There are no clean ways to kill a carcass while nude, ankle-deep in mud, surrounded by flies, with no tools. I will not try to dress up the occasion.
I’ve dragged the carcass up the hill to a flatter plain with thicker mud. I lay down fronds of the nearby barrel-shaped plants, along with some ferns, to make a solid basis for the cleaning of the dead animal. Something in my brain is moving, shaping process as I do this. The predisposition towards haste is pacified by process. I am learning a way to use my environment. The activation is autonomic. I simply do. Perhaps it is the hunger. Maybe the silence. In either case, I place the fronds as a shallow bed, upon which I drag the dead animal.
It lay on its back, its wounds brought out of the mud. There’s a reasonably sharp piece of shale nearby. I wish I’d had this when I was tearing away at its neck. With the assistance of this edge, I cut the animal’s belly open. It’s softer than a crocodile, but still tough. Splinters of the stone break off into the wound. It takes time, but eventually I have the beast properly gutted.
I can’t quite move. The dead animal laid bare before me is somehow…I can’t put it into words. It’s pathetic, and yet it’s beautiful. It’s all just parts. The life has fled. The beauty of the organism is defeated. There’s just potential for tasks.
The meat comes first. I take up a piece from the abdomen, tear it free and cram it in my mouth. The raw meet is warm, sweet on my tongue. The taste of a fresh kill is intoxicating. I eat more, and then more. I will never preserve this meat, so I need to have my fill here.
When I am sated, I sit on a nearby stone and stare at the carcass. The pathetic creature’s skin is filthy, torn, a ravaged remainder of a once-living thing. Its an inventory of items now: teeth, bones, skin, entrails. Just parts.
I start by taking up the entrails. I know very little of anatomy, but the entrails I remember are usually pretty tough and elastic. I pull them out of the beast, cut them free of the belly of the anus, and place them in a nearby pool of water. The brackish water turns brown with the voided feces of the animal. Within a few minutes, I’m satisfied that I have a plan for what to do next. I take the long strip of entrails and begin wrapping them tightly around a conifer branch. The branch is thick enough to support the tensions of this act. It seems like a good idea. I wonder where it came from. I don’t remember being this observant or capable before this…whatever it is. Then again, I don’t remember anything. Maybe this was second nature to me. Maybe it’s some divine inspiration. I cannot say. I can only address the spindle of guts in my hand, a tense, drying piece of tissue that may one day be of use.
The teeth come next. I break the animal’s jaw and tear the teeth out one at a time. Each is about the size of the last joint of my little finger. Each one is sharp, but not razor-sharp. It may be useful in the future, and I know that this shape will be hard to reproduce. We’ll see.
Carrying the teeth will require some sort of bag. My only option for this will be the animal’s hide itself. I use one of the teeth to carve out a section of the animal’s own hide, just enough to create something that can be wrapped up into a bundle and tied with another strip of flesh. Into this, I place the teeth.
Finally, there are the bones. This is problematic because I cannot carry any of them. I can only bundle them. This restricts me to the animal’s stumpy long bones, none of which are very strong, and its spinal column. I take the latter, discarding the ravaged skull. I attach the longbones to it with strips of hide. To it I tie my little bindle of teeth, my spindle of guts, and collectively define a parcel that I can carry over my shoulder. It all ties neatly to a branch weighing very little.
I am fed, and I have found tools. It seems second nature to do this. What next?