Mortal Wound

His forehead presses against yours. There is no light anymore. The last star went dark. His fur is coarse and silver where it meets your skin. He is trembling. Or you are.

"Even if you were to lose yourself," he says.

---

His hand finds yours. The pads of his palm are dry and rough and warm. The alarm has been going for six minutes. Through the window the cloud is still climbing. White and orange. The shadow is moving toward you across the parking lot.

"I'll be here," he says.

He pulls you into him.

---

His arms are around you in the church. One arm is bitten. You can feel the wet of it through his sleeve, soaking into your shirt where he holds you. The groaning outside is not wind. The door is oak and the hinges are bending inward. His muzzle is pressed against the side of your head. His breath comes fast and ragged and his grip is tighter than it needs to be.

"Always," he says.

The hinges pop.

---

You meet him on a Wednesday.

He is standing near the back of a laundromat reading the instructions on a detergent bottle. Short. Brown fur, close-cropped, patchy at the elbows. Rounded ears.

He glances up. Sees you. Looks back down at the bottle so fast he nearly drops it.

The second time is a Thursday. He is at the bus stop on Elm, sitting on the far edge of the bench with a canvas bag in his lap, gripping the straps with both hands. It's raining. His ears are flat. You sit on the other end and he scoots further toward his edge even though there is nowhere left to go.

The bus comes. He lets you board first and then sits four rows behind you.

The third time he is at the same laundromat. Same machine. He looks up and this time he doesn't look away. He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again.

"I think we've met." he says.

His hands are still gripping the detergent.

"Miro." he says. He says it quickly. He moves on.

---

The fourth time is at the park. He is sitting on a bench near the pond with bread in his lap that he is not feeding to the ducks.

You sit next to him.

He is quiet for a long time. Then he says, "Can I show you something." His voice catches on the last word.

He reaches over and puts his hand on top of yours.

---

The market is loud and hot. Someone grabs your wrist and spins you around and he is there, tall this time, rust-red fur, ears that come to sharp points, grinning so wide his teeth catch the sun. He puts his forehead against yours and something opens behind your eyes and–

A room with low ceilings. Rain outside. He is sitting across from you whittling something, humming. He has grey fur in this one, heavy and thick, and a broad flat face. He looks up. Smiles. Goes back to whittling. The thing he is making is a bird. He works on it all winter and when spring comes he puts it on the windowsill and says nothing about it and you say nothing about it and it sits there for forty years until the wood has gone soft and grey.

He dies in the bed by the window. You hold his hand. His breathing slows and slows and does not pick up again. His grip loosens. You keep holding.

A field. Smoke. He is running toward you with blood on his face that isn't his. He is lean and dark-furred, black-eared. He reaches you and grabs your shoulders and checks your arms, your ribs, your face, turning you in his hands. His mouth is moving but you can't hear him over what's coming. He steps in front of you.

He goes down. You go to your knees beside him. He's looking up at you and his mouth is moving and the word is the same word every time.

A town. Empty streets. Coughing through shuttered windows. He finds you in a doorway, already sick. He's gold and brown this time. He sits next to you and does not leave. He puts your head in his lap. His hand is on your forehead, the pads of his fingers cool and rough. He talks to you but you lose the words. You lose the hours. When you open your eyes the light has changed and he is still there and his hand is still on your forehead and his mouth is still moving.

You close your eyes again. When you open them it's a new ceiling. A new cry. A new pair of hands.

---

He is standing in the doorway of a restaurant. He is old in this body. Grey-whiskered. Heavy through the shoulders. He sees you. He walks over and sits down across from you and puts both hands on the table, palms down, and looks at them.

"Took a while this time." he says.

He reaches across and takes your hand and it comes back, all of it and when you surface he is watching you. His eyes are wet. His mouth is steady.

He holds on.

He holds on through dinner. Through the walk home. Through the evening. His hand in yours or his shoulder against yours or his knee touching your knee under the table. He falls asleep on the couch with his head on your lap. His hand is around your wrist.

He dies in his sleep eleven years later. A heart that stops. You find him in the morning, still warm, one hand hanging off the edge of the bed. You had gotten up to make coffee.

The coffee gets cold on the counter.

---

He still finds you. But the finding takes longer. He used to grab your hand. Then he started reaching for it. Then he started placing his hand near yours on the table and waiting.

A life on a coast. He is small, tawny. You are young and he is young and you sit on the dock with your legs hanging over and he tells you a joke and laughs at it before you can. Partway through the laugh his face changes. It goes somewhere you haven't seen before. He stops.

He catches you looking.

"What." he says.

A life in a city. Concrete and glass. He has dark fur, almost black, and wears a coat too big for him. He finds you in a library. He sits in the chair across from you and slides a note across the table. It reads: Same bench. Ten minutes.

On the bench he takes your hand. The memories come back. You look at him. He is picking at a thread on his coat sleeve.

"So." he says.

He doesn't finish.

A life in snow. Mountains. He has white fur. He finds you early, you are eighteen, he is nineteen. He takes your hand. The memories settle.

That night he sits by the fire. You sit next to him. He leans into you.

"You know what I miss." he says.

He doesn't finish that either.

---

A life where he pulls a stranger's kid from a river. The current takes him. He pushes the child toward the bank.

You stand on the bank and watch them pull his body out. They lay him on the grass. Water runs from his fur. One of his shoes is missing. A stranger puts a hand on your shoulder and says something. You hear it.

A life where you die in childbirth. You see his face above you. His jaw is set. His hands grip the sheet. A midwife is saying things. The room is hot. His mouth is moving and you know what word he's making.

A life where he's killed on a road for his bag. You find out three days later. You identify him by the mark on his forearm. Same place. Same shape. Every life. You touch it. His arm is cold.

---

The last few lives, he holds you differently.

He holds you while you sleep. He holds your hand crossing streets. He holds you from behind while you wash dishes, his chin on your shoulder, not saying anything.

He used to let go and come back. Now he doesn't let go.

His hands stay. On your arm. On your back. On your wrist. At dinner he keeps one hand under the table on your knee. In bed he presses his back against yours and stays there all night. You wake up and he is in the same position. His eyes are open. He is looking at the wall.

"Morning." he says.

---

The park bench. His hand on yours. The light through the trees. The ducks on the pond. The bread in his lap, untouched.

It all comes back.

Every life. Every death. Every room and dock and field and bed and church.

You open your eyes. The park is still there. The pond. The ducks. A child on a tricycle. Afternoon.

He is looking at you. Brown fur. Rounded ears. Patchy elbows. Small.

His hand is still on yours.

---

The bus is crowded. Friday. Late afternoon. The light through the windows is orange. Someone near the back is playing music through a phone speaker. The bus lurches and he leans into you and doesn't correct it.

His hand is in yours. His thumb moves across your knuckle, back and forth. Back and forth.

He's quiet for three stops. Four.

At the fifth, the bus idles at a red light. The engine hums. Someone coughs. His thumb stops.

"I think," he says, "it's time we see someone new."

He is looking at the window. His ears are up.