Camping - day 4

Hungry and tired, we walk back to the campsite. We take a back way that we noticed only the day before. It is more overgrown, but also more direct to the lakeshore. I fall behind, letting my friend get ahead of me far enough for me to be alone. I sit by ferns and shallow shrubs. I dig my fingers into the soft topsoil. And when I look up, I see him. He is an Elk: like a perfect Aryan myth: cherry-blonde and broad shouldered, noble chest, erect neck. He breathes a cloud of condensation at me, and I am looking straight into his eyes. I have known this fear before: at sea, far away and looking across deserts, waiting for lightning, swarms of bees, my first plunge into the ocean.