48 that feeling, but one of us must rise. You, I nudge with an elbow. It’s your turn. Most days, she says no, and I get up and shower. I cover myself with suds and head into the day shod in new skin. I brush off some cells as the day passes: a few at my desk, a few snatched by the wind, another sandwiched in the pages of my book. I come home and greet the Wendigo and climb in between the sheets again. Sometimes she says yes. When I forget to wash my sheets, she crawls out of bed and stretches, blinks at me with hungry, sulky eyes. I can feel it when I forget to wash her out–– another skin on top of mine, like two scaly eyelids sliding down over my own. Would it be so bad if I wore her face each day? To leave the sheets on and rise in the old skin. No need to change my name, no lies. All I have to be is the same me as yesterday, to live the same day over again. Being dead is easier than having to be a new person. A Wendigo doesn’t change, but at least a Wendigo doesn’t lie. When you shake the hand of a Wendigo, you know whose hand it is. She will always be the same. She is safe and covered in grime. Do not worry about getting to know her––she does not need to be known. The Wendigo knows herself and has no qualms about being herself. The Wendigo has no need to change. But the Wendigo lives in dreams. The Wendigo wears old skins that do not fit. They are grimy and ragged at the edges. There is a reason she has been given a new pair. She simply does not want to change; it is too difficult. How do we know we aren’t Wendigos? If we are beings in a constant state of change, how is it revealed? How do we let it be known when we shake hands that we are not dead-men walking, that we are alive, waking, breathing, not living in dead skin and dreams? Summarize yourself: “Hi, I’ve shed three hundred forty-seven (347) skins, and I will shed three thousand two hundred fifty-three (3253) more before the day I’m dust again. I’m a word-eater and word-spitter. I have a cat. My grandfather died in the room below my bedroom. I kissed him with wet lips. I’m trying to like hugs. Last week I tripped on the stairs and laughed. I still hate pink—” Or exercise futility––pierce your ears, bake your skin, paint your face with lines of change.
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