The world gets mad at the drunk for not being able to change the behavior that might kill him, yet the world is unable to change the behavior that is killing itself.
Les opened his eyes but did not move. The sun was already hiding behind the Rockies, the continent’s primordial spine, staining the graveyard with a reddish Western light. Weeds and parched flowers came into focus. His gray braid lay near his face and he saw his hair moving. He squinted. A yellow spider was spinning a web in his braid, working its spinnerets, strands of silk shooting out its bristled bottom. White markings on abdomen, a cross. The crowned orb weaver. Araneus diadematus. Les snapped his brittle hairs from the web and pulled his head away, leaving the web draped on some prickly weed. The spider bunched up all its legs for a moment, then relaxed them, continuing its work of survival and repairing the damage.
Winner of the 2022 Hudson Prize, the varied tales in Highwire Act are clear-eyed in their outlooks on current and future calamities. Whether they’re earthbound or science fiction, there’s no escaping the severity of these tales—or the realism of their visions…
Day after day, arachnids woke up knowing their job, their lives driven by purpose. Humans had to create their own purpose. Did that make them unnatural? Or did that make them human? What about his own sorry self? Les woke up several times a day knowing only chaos and confusion, even in this place of solemn silence. His first awakening back at the creek had been filled with wild noise and panic. Downstream, a skin-tight cow had stumbled down the embankment, a refugee no doubt from a smoked-out foothills ranch, her thirst driving her into the steep trap. She might have intended to sip from the sad trickle of water to be found, but no, she was too far gone. Either way, the withered beast didn’t have the strength to climb back out, and after a number of scrambles and dusty falls simply lay down in the sun and offered herself up to the deer flies. Why hadn’t a rancher gone looking for her? Even dying cows were worth money to pet food companies. Maybe she was an escapee from a trailer on its way to a meat processing plant, preferring to die under the open sky instead of the abattoir. Les had gathered folks from along the creek to help, but no coaxing, pulling, or pushing could get the cow back on all fours again. Three times, someone went to town for more help and never came back. One gal, two tea-colored children clinging to her legs and her belly distended with another, collected water in a bowl and offered it to her, but no, again. The cow’s eyes gaped up, searching the clouds.
“You can only help those who want it,” said the woman. She carried the bowl away, her children dotted with splash. One by one, the others gave up and left. Les stayed. Death was inevitable. Dying alone was not.
“We are in this together, my sweet bovine.” He stroked the fur on her head, and brushed the flies away from her open mouth. “Truth is, we’re all just a few steps behind you.”
Les sat crouched on his heels by the cow’s head for an hour or more, a human presence, the very smell of which kept coyotes at bay so they would not eat the old girl alive. Not that it looked like she’d notice. The gaze in her dark brown eyes was far off. And yet the ribs continued to rise. Soon, the heaving breath moved from the ribs to the throat, first struggling, then imperceptible, then gone. The big circle had turned a notch. He could not explain his tears, but someone had to pony up for this magnificent creature. Coyotes paced in the shadows of the dry brush, waiting for him to leave. Farther up the creek he saw men with sharp knives, women with high hopes. He left them to it. Why not let death feed life? It was only natural. Disturbing as hell, but natural.
Not for nothing, but waking up was no joy. Yet because of the sedative powers of vodka he had cause to wake several times a day. Les rolled his body over to his heart side, then hauled himself to a sitting position with pained effort, coordinating elbows and knees, finding leverage, gaining altitude, until he felt his upper body press firmly against a headstone then let his head fall back to open the airways. Look. The sky. Still there. The quilted cirrocumulus stretched low and thin above him, tinged with mango light. It was a thing to witness. A fleeting wonder. It would not be long before climate change annihilated not just all cows on the land but clouds in the sky, burning them off in a warmer atmosphere. No more shafts of divine light falling through the billowing cumulous, a sad end to the biblical concept of God in the heavens. We are the destroyer of gods. Zeus was right, humans could not be trusted with fire. Prometheus deserved to have his liver devoured, over and over for giving us the flame, a pathetic species destined to abuse its power.
Les looked down and watched the spider work, feeling his own limbs swept up in the desire to create. The first web the orb weaver spider makes in its lifetime is perfect, a thing of beauty and destruction, then the more it makes, the sloppier the webs get, as if experience teaches them to expend only the bare minimum necessary to survive. He watched a teeny moth flutter about, then brush against the sticky web, snaring its wing. In its struggle, it got the other wing stuck as well. The spider felt the vibration and came running on all eight legs, proving the universe is composed of vibrating strings. The spider produced more silk from its bottom, shooting it around the moth, around and around. The moth continued to struggle, and unless Les intervened, this was it. But he was no god. He let the spider do its job and looked away. The spider had to eat. Who was he to pass judgement?
Infant Kettery was probably conceived in the East only to be born here during the Westward expansion. Maybe too soon, what with all that bouncing in a creaky wagon.
He patted his garments for the familiar pint, took a sip and sent warm blood through his dry veins. He’d gotten out of the science biz just in time. Knowledge can not help us for what we are about to experience. He pulled up a pants leg to examine his latest sores and scabs. He bruised as easily as an old peach these days. He couldn’t be trusted on pavement, but he had to work his charms on Pearl Street if he wanted his vodka. It had been a good day in that regard. An excellent day. He’d scribbled a new sign to place next to his begging bowl. “The universe provides. Be the universe.” Soon he had enough for more than a few nips, then a whole pint, sending him off to where he sat now, Pioneer Cemetery, to calm the ceaseless storm of neural firings in his head.
He took a long swig and swished it around in his mouth a bit before swallowing, letting the burn linger on his tongue. The world gets mad at the drunk for not being able to change the behavior that might kill him, yet the world is unable to change the behavior that is killing itself. He tucked the bottle away in the dark folds of his clothes and felt a small stone in the bottom of the pocket. A fossil he’d scratched out from the dust somewhere in his travels. The faint impressions of a trilobite, from when the Rocky Mountains were at the bottom of the sea, before two ancient tectonic plates collided and became one, under god, indivisible. America. Les licked the stone for a clearer image. And there it was. A trilobite, ancestor to the pill bug, the little gray guy that curls up in a ball when disturbed.
He placed the fossil tenderly on top of the sunken gravestone next to him. He read the inscription. Infant Kettery, Aged One Day, August 1870. No given name. No gender. He turned to read the stone he leaned upon. Not a Kettery. No other Kettery around. The baby alone. A transient. Well, babycakes, aren’t we all? Infant Kettery was probably conceived in the East only to be born here during the Westward expansion. Maybe too soon, what with all that bouncing in a creaky wagon. An unsustainable burden. Weak. Needy. The mother forced to make a harsh assessment of time and resources needed to cross the Divide before winter, and decided, no. No. The survival of the family unit had to be considered. Other families were giving each other the eye. Her older children were restless. Her husband turned his back and looked up at the stars. All their energy had to be directed to the difficult crossing, where, on the other side, land awaited. They were eager to start claiming it, prepared to devour any Indigenous nations in their path. The milk never flowed. The infant cried, whimpered, then went silent. Digging took no time at all. Prayers were swift, then the family continued their migration, moving up and on, pulled by a sweating team of oxen, climbing the Divide, leaving a small, still bundle in the ground behind them. No looking back. No looking inwards. There was only looking ahead. This was America. The future beckoned.
He pulled his bottle out of his pocket, emptied it and closed his eyes. Wet with tears. He heard the flapping of powerful wing-beats pass overhead and looked up. Nothing.
He turned to the weaver. “Why?” he asked. “This grieving, this constant grieving. Why?”
No response. Not a single one of the spider’s eight eyes looked his way. It was busy doing its job, mummifying the moth, who was twitching under its tight swaddling of silk, still thinking it had a chance.
Header photo by Ruslan Sikunov, courtesy Pixabay. Photo of JoeAnn Hart by Ann Leamon.