Dan laughed, thinking Saul’s thought: that bitch. Unity after all.

But the moment passed and couldn’t be resummoned. His mouth moving as he talked and talked in the snow was, in the end, most like a mouse chewing cheese, not a king at all.

One day after disaster in North America, Bear and Mouse descend to a battlefield to feast. They hurry down the trail from the hilltop overlook. The great fight below is done, though they know nothing of the reasons or the merits. It is dinner. Breakfast too, a week at least. All is still and smoky. Men lie in the fetid muck, most dead and rotting already, some mere boys with stripes down the legs of their filthy uniforms, drumsticks gripped, some still holding pistols. Nearly every eye has been plucked out. Cruel birds wheel. Boys’ eyeballs are more tender. Some of the Dead still move though pinned in place, arms grasping for a blade or blade of grass or bottle. The men moan under wagons turned over, run through with oak spokes of wheels, or draped high over cannons. The slope is easy and faster for the long-limbed Bear so he carries brother Mouse on his back, down down, past horses and mules sprawled dead with their masters. A fat man is roped to a chair and he babbles. Death is disorderly, indiscriminate, as always: many varieties of men, every color, uncounted hybrids crying out for mothers, sisters as visions standing just there.

Bear finds a leg and drags it. Mouse finds a bit of cheek and is more than satisfied. A mountain smokes in the distance. They chew and listen to the talk as they eat, become dizzy with food and sleepy contentment. As they curl up in intertwined balls to rest, one big, one small, the sound of the men mixes with sleep, indistinct grunts overlapping, diverse tongues pulsing together in waves of gibberish, accents and dialects all humming as a single hive cacophony.

FINAL ARBOREAL CENSUS

2179, May 1 (snow-colored sky)

SPECIES: Callitropsis nootkatensis

LOCATION: West Sea