Fate by Jorge Consiglio

Author:Jorge Consiglio [Jorge Consiglio]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Amer placed the otter’s fur in a basin of water to soak. That was the first step. Then he had to salt it, tan it and oil it. Taxidermy is a time-consuming, painstaking process. The otter was a favour for a friend, not a paid job. He couldn’t bring himself to say no. Outside, it was pouring with rain. It was noon on a Wednesday and the city had been brought to a standstill. Amer could hear the water gushing from the storm drains in the street. Everywhere was flooded, streaming with rubbish. Every now and then, a peal of thunder heralded the end of the world.

Amer went to the bathroom and washed his hands obsessively. Then he went to the kitchen, pulled the only remaining piece of bread out of a bag and ate it in a couple of dry bites. He opened the fridge and closed it again. He lay down on the living-room sofa to plan his future and consider some options. He stayed there for a while with his feet on the coffee table, longing for a smoke. Storms encouraged idleness, offered a time outside of time. Amer half-closed his eyes and sighed. The image of a grizzly bear standing on its hind legs flashed into his mind. He recalled the words of an English naturalist: if a bear associates a human with food, any attempt to scare it away or stop it from approaching will be unsuccessful. He smoothed his hair with his hand and leapt to his feet. He opened his laptop and searched for images of grizzly bears. Standing upright, drinking water, growling, peering over a cliff, with their cubs, dead, with a hunter’s foot resting on their side, with a hunter’s rifle jabbing into their back. Somehow, these huge bodies harboured opposites: sweetness or even vulnerability, ferociousness or invincibility. There was something about such animals – a cypher, a quiddity – that led Amer to a wellspring of meanings. This self-evident truth lost its clarity, however, when he tried to give it a name. There was no way of putting it into words. In Amer’s eyes, it was precisely this elusive element that made bears such boundless, magnificent creatures.

Something sudden, an unexpected craving. He grabbed his phone, dialled the number of an ice-cream shop and ordered half a litre of salted caramel to be delivered. They told him it’d be a while because of the rain, but in the end it showed up sooner than expected. He went to the kitchen, put the container in the freezer and saw the washbowl with the otter on the counter. He lowered it to the floor in two movements. As he was completing the second, he felt a sharp pull in his lower back: a spark, an electric shock, death, death itself. He stayed squatting on his heels until he could recover his strength. He hobbled into the bathroom, half buckled over. He groped in the medicine cabinet until he found a jar. He took a Paracetamol.

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