The One
A little boy is walking down the path behind his house in the woods. He is thinking of his sister, and the soup they’d shared at lunch, the fight they’d had over the Snoopy spoon, and his mother’s orders to play outside. Suddenly a great gust of wind pushed from the west and nearly knocked him down, but before his stumble could turn into a fall, another strong wind rode in from the east, and righted him onto his feet. So touched by the hand of god, he looked in all directions for a presence. When he’d turned round in a circle, he saw at the end of the path, two brown bears turned back towards him. They moved forward with their eyes fixed on him. He, transfixed, followed. Deeper into the wood the bears went, occasionally turning to check that the kid was following. The boy was led further from home than he’d been before and he began to lose track of the time and the place. The bears arrived at the mouth of a cave and as they watched him, slowly entered. After some moments, the boy followed them. The bears stood at the end of a warm light beam that shone into the cave, and lying there on the dirt and rocks wrapped up in a ragged cloth, the boy saw a baby kicking and burbling about. The bear said something then, and even as he would go on to recollect this story as an adult, the boy would never understand whether the bear had actually spoken, or whether the bear had just psychically suggested the phrase, this is the chosen one. The boy picked up the baby and as he did, he looked into the brown bear’s eyes. Suddenly he was staring into the eyes of a beast, and no longer did the beast speak, now it begin to snarl. The boy clutched the baby to his chest and ran back to the house. His feet seemed to know the way, and every few moments he would feel the baby squirm and sigh in his arms. He was frightened for its life, but the infant’s distress also comforted him, reminding him that the special thing was still alive. He got back to the house, climbed the wooden steps, grappled with the screen door as he balanced the baby in the nook of his neck. He ran inside and placed the baby on the couch. His family appeared and slowly gathered around the coffee table staring down at the still bundle. Nervously, the boy lifted the corner of the blanket up off the kid. It fell down around and they almost screamed at what they saw. Confounded, the boy looked all around, under the table, around the edges of the couch. He looked back at the empty blanket. He remembered the thing. The form of it, the feeling. The heart beat. No ONE.
