The Gods Must Clearly Smile by Aaron Christopher Drown

Author:Aaron Christopher Drown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Seventh Star Press
Published: 2022-04-03T18:54:11+00:00

Path Of An Arrow

Before a boy is able to speak, he is shown how to bend a stick into a bow. As soon as he is able to stand, he is given blunted arrows with which to practice. Each day on his journey toward manhood he is taught the names of all the great hunters who came before him. He learns stories of their courage and their most triumphant kills. More importantly, he learns of the grateful tribe whose bellies were filled as a result.

A boy is also warned of how only the hunter who is proud, foolish, or crazed takes that one step too far in pursuit of game: Never to journey beyond where half the dried fish in his pouch will take him; never to let fly more than half what his quiver holds lest an enemy be lurking. Better to be a little hungrier the next day than never again see his family. More importantly, a dead hunter cannot feed his people.

Swaying atop a low rise, Piitra grimaced through the icy gale that scoured his raw, swollen face. Five days prior, he took that one step too far.

Now, with ever-growing urgency his muscles and bones begged to give, cried for permission to crumple and succumb—but he refused it. Starvation had gnawed him hollow and the emptiness it left grew deeper with each ragged breath—but he endured it. And each time those defeated, frightened voices grew frenzied enough to threaten his reason, as they did at that very moment, Piitra gripped the head of his one remaining arrow more tightly and let the sharp stone edges bite even further into his palm.

When the world once more felt centered beneath him he held to his face the worn, bloody mitten in which he clutched the arrow—the first arrow he had ever carried as a hunter, as a man. His father had helped him fashion it, had shown him the proper way to chip and shape a rock flake to a smooth and deadly blade, as had all the fathers taught their sons before.

Both Piitra and the voices knew that likely very soon he would use his precious first and final arrow to open his own throat and put a slow, warm end to his plight. There was no denying that moment stalked nearer—steadily, relentlessly.

But, that time had not come. Not yet.

He lowered his hand and considered again the equally smooth, equally deadly, and seemingly infinite whiteness. How had things come to this, this winter that clearly had no intention of ever thawing to spring? Perhaps a child in the village had brought down the displeasure of the heavens by venturing outside without covering her dolls. Perhaps as a people their offerings had become inadequate. Perhaps the gods had grown so old they had nothing more to give, or had simply abandoned them.

None could say, not even the elders who throughout the worsening cold and famine had tendered what comfort and reassurance they could. Despite their appeals for patience

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