The New Wilderness

How people felt about one another was always in the voice. In the way they talked to one another when they thought they were alone.

She hated her mother’s fierce love. Because fierce love never lasted. Fierce love now meant that later, there would be no love, or at least that’s what it would feel like. Agnes wanted a mild mother, one who seemed to love her exactly the same every day. She thought, Mild mothers don’t run away.

But most of the twenty didn’t know much about science, and many of them didn’t even care about nature. These twenty had the same reasons people have always had for turning their backs on everything they’d known and venturing to an unfamiliar place. They went to the Wilderness State because there was no other place they could go.

I’ll tell her this story and the others with all their complications and confusions because those complications and confusions are what make them true. It feels at times like the only instinct left in me. It’s the only way I know to raise a daughter. It’s how my mother raised me.

Agnes did not care about this conversation. Who cared about why or how? Who cared about would or wouldn’t? She never understood why the adults were always discussing these words. Should and shouldn’t. Can and can’t. “Is and do,” she muttered to herself. That’s all that mattered. Is and do. Being and doing. Right now, and a little time from now.

At an age when she might have thought she didn’t need a mother, Bea craved hers more than ever.

Leaders shouldn’t enjoy leadership, she told herself. Like Glen said, it should be a role one takes because one feels obligated.

Her mother turned to the fire, now standing shoulder to shoulder with her daughter. Not looking at her, she said, “There are some things you don’t understand. You think you do. But you don’t. I hope you never have to.

Agnes always felt so much younger in her mother’s arms.

It’s better to miss something you can’t have than think there’s nothing worth missing.

And she loved Agnes fiercely, though motherhood felt like a heavy coat she was compelled to put on each day no matter the weather.

He had been given something special that was being taken away, and he needed someone to blame.

Carl was strong, decisive, unkind when he needed to be. They just liked Carl better. Carl’s story, as told to them by Carl, was a better story. But Carl, it turned out, hadn’t any grand plan for leadership. No agenda or way forward. He just wanted to be leader and have everything go through him. Once that was secured, he delighted in being the enforcer.

Now that I have what I wanted, I feel somehow freed up to want more. Free to want without hesitation. I think wanting is man’s natural state. Now want is an insatiable thing in me.

That’s the thing, Bea,” he said, casting his eyes to her briefly. “Now that I have what I wanted, I feel somehow freed up to want more. Free to want without hesitation. I think wanting is man’s natural state.

What a sad thing, to have never been alive in this place.

It was soft, tickling. The liquid was cold going on, like dipping her pinky into a winter river's icy slurry. A thrill shot through her neck. Then, everything on her finger closed up., tightened, stopped breathing. She felt it being suffocated. She almost yelped, leapt up to run away. She hated it. "Okay", Celeste said, "go like this." Agnes opened her eyes, saw Celeste blowing on her own hands, and looked down. The pink was catching light she hadn't even know was present in the dark forest. It looked as thought it moved on her nail, breathed more and more color into itself. She saw the speckles of glitter, not too much, just enough. It was alive, and perfect.

They enjoyed being at the top too much. Every chance they had, they tried to subvert a Community decision to follow their own idea, and were gleeful when it worked. Leaders shouldn’t enjoy leadership, she told herself. Like Glen said, it should be a role one takes because one feels obligated.

Well, I don’t think I like consensus either,” said Frank. “It doesn’t feel very representative.

I’ve watched loss daily, but sometimes it’s my mother I miss the most.

The creatures. Agnes had noticed that a mother would only be a mother for so long before she wanted to be something else. No mother she’d ever watched here remained a mother forever.

What she wouldn’t have given for her mother.