Somewhere close to Balu Ka Gera - beyond the exploited hills of Manali - a slender blotted figure steps out from his den as the moon moves into its latter half of this night. There's nothing to claim for novelty today, as always. Life has been routine; rains have been hard and troublesome; prey has been playing the vanishing act. "Thing are not sane," he begrudges to his own self in a moment of soliloquy. His tiny cushioned paws distort the fabric of the damp Earth and his insignificant choice over his direction leaves a significant trail - one which he hopes some nihilist deer would follow to feed itself to this beast in these hard times. He has not been particularly hungry, thanks to his lately-sedentary lifestyle, but seeing the bounties nature has the herbivores stocking on, he is tempted into hunger in sheer envy.
He'll claw the life out of nature if he could, the nature that makes it so easy for these deer and perky squirrels. But right now he can only claw at this Devdar (Cedrus Deodar) trunk which sends splinters of wood shooting in all directions and breaks the parturient silence of this July night where the fauna is busy mating and flora is busy blooming - thriving throbbing of life, but for this guy, who now dangles his feet down from one of the sturdier branches that he just climbed of the same Devdar that was at the receiving end of his hollow fury a moment back. Chin resting on that branch, he stares out into the valley of a bird's eye view: vast, tragic emptiness which he is forced to absorb at full vividness, thanks to his amazing night-vision retinas that allow even the minutest of useless details through. He wonders if physical survival is overrated, because seeing so much makes him mad, and had his ancestors not ditched brains for brauns, things would've turned way better. Few magpies startle out from some tree screaming for nothing, and a bear somewhere grunts in thin protest. The monsoon surge of the river is heard saturating the valley. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Then something crunches under weight. Another crunch. Ears pecked. Now a thud, and a jangling, as of trinkets. A strange shape appears at the bend where the animal track safely descends to the river. It is a human being staring back at him.
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