Notes

Pacing, pacing. The crunch of snow underneath the wide paws of the lynx was the only sound breaking through the whistling of the wind. No one visited the zoo in the throes of the freezing, Russian winter. Nor was it often animals were even outside in their yards due to the chilly weather. In addition, the zoo had problems with their staff forgetting to let animals in for the night. It wasn’t a problem for the hardier animals who were adapted to the cold climate through millions of years of evolution. Other animals weren’t so lucky and a night outside with no shelter from the elements meant a torturous death to hypothermia.
The lynx was known as “Ryzhik” and had been named such for his gingery pelt. He wasn’t a particularly popular specimen among zoo patrons. One could go to just about any zoological park or sanctuary and see a Eurasian Lynx in captivity. What attracted people were the albino tigers and elusive snow leopards; animals that weren’t so common throughout Russia.
Ryzhik paced back and forth across the northern boundary of the confines of his enclosure. The snow fell relentlessly, collecting in a thin veil on his back until he shook it off, causing a flurry of snowflakes which fluttered delicately to the ground. The cycle repeated itself many times over as Ryzhik tread a path in the drifting snow.
He lived a solitary life; having no companion left him utterly alone in his confinement. Ryzhik would frequently growl and grunt to whoever would listen to his meaningless racket. The people who were around would sometimes offer an amused chuckle or snap a quick picture of him before moving on. Moving on, that’s all people seemed to do, looking for something more impressive and worthy of their admiration.
All the lynx knew were his confines- the indoor den in which he slept in, the pond in his yard that was frozen more often than not, and an old tire tied to a tree that hung pendulously and was rocked by the driving wind. Around the perimeter of his bubble of a world stood metal bars that separated him from the rest of the world, trapping him in a false reality. They reached up into the trees and criss-crossed above him, caging him into the boundaries set in place by man. Whenever he looked up at the gloomy sky above, his view was obstructed by the grated metal that loomed ominously over him and casted shadows on particularly sunny days.
He must have been born into this life as he didn’t have the faintest inkling of any life other than one behind bars. Ryzhik’s life was simply one big blur filled with the fleeting faces of various people and vague memories of pleasant events in his life, such as receiving a treat or basking in the sun. Every day was very much like the one before it and the days in the future looked the same.
No matter how much the lynx expected his life to be a miserable decade full of pacing in his yard and watching people walk away, he couldn’t have been more wrong.
That night, Ryzhik was left outside to battle the cold winds and the blizzard raging above. There was little shelter outside, except for the bare trees, which offered no cover. He curled up in a ball in an attempt to preserve as much body heat as possible and he simply waited it out, watching his hot breath come out in in snaking wisps.
As the hours dragged on and the snow fell endlessly, Ryzhik felt a strange sense of deja vu. It wasn’t that he had been locked out before, but the memories flooding through his mind weren’t his own.
In the hard packed snow lay a boy, around eighteen years old at the most. He had a head of golden brown hair and dark brown eyes. His body was still except for the rising and falling of his chest in a slow, regular rhythm. He might have been okay, if it weren’t for the snow around him that was stained a garish, crimson red. The bleeding originated from various parts of his body: his legs, his chest, and his arm. His forest green winter coat was torn to shreds in those places and his blood flowed profusely from his wounds.
In the distance, the chorus of a pack of wolves could be heard, their cries creating a ghoulish melody in the dead of the night. The boy had obviously been attacked and the pack was waiting for him to die before feasting on his remains.
And somehow, Ryzhik felt connected to this boy and his pain felt agonizingly real. How had he called up a memory like this? Of a boy slowly bleeding out in the middle of nowhere with a pack of wolves eagerly awaiting his demise and to later fight tooth and claw over his corpse.
The flashback ended just as quickly as it started. Ryzhik didn’t know where the thought came from and he was wanting to know more of what had happened in that situation. From the darkest corners of his brain, he turned up nothing. In a peculiar way, he always felt the slightest hint of humanity in him, but he could not speak of it nor could he ever express it in any way that would be comprehensible to any human.
As the lynx settled back down, bracing himself for the rest of the subzero night, he felt more memories tugging at his mind. He wouldn’t hold back this time and he’d let them take over his entire mind. The mucus dripping from his nostrils froze on the philtrum of his nose until he licked it away with his barbed tongue. His head lowered to the ground and settled in the the piling snow.
A boy was trudging through the snow with a canvas bag in his arms. He was marching up to a cabin with a sense of pride and he let out of a final burst of energy until he approached the front door of the cabin. It wasn’t much, as it was dilapidated and shabby and the porch was rotting away after years of wear. Behind the cabin stood a barn, that resembled a shack with a plethora of holes in the shingled roof. The barn seemed to be leaning to the side and a strong wind would be what sent it crumbling to the muddy ground. A small, mucky paddock was behind the shed with rotting, wooden posts sticking out of the ground like the teeth of a beasts. Rusty barbed wire held the leaning posts together and white wool was stuck in the sharpened wire barbs.
The boy kicked open the door which was falling off its hinges and slipped in sideways through the door with the bag in his tired arms.
The girl spoke in unknown words. Ryzhik attributed that to the fact he had forgotten the human language. Her tone of voice was lively and giggling, as most children happened to be. The boy from earlier, now healthy, stood at the front door with a lumpy bag in his arms. There was a look of pride and exertion on his face. Whatever was in the bag must have been heavy and he’d carried it a long way.
Setting the bag on the wooden dining room table, the boy untied the thin rope that was holding the bag closed. Sliding the bag off, the boy revealed the dead body of a lynx. It seemed twisted that the young girl didn’t look at the corpse with disgust, but with glee. She ran her fingers through the feline’s dense fur poked and prodded at the body. She pulled back the lips and inspected the lynx’s yellowed fangs. She then looked at the wide paws of the deceased feline, tenderly poking at the sharpened tips on each claw. On the front left paw, a claw was missing and growing in its place was a malformed nub of keratin.
Her hand traced the circle of scarlet blood on the lynx’s forehead, between its open, lifeless eyes. It was clean shot and the bullet never exited the back of the lynx’s head, as the nape of its neck was intact.
The girl looked up at the boy with admiration in her glimmering, blue eyes. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his coat while he lightly patted her back. The boy’s eyes wandered to the corpse of the lynx. Reaching over the girl, the boy closed the lackluster eyes of the dead lynx.
The moment faded after a few minutes and Ryzhik tried to draw up something else from it, an answer of sorts to learn why the girl was so excited over an act that was so morbid in nature. Something seemed off about it.
The same young girl was outside this time, tending to several dogs while bundled up in a thick, woolen coat. The dogs pranced around her, their plumed tails whipping from side to side. Pink tongues lolled out the sides of their mouths and they stood briefly on their hind legs in excitement. The girl held a cloth with a few meat scraps. In one pale hand, the girl dangled a limp piece of bloody flesh. the To top it all off, on the top of her head was a cap with the distinct spotted pattern of a lynx. In the doorway stood the boy, smiling.
Now it made more sense. The lynx was turned into a fashion accessory for the girl. Ryzhik couldn’t blame the child, after all, such a thing must have been normal in her life. How sad was it to see a child excited over the death of an animal, no matter how nice of a pelt the animal may make. But what defined right and wrong? Ryzhik was aware he was an animal, but he still felt a connection, a human spark within him.
A scream tore from the throat of the young girl, resonating for miles in the remote mountains. The boy rushed outside, rifle in hand and half buttoned coat billowing out behind him. Instinctively, he rushed to the pasture. He climbed over the wooden railed gate which enclosed a flock of sheep. The sheep bleated as they dispersed throughout the muddy paddock. The sheep bottlenecked around him, bustling out of his way.
It was quicker for the boy to go through the paddock to get to the field where the girl was. He ran through the mucky paddock to the opposite gate and cleared it to rush to the girl’s aid.
Tears dribbled down her rounded cheeks and her eyes were reddened. It went without saying what she was upset over. Twisted in an unnatural position on the damp ground was the half eaten carcass of a lamb. Scarlet blooded stained the downy, white wool of the lamb. Its ribs protruded out of its side and its face had been utterly mutilated. Blood and guts had been spilled all over the marshy ground.
The girl said a few words through a sobbing voice while the boy knelt down to investigate. Stepping away, the girl turned her head away to avoid gazing at the body for too long. Her face was losing color, except for the redness in her button nose and the florid red of her cheeks. The predator had left deep impressions into the mud, and had circled around the area several times. Sticking out of the lamb’s side was a yellowed claw with blood coagulating around the edges of the odious wound. The boy gently pulled the claw out of the lamb’s body and slipped the bloodied claw into his coat pocket. The culprit was none other than a lynx.
The story of the boy, the girl, and the lynx was falling into place. Ryzhik pieced the unraveling story together. A lynx had killed a lamb in a pasture and the boy had later shot and killed it to make it into a hat for the girl. And then the last part; Ryzhik couldn’t weave that part into the story composed of fleeting flashbacks and unusual memories.
It must have come much later and perhaps it would all tie together. For now, Ryzhik stayed curled up in a ball underneath the trees that offered minimal protection from the elements.
In a bed lay an elderly man with a ratty blanket pulled up to his chin. He let out several raspy coughs, his breath coming out in wisps in the cold air of the room. The boy sat on the end of the bed, staring at his feet while the young girl was sitting in a shabby wooden chair, a wooden spoon in one hand and a bowl of watery borscht in the other. She paused with the spoon raised, about to fill the ladle with borscht.
The girl murmured a few words to the ailing man until he quieted his coughing fit. The boy’s hands were clenched into fists and he was fighting back tears. He didn’t say anything and avoided looking at the elderly man in bed. Instead, he distracted himself with staring at his dirt caked boots.
The old man, with a shaking hand, lightly grasped the girl’s wrist and lowered it to her side, The girl returned the spoon back to the bowl of borscht while he said a few words before laying back in bed. He wasn’t doing well and the freezing temperature of the room wasn’t helping.
Suddenly, the memory flashed to the living room of a cabin with a small fire place with a stone mantel. A flicker of a fire could be seen peeking through the logs in the furnace. The fire had recently been started and it would be a while longer before the rest of the cabin warmed up.
On the nightstand was a thin golden chain. The boy eyed it before for a moment before reaching over and plucking it from the nightstand. He let the cool chain pool in the palm of his hand before he slipped it into the pocket of his coat.
The memory ended just like that. No other clues to point to any other conclusion. The only new information that Ryzhik had received was that the two children hadn’t been on their own all the time. Ryzhik couldn’t recall how long humans stayed with their parents and he couldn’t find out through simple observation of the zoo patrons from his yard. It was impossible to know where they went afterwards.
Ryzhik settled back down as another memory began to take hold. They were coming to him back to back, as if some mental barrier had been brought down and vivid memories flooded through his mind.
Once again, the two children were outside. Something was considerably different about their attire for that day. The young girl wore a black dress that fell several inches below her knees and her golden hair spilled over her narrow shoulders in thick waves. In her small hands was a bundle of red roses. She was holding them carefully to avoid pricking herself on the thorns of the stems. The boy was dressed in a similar fashion, his clothes were dark and his head was down and eyes downcast. His hands were stuffed in his pockets while a white bandage ending at his wrist peeked out.
The two were situated in front of a mound of dirt with a white, wooden cross at the head of it. The boy muttered a few words in a taciturn fashion while the girl came forward to place the roses on the center of the mound.
Several minutes of silence followed before the memory faded, just as the girl began to weep.
So the old man did die. That confirmed what the lynx had suspected. He knew of death, for it was always in the air and could be smelled throughout the zoo. Every morning, when he was fed, the scent of death lurked about of a fresh kill. But Ryzhik didn’t have mercy for what was already dead as his meals were killed for him. But it didn’t take away the very smell- the last pheromones the animal released into the air before death took its physical body.
This time, it was night. The bright moon was hanging lowly in the sky and the boy stood knee-deep in a oblong shaped hole with a splintering shovel in his hands. Sweat slid down the boy’s face and he promptly wiped it from his brow. Swathed in a threadbare blanket was a lumpy body, tied off with a fraying rope to keep it concealed.
He slaved away for hours, his shovel digging deeper and deeper into the soft mud. After he had finished, he grabbed onto the long grasses around the perimeter of the grave. He used the grass for leverage as he hoisted himself up and planted his face in the mud once he’d crawled out of the hole.
The boy recovered and took a deep breath. He braced himself for what was to come. Grasping the deceased man’s legs, the boy dragged the corpse to the grave. He held the man’s legs over the edge of the grave and the boy looked away as he gave one final tug and the deceased man’s body fell to the bottom of the hole with a dull thump.
The boy could clearly see his battered hands in the shimmering moonlight. They were reddened and splinters stuck out from his fingers and blood trickled from his palms and down his wrists. With a sharp intake of breath, he began to pull the splinters from his hands. He gave a sidelong glance at the unfilled grave to his left, knowing that he’d have to fill it before tomorrow morning.
He worked until dawn, filling the grave up with dirt and mud and stuck a white, wooden cross in the ground at the head of the grave. By then, the sun was rising in the east and he was exhausted.
He retreated to the cabin to wrap cloth around his wounded hands. He tied them off so that they fit snugly around his hands and allowed for a full range of motion. Exhausted by the hours of endless digging, the boy went to his room and collapsed onto his bed, the bed letting out a distressed squeal underneath his weight.
The lynx felt sympathy for the boy. He’d worked away for hours in the depressing task of the digging of a grave. And yet, the boy did not cry. There was something reserved and withdrawn about his attitude and actions and he seemed accustomed to be around death and sadness in a way that left it bottled up inside him, waiting to explode.
The boy was in a shed this time, standing at a work table, a wide paintbrush in hand. On the plywood table lay a half-painted white cross and the claw of the lynx that he had taken earlier. In the center of the claw was a perfectly round hole and next to it, lay the golden chain he had taken from the elderly man’s room. Laying haphazardly on the edge of the table was a long, rusted screw.
He lightly brushed the surface of the cross with the coarse bristles of the brush, spreading the paint around evenly. Something seemed off about him in this memory- for his hand was shaky and his breathing was ragged.
All of a sudden, the door banged open and the little girl strode in. Her sentence ended with her voice raising in question. The boy scrambled to hide what he was working on by throwing a cloth over it and standing with his back to it. The girl asked him several questions, all of which he answered while in a nervous sweat.
Satisfied with his answers, she left, skipping and frolicking back outside. With a deep sigh of relief, the boy pulled back the cloth over the cross and began painting once more. A single tear rolled down his cheek to his chin and dripped onto the cross.
That memory seemed irrelevant to the lynx. It didn’t seem to add much to the already confusing story that was being woven in his mind. But somehow, it must have been powerful enough to have left a significant impact on the boy.
The next memory began with yelling, one distinctly male and the other female. Out of the turmoil was the sound of a young child screaming and the voice of a boy attempting to comfort it. The memory flashed to a small room with a cot on one end and a rickety crib on the other. Seated on the cot was the boy, who was about 10 years old, holding the girl of about two years. A pacifier fell from the side of her mouth, a string of saliva dribbling from the side of her mouth in its place.
The boy cooed to the girl and held her close, a look of distress on his own face. The yelling continued with the smashing of plates following suit. The girl buried her head against the boy’s chest while he stroked her hair and placed his chin on top of her head. He began to rock the girl and hum a quiet lullaby.
But all his efforts were in vain, as she continued to whimper and bawl while the argument brewed outside the room for what seemed like hours. Until it abruptly ended with the slamming of a door. The house then fell to a deathly silence and even the girl had quieted her sobbing.
Ryzhik was confused as to what everything meant. It was obvious that both the boy and the girl were visibly distressed as a result of what was happening outside. Ryzhik had only experienced people yelling at one another around his feeding time and it was often solved through the nod of a head and swiftly moving away. Sometimes, arguing happened among zoo patrons between parents and their children. The lynx pitied the children, who were driven to tears and on the verge of a total meltdown.
He took a moment to look up at the sky above which was lightening in the east. Little had he known, he’d been calling up memories for hours on end. The driving snow during the night had piled on top of his sleeping form. Lumbering to his feet, the lynx shook the snow from his back and shambled to the metal door that led inside. The door was closed which came across as no surprise to Ryzhik.
From inside he could hear two male voices arguing before the metal door leading to his yard opened with an ear-grating squeal. The warm air rushed outside, and Ryzhik trotted through the short tunnel to his indoor pen. The door closed behind him several seconds later and the two people standing on the other side of the bars looked at him with surprise.
Ryzhik was unscathed by spending the night outside and the only visible sign he had spent the night outdoor were frozen clumps of his fur. The fur between his toes was frozen as well and it stuck out in spiky clumps. Despite it all, the lynx didn’t seem to mind and after giving a sidelong glance to the two men staring at him in shock, he began to pace. Ryzhik’s body rubbed against the bars of his confines and he paced back and forth, back and forth.
The older man threw a slap at the other and shouted something Ryzhik couldn’t understand. Tenderly rubbing his face, the younger man retrieved a bucket by the door and began throwing meat chunks of an unidentifiable animal. It didn’t change the fact that Ryzhik rushed to the food and began tearing away at the soft, somewhat spoiled meat. The scent was utterly rancid and malodorous, but he wolfed it down without a second thought. He didn’t bother chewing and the meat seemed to slide fluidly down his throat with little resistance.
The younger man then dumped the rest of the contents onto the floor, which came out in a mush of organs in a paste-like state and cold blood which rushed near the drain on the concrete flooring. Ryzhk greedily lapped up the blood before scarfing up the organ paste which tore apart easily and fell from his mouth in a pulpy mess.
The lynx had learned to not be finicky about his food and he ate whatever was provided for him, even though it might be questionable in nature to a human. His brain thought of it only as sustenance, no matter how utterly repulsive it may be.
Ryzhik spent the rest of his morning indoors until he was released out to his yard. By then, it was midday and the snow had ceased to fall. Upon setting foot outside, he felt a throbbing sensation in the back of his head. The world in front of him was warped and distorted and he laid down in the pristine white snow to regain his equilibrium.
The boy stood at the door, bundled up in a thick, woolen coat. His rifle was slung around his left shoulder and he gently ruffled his sister’s hair and murmured a few quiet words to her before closing the door behind him.
…
The dissonant howling of wolves travel for miles and echoed in the valley at the base of the mountain range. Night was falling and the boy had not yet returned home. The howling seemed to grow in volume as the night approached. The boy’s rifle was held in his arms with a firm grip and he was poised to shoot at any given moment, should conflict arise.
All of a sudden, the night fell silent. Nothing could be heard except for the whistling, blustery winds. The boy’s breath quickened, coming out in wispy, curling tendrils. His fingers tightened around the shaft of the rifle, his knuckles turning white until he relaxed his grip a little,
He stood motionless, waiting for any sign of movement. His eyes scanned the open, snowy meadow in front of him and from all around. After minutes of waiting, he deemed the area safe and clear of any predators and moved on, heading north back home.
His judgement was mistaken and from behind him, he heard the snarling of a wolf. It would have been foolish to run and the boy slowly turned around. His revolution was met with a shaggy wolf lunging for his throat. He let off a blind shot which whizzed above the wolf’s head. He crumpled to the ground, the wolf tearing into his arms and legs, ripping apart his flesh. The boy dropped his gun in the fray and it skidded just out of reach. Feebly, he beat at the wolf with his fists, his strength diminishing. The onslaught continued for several grueling moments until the beast paused, raising its head from the boy’s incapacitated body.
The beast’s lips and muzzle were stained a lurid scarlet red with the boy’s blood. The viscous blood dripped down its chest, and the remainder seeped into the snow. The wolf bellowed out a long, ghoulish howl which was joined by other wailing howls from miles away, creating a ghastly melody, ripping through the abnormally silent night.
With that, the beast took off, leaving the boy alone, blood gushing from his wounds. Instead of getting up and attempting to clean his wounds and staunch the flow of blood, he simply laid there, giving up entirely. Tears slipped from his eyes and froze on his cheeks and he began to sob in pain and agony. The boy’s life in those few moments was in total despair and anguish. The wolves howled on, likely to return to his dying body to finish him off.
Stiff, frozen fingers fumbled for the rifle until his hand caught it around the barrel. He placed a cartridge in the chamber and slid it shut. His actions were shaking and his weeping only seemed to grow in volume. He’d lost hope and it was a single instant of pure desperation and torment. Despite everything that had happened, he’d had to resort to that.
The boy struggled to sit upright and once he did, he placed the rifle between his legs and turned the safety off. He slipped the necklace off and looped it around his right hand. He gave the claw a squeeze as his finger slid down the stock of the rifle to the trigger and his eyes closed. He drew in a sharp intake of breath and his body went rigid. His index finger brushed over the trigger and…
The memory abruptly ended and Ryzhik was left wondering if he’d really done it when an image flashed in his mind.
The amber eyes of the lynx stared at the boy with cool indifference. It short tail flicked lazily from side to side and the lynx yawned boredly. It didn’t run away, it simply stared at him, until the boy looked down at the paws of the lynx. It was missing a claw and was the culprit. It was the lynx who’d slain the lamb. The boy looked into the scope and lined it perfectly between the eyes of the lynx. He squeezed the trigger and the bullet flew through the air and buried itself in the lynx’s brain.
The memory flashed back to the previous one.
The boy pulled the trigger and the only sound was the dull pop of the bullet lodging itself in his brain, killing him instantly and spraying blood and brain tissue all over. That was his last memory.
Everything in the story was all interconnected. The two children were sent away from their normal home to live on a farm with an ailing man who later ended up dying. The boy had a bone to pick with a lynx who had slaughtered a lamb and the offender had been calm and displayed no resistance.
The ending… that’s where the details and motives became muddier. All Ryzhik knew was that the boy had left with a rifle and was attacked by a wolf. He later on killed himself. Maybe he’d known that there was no other option and it was all utterly hopeless it was futile to call out for help when he knew there would be no one to come to the rescue.
Ryzhik found it strange how he chastised the boy’s actions in his mind as if they were his own and they could have been altered somehow due to his intervention. But yet, it wasn’t so far fetched. There was no other reason for him to have the ability to call up these thoughts and memories. It was if, he were the boy and he was reborn… as a lynx.
In a peculiar way, it did make a little sense. It was as though his mind had put forth barriers to protect him from a past life. And somehow, there had been a weak link in the system. Now, there was no going back. He knew what had happened to him in his past life, whether he wanted to know or not, he was now forced to live with those thoughts until he ended his current life.
It was quite strange how it all fell into place. In his other life, he was as free as could be. He didn’t appear to be dissatisfied with his life in any way. He had the girl, which he assumed to be a sister, as there was no other way to explain their relation to one another. The elderly man was a… relative. At least that’s what Ryzhik thought. He seemed to live a good life, even if he was surrounded by misfortune.
And now, here he was, on display at a zoo for people’s enjoyment. He’d come back as no other than a lynx, an animal that he’d brutally murdered. It must have made sense at the time, to bring himself some satisfaction by killing the animal who’d preyed upon a lamb. He’d probably been caring more about his livestock than the life of a lynx. After all, predators needed to eat as well and because they had to kill for their meals, didn’t make them inherently evil.
He’d made mistakes in his past life, but there was no way to undo them. What was done was done and that was the end of it. Whether he had made the right choice or not was questionable and Ryzhik didn’t know his own stance.
Now that his story as a human had ended, he had to wonder about all the gaps in there. There must have been some reason that he’d been able to call up only certain memories, perhaps the most poignant and the most affecting moments in his life. With remembrance of the smaller, insignificant memories, he would have been able to piece together the relationships between his sister and parents better.
He willed his brain to do just that, but turned up empty. It appeared he couldn’t do it on his own accord and his brain chose what he would and wouldn’t recall.
There was one thing that Ryzhik wanted to know- what happened after he had killed himself? It must have been distressing for his sister to figure out that eventually that he would not return home. Had she found his body? How did she manage after he was gone? He would never know. There simply wasn’t a way he could ask these questions for himself.
Ryzhik rolled onto his side and closed his eyes, taking in all the sounds of activity around him- people talking, tigers chuffing in the distance, and the rushing of cars driving on a nearby highway. it was strangely… peaceful. There was still one lingering thought in his mind.
The people, the animals, did they know if they lived a past life? Surely, if a human learned of another life of theirs in the past, they would be able to communicate it to others through language. But an animal? They could try all they wanted to get their message across, but no one would be able to truly understand what they’d discovered in the depths of their own mind.
While lazing about, Ryzhik turned and ear in the direction of the raised observation deck. The tall, metal bars separated the zoo patrons from him, but something particular caught Ryzhik’s attention. There was a cascade of wavy blonde locks underneath a lynx fur cap. It wasn’t uncommon that people wore fur for fashion, especially in the winter and Ryzhik would have normally ignored it. Around the woman’s neck was a thin, golden chain with a sharp claw being used as a pendant. She had to have found the necklace on the boy’s corpse, which meant, she had to have found him after he had died.
Ryzhik recognized the two items from his other life, but what were the odds of it happening? Besides, the girl from his memories was only a child and this woman appeared to be in her twenties. At her side, was a man of similar age, his large hand encompassing her small, delicate one. He could see a glint of a diamond on her ring finger.
He had to think for a moment. He didn’t know how long he had been dead. It could have been several years before he was ever reborn. He didn’t have any knowledge of time or how the whole situation worked out.
Still, this was his chance. Maybe she would remember something if he tried to get her attention. Enthusiastically, Ryzhik sprung to his paws and he came straight to the bars, trotting back and forth excitedly while looking up at her. He yowled and mewed and made a cacophony of strange noises in an attempt to help her draw a parallel.
All he earned was a smile and a giggle. She exchanged a few words with the man and went back to observing him. He stood on his hind legs, trying to reach through the bars, which were too narrow for his paws anyway. It was distressing to him, doing everything possible to get her to recognize him, when the only thing she did was laugh.
The man wore a look of some concern. Ryzhik didn’t recognize him, but the man might have seen him before. Ryzhik knew his behavior was out of the ordinary and it did earn him some attention in the opposite way that he had wanted.
A crowd had gathered at his enclosure and people were snapping photos with their cameras. There was quite the hubbub and his actions ended up having an adverse reaction- his sister and the man left as the crowd began to thicken.
It was then that Ryzhik put up a fuss. His vocalizations became louder and more distressed. And as much as she wanted her to return, she did not. All his efforts had been in vain. She’d seen him for what he was in this life and not what he was in another.
Just like that, she was gone and Ryzhik was devastated. She hadn’t remembered him, not even in the slightest. If she had, he would have seen her pale blue eyes light up with recognition. She wouldn’t have just stood there and watched him pace around and growl in distress. There was some part of him that told him- if she cared, she would have done something to help him and ease some of his pain.
But yet, she didn’t remember and Ryzhik’s newly discovered world came crashing down on him. He turned his back to the crowd and slunk over to the metal door that led inside. The lynx collapsed to the ground and let out a sigh, his breath sending an old clump of fur tumbling lightly in the breeze.
His mind wanted to give up, at just the very thought of spending the rest of his life boxed in within the bars of his confines with that knowledge. He longed to see the recognition on her face. Even though he was a lynx on the outside, he still retained his human soul and spirit.
It was then that Ryzhik saw himself in the place of the boy and once last time, a thought surfaced in his mind.
The boy stood motionless, though he was no longer a boy anymore. He’d matured into a young man with a head of sandy blond hair and a stubbly blond beard. There was a blinding light and the man shielded his eyes until another figure approached from the seeming nothingness.
Her golden hair was alight with bright radiance. Her pale skin had a sort of brilliant luminescence about it. And her eyes, they held an ethereal glow until the the light dimmed and the woman’s features refined themselves and a smile spread across her lips. A tear dribbled down her right cheek and before she could open her arms for a hug, the man was already there, enveloping her by wrapping his arms around her.
His eyes were clouding up and he looked off to the side to prevent the tears from falling. With the whisper of a few words, the man nodded and his tears fell from his eyes and slid down his face. His eyes were red-rimmed and the end of his nose was a blushy red. He wiped the tears away onto the sleeve of his jacket.
But then, the woman began to fade away. Her words became quieter and the man’s eyes widened with anxiety. Her body was vanishing and the man was doing everything to stop it. He could reach through her body and he attempted to hold on by wrapping his arms around her body which was nearly invisible.
The silence became overbearing. She was gone and the man was defeated. He knelt to the ground and wept before yelling through sobs of distress. The woman was gone and had left no trace behind, leaving him feeling even more lonely before.
Ryzhik didn’t understand the thought. It was obviously a figment of his own imagination and whether it happened or not would be a mystery. At the same time, it gave him something to hold on, something to keep living and fighting for.
And that’s what he did, for the next seventeen years, Ryzhik waited for the return of his sister. Day in and day out, he waited with nothing else on his mind except for the memories that had flooded through his mind so many years before. He became old and frail. His fur had become brittle and had whitened with age. His joints were stiff and sore from arthritis. He’d let himself go and lost what enthusiasm he had for life. Ryzhik ate poorly and at the most, picked at his meals before slumping onto the ground and dozing about with the memories on his mind.
Some flicker of hope still existed within him, that perhaps one day, they’d be reunited. He spent his days outside, laying around, basking in whatever sun peeked through the clouds hanging lowly in the sky.
From somewhere on the observation deck, Ryzhik heard a voice. Through the years, his eyes had clouded over due to cataracts and was completely blind in his left eye and with limited vision in in his right. He was losing his sense of hearing but he heard a voice that was that of a child, something that Ryzhik wouldn’t normally give much heed to. But his ear turned in the direction of the voice.
With a low grunt, Ryzhik lumbered to his feet, his tired joints popping and he looked up. A child was waving at him, which was nothing out of the ordinary. He could barely make out the face, but saw the spotted lynx cap and hair in golden waves.
And that was all that he needed to know. He didn’t do anything out of the ordinary except for shambling onto his tired legs and lumbering to the bars. In the process, he fell, his legs giving out underneath him. But he persevered in his task and got back up once more. He laid down by the bars, his joints popping and cracking. Ryzhik let out a loud sigh and his gaze averted to the child bouncing with excitement.
His body seemed to shut down. Ryzhik was old and had given up on himself, as much as he had hated to. After all those years of restless waiting, this is what it had come to.
“Look! See him over there! He’s standing right there! Uncle! Don’t you see him? He’s with the lynx! He’s young! Just like in in the story! And he’s waving!”
“He’s not here anymore. He’s gone. You might have seen something else, honey.”
“No! I swear! He’s right there! Standing by the lynx! He looks like a ghost. I think he wants to talk to you!”
“That’s quite enough, Isaak. He’s old and tired and he wants to rest,” she began to pull her son away, but he persisted in watching the dying animal. He broke her grasp and rushed to the railing of the observation deck. “Come on, we don’t want to miss supper,” she added quietly.
“No!” the boy looked to the dying lynx. “We have to stay!” the boy argued with his mother, determination eminent.
The woman harshly pulled her son away until they were out of view. But Ryzhik didn’t see any of this, as he’d already drifted away. The spirit of his former human self began to ascend and the spirit of his lynx self began to rise into a wraith-like phantom until the apparition of the lynx joined that of the boy. They become one as they rose into the dreary sky, leaving the physical world as they vanished into nothingness.
~