The Kachina's Return Part I

The day started off regular enough. Get up at 5:30, shave, fix coffee, stoke the fireplace and then go out and feed the dogs. Come back in and pour a cup, shake off the January chill and sit there in the chair and listen to the dogs bark, knowing that they are wanting more than just food. Wanting to be let out, wanting to be petted and talked to, wanting to be human for a while. Wanting to be right in your way, no matter where you step. Pour another cup of coffee, all the while thinking and letting the thoughts go up and out with the rise of smoke in the fireplace. Sitting there in the silence, watching as the human finger curls into the handle of the cup and the human hand wraps around the outside of it, feeling the hotness of the ceramic surface as it warms the hands propped up by the elbows on the table, which also support the upper arms, the shoulders, and the head with eyes staring intently out over the coffee cup, through the hazy window, out past the back porch, focusing on the center of the octagonal deck in the backyard. The eyes shift left with the advent of the first photons streaming in as the sun breaks over the top of the rise in the east vineyard. A rabbit pops out from under the deck and slowly hops toward the dogs driving them wild. Breaking the silence. “Welp, time to go,” the words curl up and out and vanish in the air. The hands push off the table, the cup goes into the sink with yesterday’s and the day before’s cups, making sure there is no clinking of glass or any other sound to break the silence other than the barking of the dogs and the shuffling of feet out the back door, down the fourteen or so steps, across the rock pathway, and out onto the deck, looking over toward the east vineyard to check the level of the sun.
On the morning of January 25th, the moon became full. Did it have a name? It seems like he remembered once that it was called the Full Wolf Moon or something like that. He didn’t know for sure. He knew some basic lunar lore like “once in a blue moon”, “harvest moon”, and he remembered some of the lyrics to “Moon River”. He even had a standard answer whenever anyone asked him the question, “What do you know?” His standard answer was, “Well, you know, there’s no dogshit on the moon.” Maybe he heard somebody else say it. Maybe he made it up. Anyway there was the full moon in perfect juxtaposition with the rising sun and the centerline of the octagonal deck, bisecting the deck at twenty-three and a half degrees from center, just like the manuscript called for, just like it said it would be. He tightened the rope belt around his waist and stepped barefoot onto the edge of the deck, taking a deep breath and walking slowly toward the center.