Tempting

Lying beneath the chill flow; the murk and muck of time settled upon me as a cloak, I await the approach of the unsuspecting. This season of sparse abundance my natural ally.

There! One comes! I see it shimmer and slur as the icy water sluices past my vision. So delicate, so exquisite, so tempting a morsel.

It seeks to sate its endless thirst in the tide rushing over me. The desire to drink overwhelming the natural caution that fear has instilled in it. It hears the stream, edges forward to drink, and dips its aquiline neck down to the chilled fluid. Not all trepidation shed, it pulls its lips back after the first suckle.

Does it sense me? Does it taste me waiting below the debris of this past year’s fall? Has it heard my excited inhalation, the slight readying of my limbs for the attack? Or is this a natural response to its previous repose?

My innards growl, a sound drown by the rushing of the water but all too shrill to my submerged ears. It seems unfrightened, still unaware. It peers about keenly, but with no fear in its black glistening eyes.

This one so young, newly released from its mother’s care. They are always the most supple, the taste most delicate upon my tongue. Come little one, I croon in my thoughts, I will not hurt you. A lie. I intend to end its gentle existence to satisfy my own hunger.

Tentative, yet with the belief it has nothing to fear, it spreads its hoofed limbs slightly wider to bring its lips closer to the cooling surface. I watch, it drinks – eyes still flicking about. Finally it closes its sight to the world to lap abundantly.

I strike, dragging its struggling carcass to a watery grave.

© Copyright 2013 Nina D’Arcangela. All Rights Reserved.