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Back 3 a.m.
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  67. 3:46 a.m.

Lassie is curled into my body, lying on a thick bed of pine needles. I stroke his back, noting how my hand grates against his rib cage. I was a hundred and sixty pounds and my body is used to long durations without food. I am a genetic camel. Lassie, on the other hand, is a genetic tapeworm, and without food, his body is wasting away.

I push myself up, dust the fallen pine needles from my lap, and stretch out my arms. My legs, hands, and neck itch uncontrollably. I bite my tongue, take deep breaths, and fight off the urge to cheese-grate my body with my fingernails.

I last three breaths.

After a long minute — my hands racked in red slashes from my fingernails — I straighten.

There are a couple of pine needles on my shoulder and I pick them off and put them in my mouth. I chew them down, gag on the needles as they move down my throat, and somehow swallow.

Lassie stares up at me and I ask, “You want to try a couple?”

Meow.

“No, they do not taste anything like a Honey Baked Ham.”

Meow.

“No, I don’t have any Honey Baked Ham.”

Meow.

“No, I don’t think there is a Honey Baked Ham close by.”

I pick him up and we do our daily ritual at the river’s edge. I notice my heart beating faster than usual and that someone turned off the autofocus on my eyes.

How long has it been since I ate?

The last thing I ate was the sandwich, smoothie, and caramel corn four days earlier. Or was it five? Or three? Or six? My normally Bruce Lee-like brain has become a slovenly sumo wrestler.

I lick my lips and bat my eyes at the lightening sky.

“Four days,” I say, nodding. “It’s been four days.”

I pick Lassie up and we continue up the river.

::::

The fish are both a foot long. One is silver. One is red. They swim in a tight circle in a shallow pool of water. I stand on a three-foot rock, my stick — now shaved to a sharp point — cocked over my right shoulder. Lassie is on the bank, thirty feet of river away. He is curled next to my shoes, socks, and sweatpants, which I’d peeled off for the short trudge to the rock and the shallow pool. Even from this distance, I can see his yellow eyes pleading with me catch a fish. To give him something to eat.