The village sprawled through the mountain pass, each street
weblike and twisted as if the entire village was carved from the land by a
spider wishing to span the ravine. The peaks surrounding the humble city, if
one could call it that, were pure white with snow, broken up by dark ragged
faces of smoky rock.
The man was
out of place, with his messy blonde hair and light skin and scruffy beard, but
even in the urban cities of the west he rejected all company and was rejected
by it. If he could belong nowhere, he would wander everywhere. The man wove
through the dirt streets, scattering the chickens that clucked and gossiped
near his leather heels.
Darker, beautiful
faces with chocolate and amber eyes turned as he walked the grassy paths. Some
carrying baskets caught a glimpse of a stump at the end of the man’s right arm,
wrapped in the colored cloth of an old prayer flag. Before he vanished the
unfinished limb inside a pocket in his leather jacket, one of the teenage boys
could see an oddly shaped brand puckering the skin near the elbow.
The man
walked with aimless purpose, right arm slung deep into his coat, his left
playing with a crumpled Polaroid in his hand. He checked it idly from time to
time before coming upon the behind of a great dark and hairy beast.
He froze.
It mooed.
A chubby tail, thick with coarse hair swat at a fly. The man
scooted around the yak, which was tethered loosely to a wooden post upon witch
strings of multicolored flags flew. The yak chomped and gorged itself on
flowers and dried mountain grasses.
The man
approached the twinning horns and, with his good hand, pat the beast’s star
shaped blaze. It’s cows eyes blinked and its great lashes fluttered as he
stroked its head lightly.
“You are
not what I thought you were, big guy.”
The yak gave him a long blank stare, chewing its cud.
“I thought
you were this:”
The man held the crumpled photo up to the yak’s flat
forehead. The yak studied the photo, enjoying the bright sunlight heating its
dark back. In the photo, the hulking black shape had the same blobular
construction and the same hair, course and granny, but the face was sharp and
angular and it’s teach pointed and red like a rapid hyena. The yak raised its
head and puffed a hot breath in the man’s face. Then it gripped the photo
between its teeth and ate the crumpled paper.
The man
tried to extract the paper by picking at the mottled gum line of the bovine
animal, but after many minutes struggling and inserting fingers in the animal’s
soft pallet, he gave up, both his hand and stump covered in viscous gooey
saliva. He glared at the great cow and
sucked on his lip.
“Fine.”
Said the man. “I’ll just print out another.” He looked from the yak to the
surrounding blankets, woven in kaleidoscope fabrics and the small dotting of cowhide-clad
children he pretended not to notice.
“Now where
do you suppose they keep a computer out here?”
©2014 Lex Vex
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