARING ME JOEL? HE WAS STRAINING TO SIT UP AND LOOKING FOR EYE CONTACT FROM JOEL. JOEL WAS ANSEY ABOUT THIS CONVERSATION BUT STOPPED BY A REVELATION IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM AND TURNED TO JACK AND ASKED "DID YOU JUMP IN THE RIVER ON PURPOSE? WERE YOU TRYING TO KILL YOURSELF?'
. HE DREAMS HE IS IN THE FORREST AND IN A SMALL CLEARING OF COTTON WOOD TREES. HE IS WALKING AND THE SHAFTS OF BRIGHT SHAFTS OF SUNLIGHT PIERCE THROUGH THE CRISP COOL AIR OF AUTUMN. HE SENSES A SPIRIT BEHIND HIM BUT ALL AROUND HIM AN UNSEEN ENTITY THAT GAVE HIM DIRECTION BUT TUGGED HIS SOUL. JACK STOPS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CLEARING WHERE THE SUNLIGHT WAS FULL AND LIT THE FORREST FLOOR AND MADE IT GLOW. JACK LOOKS DOWN AT THE GROUND THAT SEEMED TO LOOK BACK AT HIM AND INVITES HIM, HE LAYS DOWN HERE ON THE EARTH AND IT CRADLED HIM IN COMFORT AND ENVELOPES HIM IN WELCOMING WARMTH. HE LAYS ON HIS BACK LOOKING UP AT THE GOLDEN COTTONWOOD LEAVES AS THEY BEGIN TO RUSTLE IN A WIND AND THEY BREAK FROM THEIR SMALL BRANCHES AND FALL . THE WIND BECOMES A WHIRLWIND THICK WITH THE LEAVES IT HAS GATHERED BUT JACK IS UNAFRAID. THE WIRLWIND HOVERED ABOVE HIM AND THE GOLDEN LEAVES BEGAN TO FALL AWAY AND TO LAND ON HIM THEY COVERED HIS LEGS AND ARMS, HIS CHEST AND THEN HIS FACE UNTIL HE WAS HIDDEN AND IN A CACOON. JACK DOES NOT FEEL HOT OR COLD AND NITHER SIGHT OR SOUND BUT IS COMFORTABLY NUMB. THE EARTH WAS SOFT AS IF HE LAY ON A MATTRESS AND IT REACHED INTO HIM AND HE SANK DEEPER INTO IT AND IT REACHED INTO HIM AND ABSORBED HIS FLESH TO BECOME THE SAME AS THE SAND AND ROCK AND DECAYED LEAVES FROM YEARS BEFORE THIS. JACK FELT AT PEACE AND THERE WAS NO PAIN FROM HIS BATTERRED BODY BUT THERE WAS A CALMNESS. HE CLOSED HIS EYES BECAUSE HE HAD NO NEED FOR SIGHT, HE STOPPED BREATHING BECAUSE HAD NO NEED FOR AIR, HIS PULSE CEASED AND BLOOD STOPPED AS HE HAD NO NEED FOR HIS BODY. THERE WAS ONLY A FAINT AWARNESS OF THE EARTH AND IT WAS ALSO AWARE OF HIM.
THE BEAR
He returns with the nessesary tools. He begins to gut the animal and then begins the skinning process========================= when he hears disturbance in the forest , a grunt and then a grunt again. Joel stops to listen and sees a bear a huge brown one about fourty yards away. It had paused and looking about sniffing the scent of fresh blood in the air. He must have been following the herd, following their scent from a good distance bavibration in the ground. He was huge and round like a furry boulder come to life. He grunted a kind of howl and his warm breath shot out of his nostrils like a broken steam pipe. In that instance he charged, his great weight snapping the small trees in his path, his head down and his great shoulder flanks rising above his great head. His dirty wet fir shook violenty. Joel immediantly bolted and cleared the woods to the road Joel ran for the cabin, the van was nearer. he didn't look behind him as he could hear the heavey breaths of the bear and the pounding of his wieght on the road. He wouldn't make it to refuge. The bear ran like a horse and he knew the beast would over-take him. Joels life didn't pass before him but it was the gruesome future. Joel pictured his feet knocked out from underneath him by one of those massive paws sending him tumbling and rolling and laying on his back mauled over and over. Joel thinks of what was told to him about the bears, that the would decapitate a person in just one quick swipe of their paw. The four inch nails Joel't have to be sharp with the force delivered behind it. The blood would drain from his severed head and he would watch the beast disembowel his body right before him, then it would dim and the last to go would be hearing the sound of of the beast feasting on it's flesh. He thought about the animal he just killed and the bear that would now kill him. Joel could feel his boot loosen and flopping was about to come off and Joel prayed that it would not trip him up in the process. The bear was close behind him and there would be no time to fall and regain his footing. Joel released the tight grip on his knife letting it fall as he ran boucing several times.ck. The bear had not seen Joel and the kill but had paused for direction of the scent. Joel saw him first and froze. Joel felt the rush of blood to his head and felt a prickly chill ran over him that he could not tell hot or cold. The bear then looked Joel straight in the eyes. He grunted and slammed his fore paw to the ground, so hard, Joel swears he could feel the
