RafaelFajardo

On the .22 survival rifle:

It was a strange feeling, holding the rifle. It somehow removed him from everything around him. Without the rifle he had to fit in, to be part of it all, to understand it and use it — the woods, all of it. With the rifle, suddenly, he didn’t have to know; did not have to be afraid or understand. He didn’t have to get close to a fool bird to ill it — didn’t have to know how it would stand if he didn’t look at it and moved off to the side…the fire was out and he used a butane lighter and a piece of birchbark with small twigs to get another one started— marveling at how easy it was but feeling again that the lighter somehow removed hook from where he was, what he had to know. With a ready flame, he didn’t have to know how to make a spark nest, or how to feed the new flames to make them grow. As with the rifle, he wasn’t sure he liked the change.