Man V. Nature: Stories (20 page)

You'll fail.

I won't fail, because in the end I always have myself to give. If I can't provide, I'll be the meal.

We are thumping along the river, which now runs swift, the ice sheets breached over rocks. The rising sun turns the black world blue. I don't hear his breath so harsh behind me anymore, but I feel a new chill, like his hands are right at my neck.

And that's when I hear shouting, laughter, commotion far off. I am stunned, forget everything and stop. Alfred whizzes right by me through the thicket and disappears into the trees.

I hear his unmistakable voice, familiar and clear, like a brother among the stranger tones, the high and light calls of boys newly spit from the Chute: This way! A camp! I've found a camp!

The ruckus quickens and moves, whipped to action. I circle back and slip quietly into the clearing just as the boys tumble in and their eyes adjust; they are truly seeing one another for the first time.

I clear my throat, feign wonder: Do you think we're the first boys to escape the Chute?

We can't be, a small boy insists.

We must be, Alfred says. Otherwise there would be a whole community here of boys like us. But older.

This is when the boys understand that they're here for good. They get quiet, excited, scared.

Above their heads the sun crests the dark trees, and Alfred smiles at me through the flickery orange light.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks and gratitude:

For early and late reads, edits, inspiring actions, advice, excitement, or just in general: Karolina Walawiak, Jonathan Goldstein, Alissa Shipp, Lisa Pollak, Starlee Kine, Ira Glass, Julie Snyder, Jane Marie, Sarah Jetzon, Anjali Goswami, Jamie York, Rebecca Wright, Aric Knuth, Laura Wetherington, Hannah Ensor, the Just Family, Don Cook, Ramon Isao, Megan Lynch, Emily Miller, Cheryl Tan, Daniel Pipski, Heidi Julavits. Special thanks to Sam Lipsyte, Rebecca Curtis, Ben Marcus, and the excellent members of their workshops at Columbia, who saw early drafts of a few of these stories and were always encouraging, excitable, sharp. Biggest thanks to my Writing Group for all the reasons above and more: Jessamine Chan, Yael Korman, Hilary Leichter, Heather Monley, Mary South, and Lee Ellis (emeritus): Writing Group!

For time, space, support, community: Yaddo, the Albee Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center. Special gratitude to the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, where I plumbed the big ideas and inspirations that shaped this book.

For journal encouragment, inclusion, and making-it-better edits: Meakin Armstrong, Cathy Chung, Case Kerns, Annie Liontas, Christopher Cox, Michael Ray, Rob Spillman, Meg Storey, Sigrid Rausing. Thanks to the University of Louisville Creative Writing program and Rick Simmons for championing the Calvino Prize.

To the New England Literature Program staff and students for helping me build foundations under these air castles.

To my agent, Seth Fishman, for guidance, enthusiasm, wisdom, and calm. To my editor, Terry Karten, for soulful reads and patience. And to the entire hardworking Harper team.

To my dad for being encouraging, skeptical, and awestruck at the right times.

And, to Jorge Just, my first reader, teammate, and best friend. Till the end of the world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DIANE COOK'S
fiction has been published in
Harper's Magazine
,
Tin House, Zoetrope: All Story
,
Guernica,
and elsewhere
.
Her nonfiction has appeared in the
New York Times Magazine
and on
This American Life,
where she worked as a radio producer for six years. She earned an MFA from Columbia University, where she was a teaching fellow. She lives in Oakland, CA.

 

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CREDITS

Cover design by Richard Ljoenes

Cover artwork: illustration courtesy of The Advertising Archives (man); © archideaphoto/istockphoto (column); © Andrew Frederick (water)

COPYRIGHT

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

MAN V. NATURE.
Copyright © 2014 by Itzy. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Versions of the following stories have been previously published:

“Moving On” in
Tin House

“The Way the End of Days Should Be” (as “Bounty”) in
Harper's Magazine

“Somebody's Baby” in
Salt Hill Journal

“Marrying Up” in
Guernica

“Flotsam” in
Redivider

“The Mast Year” in
Granta

“The Not-Needed Forest” in
Zoetrope: All-Story

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN: 978-0-06-233310-0

EPUB Edition OCTOBER 2014 ISBN 9780062333124

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