Crunching snow beneath heavy boots, I walked alone.<\/p>\n
Hands tucked in my pockets, breath fogging as clear light glinted.<\/p>\n
But as snow began to fall, there was such a weight. Such a weight<\/p>\n
like a man’s, heavy, when pure, clear air was sliced open<\/p>\n
with a stench from a\u00a0something.\u00a0<\/em>And though I couldn’t look,<\/p>\n not until I turned, I could see it, waiting, watching, with manlike intelligence.<\/p>\n Wendigo, a small voice said, but it was already too late.<\/p>\n It sat, long arms propped on thin knees, shaggy head bent,<\/p>\n baleful eyes watching with a glinting red.<\/p>\n “I was starving,” it rasped. A clawed hand flexed, but still its’ head bowed.<\/p>\n “My children cried.”<\/p>\n Was it asking redemption, I wanted to ask. But I remained silent.<\/p>\n My heart pounding, but feet frozen, waiting. Almost daring.<\/p>\n Animal cunning, manlike hatred.<\/p>\n Again it spoke with the voice of a man, in a growl,<\/p>\n so hard my teeth rattled and my legs bowed.<\/p>\n “The hot anger in your heart will leave you cold in the ground.”<\/p>\n Then I woke. But still the memory remains, and<\/p>\n “The bodies of three individuals were found. Witnesses claim to have seen the father wandering through blizzards, but they had been deceased at least three months and partially—“<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Crunching snow beneath heavy boots, I walked alone. Hands tucked in my pockets, breath fogging as clear light glinted. But as snow began to fall, there was such a weight. Such a weight like a man’s, heavy, when pure, clear air was sliced open with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":214,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/214"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118785,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118727\/revisions\/118785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}