Patterns of Orbit: Stories - Softcover

Clark, Chloe N

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1936097478 ISBN 13: 9781936097470

Publisher: Baobab Press, 2023

Synopsis

Baobab Press

About this title

About the Author

Chloe N. Clark is the author of the short story collection Collective Gravities, an NPR pick for Best Books of 2020, as well as the poetry collections Escaping the Body, Your Strange Fortune, and more. She is a founding co-editor-in-chief of the literary journal Cotton Xenomorph. 

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Long in the Tooth

The lesson is obvious.

There will always be wolves in the woods. The woods will always be deep and dark. Anyone who strays from the path will always be punished. No matter that the forest floor was flooded with moss, so deep and green, so soft beneath the feet. No matter that there were flowers that only grew in the shade, such delicate buds. No matter how easy it was to follow the song of a bird without realizing. No matter that paths are not always easy to keep oneself upon.

The lesson is as old as time.

If you meet a wolf, he will always try to trick you. His teeth can only be sharp. His growl is one that is meant to get caught in the throat. It sounds like thunder if you listen closely. And you count, and you count before you remember that thunder follows lightning and not the other way around. You are waiting for disaster and its already come. What are you counting until?

The lesson is simple.

You taught the ones you love to keep themselves safe without telling them that’s what you were doing. You’d glance from side to side when crossing a street, hurry your feet when going past shadows, tell no one your whole name at first. Such simple things to learn: our calculations of what we must do to survive. No one told you how all those additions, things to remember, could also feel like subtractions. How the wolf might still be waiting—a multiplication of time and distance and fear. How the division at the center of the lesson was always going to equal yourself.

The lesson is universal.

The wolf is always a wolf. The wolf sharpens his claws every day with every step. Sometimes the wolf is a tiger. Sometimes the tiger is a hyena. Sometimes the hyena is a monster, creeping out of a cave. A castle. The lake behind the house. The wolf is everything and nothing. The claws are so sharp. The teeth are so quick. Sometimes even you are the wolf. You don’t realize it until you are old. You see it in the mirror, the way you shift and pace, like an animal caged. How much the running you have wanted is screaming under your skin, in your bones. Your claws are no longer sharp. You’ve spent so much time in the shadows cast by staying in the light.

The lesson is empty.

You walk in the woods, slip free from the path. The smell of the earth greets you after the rain. It is so deep and so dark and so easy to fall inside of. Was there ever a path to begin with? You can’t find it now. It’s all just moss beds and twisting roots and the flitter of bird wings and the rush of feet scurry scurrying. You could stop for a rest. You could wait for a traveler. You can taste it almost. All that you leave behind. There will always be wolves in the woods. You know this. You’ve found them after all.

Edition details

• Publisher: Baobab Press
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1936097478
• ISBN 13: 9781936097470
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 166