Large Fierce Mammal

New growth in the remains of a long dead forest. Killed by fire? Perhaps, but if so, what kind?

When I was in late elementary school, and before I was the person I am now, I became the target of a bully. Admonished by my mother not to fight, I substituted instead the kind of ravenous hatred that can, at least for a time as one entertains hopes of salvation, be restrained from any need to be physically avenged. As I said, at least for a time. It turned out that my enemy was the son of the captain of a fishing trawler who, a week to the day after I grew to hate his son, took him to sea on the last trip of the boy’s life. Unexpectedly entangled in a cable attached to the fishing gear that was being deployed, he was dragged overboard, his absence noticed far too late. I was nowhere near, on dry land, and spent a lot of time back then, thinking on why I did not consider this a tragic situation. Young as I was, I concluded it had more to do with relief that my enemy was no longer around me than happiness that he was gone from the planet. Ah, the young.

About seventeen years ago, through what turned out to be no fault of my own and for reasons I won’t detail, I became embattled in a situation that the expenditure of thousands of dollars in consultations with lawyers was unable to resolve for the reason that they were beyond their depth. I won in the end against a grave injustice perpetrated against me, but not before several years, much effort, and a great deal of money that I will never see again had been expended. It was in the midst of this battle, while I sat one day considering strategy and tactics, that I chanced to notice movement out the corner of my eye, on the window ledge near my left elbow.

Dark thoughts of battle still at the forefront of my mind, the sudden movement solicited an equally abrupt focusing of my attention in its direction. No more had I realized the movement’s source to be a large and harmless spider than it stopped walking, stood a moment, and then collapsed slightly to its left. Initially I believed that the spider’s reaction was due to its having noticed my own movement, so close at hand, and I recall wondering if its strange posture was intended to improve its view of a possible threat. My mind was now drawn back from thoughts of war as I regarded the strange position of the spider, and it was only when, after a significant interval of stillness on its part, I decided to encourage it to a safer and more profitable location and discovered it was dead.

Early this century, Mrs. LFM and I were ensconced in a lovely country setting where we dwelled unimpeded for a number of years. Gradually, as neighbouring landholders quietly divided up and sold their properties, construction of houses began to encroach on our haven, built by the kind of CFA (“Come From Away”) that is responsible for the derisive coining of that sequence of initials.

Mrs. LFM and I were close to our date of relocation to our present happy abode, so this should not have been a great issue, but in the last few months of our tenure, participation of another person brought things to a head. This person was on many occasions found fleeing from the vicinity of our home when we arrived. On another, he was detected hiding nearby in a vantage from which he could observe our departure, and only due to the Gods deciding at the last moment that his escape served some purpose, and their entertaining intervention, did he make good his escape. Our villain was an able liar and police help was less than worthless leading to the necessity to maintain a guard on the house and its grounds.

Our place was bordered with a combination of pine, pear, and apple trees; the latter two of which normally attracted nesting birds. Spring came at the height of the battle, and yet that year no nests were built, no blossoms appeared on any fruit tree, regardless of species. Every bit of vegetation that existed on the property boundary became stunted and blighted.

These are examples of a subject that, by all appearances, only a few have ever experienced – the ability to inhibit or end the progress of a life, even without intention or physical act, simply because of the proximity of that life to a center of conflict. In my own experience, this requires the unfortunate to wander into range of the rancorous situation after it has reached a level of intensity wherein the side they are near has come to the conclusion that its very survival is at stake. Perhaps this requires some specific level of susceptibility on the part of the victim, perhaps a particular level of intensity on the part of the source; or both. Research continues.

Collateral damage indeed.