mammoth snows
Isolated in the American suburbs, eight-year-old Brennan finds unexpected connection with another boy while waiting for mammoths.
Cozy, yet refreshing, this short story pays homage to the resourcefulness of queer and neurodiverse folk in creating spaces of freedom and vulnerability, however small or fleeting.
Deeply interwoven themes of paleontology and natural history are universal in my work as embodiment and reminder of great change, and the perilous hope that comes with it. Mighty beasts have been born, lived, and died. Earth has oscillated from icehouse to hothouse and back again. Glaciers have ground down mountains and floods have swept their remains to the sea. Vast forests have been incinerated and turned to stone by volcanoes, only for green to grow anew and creatures to again call it home. So too can the sensitive emerge from secrecy into sun. So too can we.
~august primeval
On snowy days, there would be mammoths. The songbirds, scratching crooked sentences with identical four-toed letters no creature could read (though Brennan swore he nearly had it), would flush at the first noiseless footfall. It took keen senses and rapt attention to notice the towering forms through great swirls of flakes, looming, loping, sloping. Perhaps it was the age Mom and Dad always complained about- any mention of the great tuskers would elicit only a sigh. Brennan hasn’t said a word of them for ages- not that he minds. The beasts’ presence (awe, comfort- a curious mix) would be for him alone.
