A Radioactive Wolf Scrolling
“A radioactive wolf near Chernobyl
is now looking at your Instagram account.”From Rune Kjær Rasmussen
I
A radioactive wolf near Chernobyl
is now looking at your Instagram account.
Not disinterested but not truly
interested either.
The wolf has not been online for long
so it is a pretty new world.
He found a PC in a pig’s trough.
With a little battery left.
Not far from there is an old plastic bag.
The name of the supermarket chain has faded,
Unreadable.
There used to be something soft in it
that someone won in a tombola.
Now the amusements have turned themselves
green inside out.
A fist spring.
The tourists are shortly being led through
by the tourist guide and the little pamphlet.
They are very focused on staying cool.
There used to be orienteering for kids
in the whole area.
They had batons in their hands.
They ran and they were loud.
Their games were so important,
they forgot time and space.
Now there is something mutated desolate
and a snout here and there.
And the class clown becomes
the melancholic one on the bench.
And he can barely see the difference
between the two.
The guide is the last guide.
Because the area has decided
to close itself again.
There are many people,
who will never see me again,
it says, I say,
and lets me in as the only one.
II
At first, I really thought I was alone in this area.
How arrogant.
An invisible world, to me, is knocking.
Giving hints about fabulous dimensions.
I have collected my provisions.
If I understood the deaf blind basket weaver before now?
When he sat and talked about getting his senses back, once he dies?
I don’t know. Perhaps I understood some of his hope.
He has also reached the area.
He crawled through a hole in the fence.
A fence that no public authority has put up.
Eyes are sprouting in the soil.
They are ready to look back.
All it takes is a little digging.
The superwolf is standing and searching for them
Between withered leaves and pinecones.
With the paw their glances are scraped free.
The eyes of nature spirits.
A sort of extension of Earth herself.
The superwolf gets energy just from finding them.
Their glances are stored in his soul.
His being has to be shaken, disturbed
In this generous, mysterious, way
once a month.
There is something moon muscle about it.
The radioactivity was everywhere around here.
Like the madness of humans, it spread after the accident.
The area was apparently barren.
But the area wanted itself.
It turned out that a few people were still here.
They refused to move.
They adapted.
Slower than ever.
They did usual things in slow motion,
making them appear more peaceful.
To soften yet unknown forces.
Some called these forces gods and goddesses.
Others called them spirits.
A former restlessness was made fallow.
They still got sick of course.
Naturally they still died because of sequelae from the accident.
But they chose to stay instead of becoming tourists.
When the superwolf has to die, he goes somewhere by himself,
then lays down and waits.
While the sun goes down.
Rune Kjær Rasmussen
Rune Kjær Rasmussen is an animist, writer, singer, and occasional painter from Denmark.
