By G.R. Nanda
Even as he was spinning, Father Hawk could feel his heart sink. He never felt inevitability more than now.
Plummeting in space, he could do nothing as he moved closer and closer to the huntsman.
The huntsman’s legs trailed behind him in a blue haze that melted away into the stars.
He suddenly reached behind him and pulled out a bow that was hanging on his back. He pulled an arrow from a quiver and notched it on the bow in a single quick motion.
The glowing white string of the bow whined with its strain and the bow creaked. In a flash, the arrow shot through, whizzing loudly.
It was a flaming white shooting star that coursed through the cosmos and engulfed Father Hawk in a burning fire.
Everything was white. Father Hawk could not see his body. He could only see white. It was everywhere and everything.
Eventually, Father Hawk gasped as he hit a prickly surface. Looking down at his claws, he could see that what he’d landed on was a patch of tufts of green needles. It was grass and as Father Hawk moved around, pressing his body on different patches of grass and feeling new tufts poke at him, more of the grass revealed itself to him.
Leaning to one direction, patches of green appeared out of the white haze. Leaning to another, green emerged in that direction. Moving elsewhere, patches formed in other areas like fog was lifting away from them.
Blurred edges cleared away to show new patches of grass as Father Hawk inched closer and looked all around him.
He stood up and shook his head and ruffled his feathers, shaking off some dirt and pebbles. He blinked and looked around.
The large meadow was expanding. Rolling fields of grass growing– pushing into the white expanse.
Father Hawk felt an ant scuttle underneath him, pressing the blades of grass and causing him to flinch.
The ant disappeared into the grass. A breeze passed through, blowing blades of grass to the left, causing them to rustle in a soft musical sound.
From far off were chirping sounds, faint at first and constantly interrupted by the sound of the wind and the rustling grass, but growing ever louder and multiplying.
Grass pressed together and crinkled with the dirt behind Father Hawk. He whirled around and came face to face with a squirrel with beady eyes and a coat of bushy brown fur. Father Hawk cringed and moved backwards, fearing what the squirrel would inflict on him.
But the squirrel did nothing but sit on hind legs, poised while its furry tail arched back, moving its jaw in a munching motion and boring its big black eyes into Father Hawk’s.
The squirrel was nearly as big as Father Hawk, which was unusual for the god who was so used to being the bigger animal before he entered the great huntsman’s canyons.
The squirrel was even bigger than the rest of the small feral creatures he’d encountered. It was a squirrel bigger than the squirrels of the canyon. This all meant that Father Hawk was even smaller in these grasslands than he was in the canyons.
The squirrel made a soft clicking noise and bared two large teeth and then quickly bounced away, scuttling into the thickness of the grasses in front of Father Hawk before disappearing.
There was more chirping as the breeze died down and a flock of tiny songbirds emerged from the distance, flying high over the grasses and then over Father Hawk’s head.
The grasslands continued to expand ever outwards in the far off distance. Green blurs pushed out. Where there were blurs bordered by a white haze, hazy green patches of grass popped up.
And wherever the grasses expanded, more animals and critters appeared.
Out of the grasses emerged quiet deer poking their antlers into the grass, traveling in small groups to the right and left.
Their tan hides and lean bodies were close enough to be seen in between the thick blades of grass.
More songbirds appeared, chirping musically. They were small and frantic. They were dark and light colored, but with associated splotches, white and dark.
Butterflies popped out of the ground, fluttering with brightly colored wings. They were orange and blue and they were all dotted by black.
All around, the growing grasslands were coming to life and life was just as big if not even bigger than Father Hawk.
The borders of the grasslands were expanding and curiously enough, in the far off distance, rock outcrops formed out of the white haze.
Dozens of grey and rust-colored rock formations and cliffs appeared, encircling the grasslands far away.
And then, directly in front of Father Hawk, a large slab of grey rock appeared far away and protruded into white haze. A white cloud was passing over its topmost ledge. When it passed, a tree with pink leaves appeared at the top. When Father Hawk looked closely, he saw that it was actually the flower from the wet cave of the canyons. The flower was the size of a huge tree and the rock mound was now the size of a mountain.
It was separated by chunks that jutted out of the sides, just like in the cave. A part of the ledge sticking out from the middle moved.
It was the coyote, a faint blur of grey in the distance, blending into the grey and orange rock.
Father Hawk whirled around. A herd of elk walked together in the grass against the dark horizon. The sun hung in front of the sky over the far off cliffs and rock faces, edging towards the middle of the sky.
Farther down, on the opposite end of the hemisphere, the light blue of the sky made way for a deep velvet and dark blue spotted by the milky splotches of constellations and their pearly white stars.
The same grouping of six stars hung, looming over the walking elk. The more Father Haws looked, the more the pale apparition of the huntsman glowed to life.
Once again, the man with the billowing white locks of hair and the bulging sinewy muscles loomed over him.
“WELCOME TO THE SANCTUARY OF HEAVENLY ANIMALS!” he thundered.
“Now you are truly an animal of nature. You are no more a god and you do not have god-like powers anymore.”
“You can live here. Or, if you want to return to reality, travel to Coyote’s cliff and return a stolen flower to me.”
“In return you will be given a petal from the flower which you can use to heal your wife and you will be given a seed from the flower to plant a home for your child.”
“When all is done, you will be more than what you came into my canyons as. For you will have shown greatness.”
“And therefore, you will be great.”
G.R. Nanda 