Etna

1. The Field

Chapter: "1. The Field"

Soojin, the doctor they call the Field, drives the truck inland while she talks. The Americans hired her because they heard she is good with dogs, but they don't know the half of it. She can speak to dogs, though not every dog, and she can't explain why. She wonders if she is scaring Etna or delighting him. He can tell she is testing him, but he can't tell what the test is. A bird crosses the sky, and his mind drifts to his mother and siblings, to the couple on the farm, until he forces himself back to the present.

Soojin says the dog behind him was nauseous from days on the road but will be fine. She named her Fuji. "Her war name," she says. "You're all getting war names. You're now war dogs, my darling. You're getting a new home and you'll make new friends and you're going to work hard and save a lot of lives. But we don't have much time."

Etna doesn't want a new home. He wants to go back to the farm. Soojin names him Etna, after a volcano on the island of Sicily. She has been reading a travel book about Sicily from the library, and she realizes she is going to be very late returning it. She talks about hermits in Sicily, saying that in the next life she would like to be a hermit, or maybe a hermit with some dogs. Cars appear in the other lane, heading toward the sea. Etna looks back and meets Fuji's eyes for the first time. Soojin tells them they're being talked about, that they will live in her very own hermit kingdom. She makes them promise: survive, both of you; look out for each other; and when this is over, come find me, and we'll go to Sicily together.

The gas station

They drive for hours until Soojin drops them off at a gas station parking lot crowded with trucks and uniformed people. Etna and Fuji squirm and whimper as Soojin lifts them out, telling them it is going to be difficult but that they have each other now. She crouches and buries her face in their scruffs. Then she reminds them of their promise, hands them over to a group of uniformed men, and leaves.

During the war years that follow, Etna crosses paths with Soojin only one more time. He lies on a cold metal table in a field hospital as a doctor pulls a threaded needle through his skin. When he opens his eyes briefly, Soojin is there, stroking his ear before he passes out. Every now and then he spots a uniformed woman with long braided hair ducking into a tent, and relief floods through him, but Fuji nips his shoulder and tells him to remember his training.

It's strange to think: Fuji will end up larger and stronger than him, the one who leads the dogs, who charges into places first, who fights fiercest. But on that first day together, Fuji is much more frightened than he is. "Are we a pack now?" she nervously asks as Soojin departs and the men slip them into crates beside each other. Etna presses his snout against his own crate until he can almost feel her damp nose against his. "Are we a pack now?"

Training at the American base

They travel for nights and nights, eventually reaching an American base where they stay for five months, training and learning commands in English, German, and French. Every day is the opposite of the farm: new noises, new voices, concrete and dirt, the smell of fuel and gunpowder. But there are also the dogs. Fuji is beside him, working alongside him, napping near him. They talk to keep their minds busy, or lie silently thinking of their homes until they look across at each other.

Each dog is assigned a handler. Etna's handler is Jason, with thick palms and short dark hair. Etna is drawn to him immediately, finding comfort in his steady hands. Jason forms a perimeter around the two of them, and Etna grows comfortable moving inside it. Fuji feels the same about her handler, Brian, a giant with giant laughter.

Etna learns to move when Jason tells him to move, to keep still when told to keep still. He learns to seek out specific smells, to clear buildings, to rush someone from behind, leap, lock his jaw on their arm, and pull them down. He learns what to listen for and what to smell: nicotine and sweat, urine and gunpowder, the hum of an electrical current in a battery or SIM card. He learns to attack a particular artery in the thigh, to go for the genitals or the throat, to jump onto the backs of pickup trucks and through open car windows. He grows used to people touching his legs and paws until it means nothing. He grows used to explosions and gunfire and shouting.

He sees other dogs die: landing in the wrong way, or simply stopping mid-swim across the manmade pond, too exhausted. His own shadow becomes taller and thicker and faster. He expects to dream of home, but all he dreams about are fields. He keeps staring, waiting, until Fuji places her paw on his paw and breaks him away from the dreams.

Days move like water. Someone says maybe the war will be over by the time training finishes, but the war doesn't end; it gets worse and spreads. When training is over, they divide all the dogs up by what they are best at. Fuji and Etna stick together because they are better at the same thing, and so they join a group of sappers and engineers. Their unit numbers two other dogs and twelve men. They sniff out land mines, hidden improvised devices, and ordnance that never detonated. They clear houses, towns, and roads, or find ways to make new passable roads for troops and supplies.

They work and fight all over the country, living almost every day with explosions and gunfire and houses falling and fire everywhere. Jason and Brian and the other men kill other men, and Etna kills, Fuji kills, the other dogs kill. They lose men and dogs, meet other units, keep working and traveling and killing. They sleep when and where they can. On safe, silent nights they watch the men build new fires over earth already burned by fire, and they sleep beside those fires, wake, and start again.

Losses

Four years pass. Etna gets injured six times, most often only the graze of shrapnel or a bullet. Fuji gets injured five times. As time goes on, the more hurt she is, the more she wants to hurt, and the blue in her eyes grows less blue. Stripes of scars like old worms grow across Etna's forehead and along his sides. He stops staring at his shadow.

In the third year, while they are on furlough in the mountains, Fuji runs off one morning. No warning, no explanation. He never sees Fuji again.

Early in the following year, the last year of the war, Brian makes a mistake as he attempts to defuse a set of anti-tank mines. Etna is nearby with Jason. In the same moment Etna hears a metallic click in the ground, Brian turns, and his frightened eyes meet Jason's as he shouts. Without hesitation Jason grabs Etna's scruff, lifts him into his arms like he is still a puppy, and begins to run. Jason counts out four seconds as he runs, and throws Etna as far as he can, extending his arms as a shield as his body blows apart.

In the end Etna loses all three of them: Fuji, Jason, and giant Brian. They had been beside him almost every moment from the first days, never far until they were gone. There is never a choice after but to follow orders and keep moving. By the time the fighting stops across this country, Etna is the only dog left from the original unit.

The American base after the war

It's late summer when the last two surviving men of the unit and Etna return to the American base where Etna trained. Everyone celebrates the end of the war. Etna lies on the floor between the two surviving men. They lie on their cots side by side, wondering what to do with him now that it's over. They don't even know where he came from, and no paperwork can be found. The man on the left says he wants nothing to do with this place at all, and that includes Etna. The other man thinks about bringing Etna home to California, but Etna can hear in his voice that he doesn't mean it. Etna isn't his dog.

Silence stretches between them. Then the first man says none of them are right in the head after what they've seen and done, and the best thing would be to put Etna out of his misery. "What's left here to go back to anyway? How will he survive? It's a total wasteland. Completely ruined." He says they made quite a mess of things here: "Godzilla versus Kong." The other asks who was Godzilla and who was Kong. They chuckle, grow quiet, and keep drinking.

Etna gets up to stretch. He doesn't think too much about what he does next. He remembers arriving at this base as a one-year-old; now he is five. The two men are only twenty-seven and twenty-nine, and he doesn't blame them. Everyone wants to go

2. The City

Chapter: "2. The City"

Summary:

The dog follows the railroad tracks through a landscape of overturned cars and broken windows. He dislikes the open space and lack of shade, but it lets him see danger coming. There is only silence around him. When he grows tired, he drinks rainwater and sleeps inside the curve of a cow’s ribs. When dark comes, he pushes on through the moonlight.

At a large abandoned train station, he hides under a bench when a truck stops nearby. Men step out, talking in English. One says he wants to get the fuck out of this country because everything smells horrible. “Because you’re in it, bro,” another answers. The dog repeats the line to remember it. A strange dog enters with the men. He sniffs the air, stares at the dog under the bench, gives a slight nod, and follows the men. They find no money and leave. The dog stays another night, eats a mouse and a baby rabbit, then returns to the tracks.

He cannot tell which direction the men went. If they are moving away from the city, they might find the old dog. He thinks about going back. But the vastness of the land presses down on him. He knows he must get to the city, then the coast, then home. Ahead he sees a strange shape. As he gets closer, he realizes it is a fighter jet, crashed into the earth. He climbs it and peers into the cockpit. He notices the remains of the pilot. Someone has tried to pull off the pilot’s jumpsuit. The way the pilot leans forward reminds the dog of Jason seated at a piano bench years ago. He licks the exposed arm, tastes bone and weather. Then he becomes embarrassed and retreats.

The cargo train

By another morning, the tracks skirt a river. The dog is about to cross toward it when a cargo train approaches. He gets low to wait. Instead, a car door slides open, and hands reach down and scoop him into the car.

He flails in darkness, snaps his teeth, growls. A voice says over and over, “Hey, hey, good guys, good guys,” and then lets him go. The dog hurries to a corner. As his eyes adjust, he counts almost a dozen people. No threat comes. Someone says, “I was trying to save him.” Another asks, “What do we need a dog for?” Someone answers, “All God’s creatures,” and everyone echoes amen. The dog says, “What do you know about creatures,” but no one hears. They talk about how bad he looks, how he could be fattened up. He tests them: “Excuse me, are we near the coast?” There is no response. They pray for the children they are about to visit, then sing.

The dog rests. The singing sounds familiar, but he struggles to remember human songs. He remembers his mother telling him that land animals do not sing. None of that matters more than the fact that the train is carrying him forward. Ruined houses slide by. He sifts through the smells to see if he has ever been here before, but it is no place he knows.

Someone places water in front of him, then a ball of rice. He devours it and licks the palm. A hand runs over his head and tells him he is a good boy. He thinks it would not be so bad to stay with these people for a while. Then someone says that after visiting the city they will head inland, and he understands they are going the opposite direction of the coast. He cannot follow them. As they sing, he leaps off.

The ruined city and the river

There is not much left of the city. The dog spends the whole day roaming among collapsed buildings. He finds the river again. Both banks are crowded with shanties. The bridge that once crossed the river is gone.

Men linger on the riverbank by a boat. One man offers food to another as payment to cross. The men ignore him. He drinks from the river. Then he smells them: three dogs arriving. “This is our side,” the leader says. The dog bows, says he is only passing through. The leader disagrees. The dog knows what is coming. He does not want to fight dogs.

The left dog lunges first, but the dog is faster and nips him hard. Then he charges the leader, grabs him by the throat, and tackles him onto the slope. The third dog bites into his shoulder. The dog bites the leader harder, making it a test of who will let go first. He will not let go first. Blood fills his mouth. Just as he is about to pass out, a crack splits the air, followed by a loud yelp. He lets go. The three dogs scatter.

The dog stands panting. A man kneels nearby, holding a thick stick. He drops it and comes closer, taps around the wound, and says it looks worse than it is. The man has gray streaks in his hair and wrinkles around his eyes, but broad shoulders and confidence. He speaks with an accent the dog cannot place. The man wipes the wound with river water, cups water in his hands, and lets the dog drink. “I haven’t seen you before,” he says. “You’re new. My name is Hong. Hong.”

Hong cuts a towel, wraps it tightly around the dog’s shoulder, and says he has to get back to work but will be at the clinic later. The dog asks, “Where’s the clinic?” but Hong cannot hear him. Hong strokes his head, calls him a good boy, and crosses back on the raft.

Semeru

The dog stands alone by the river, sore but not badly hurt. A voice asks, “Where did you learn to fight like that?” A younger, smaller dog peers out from behind a stone foundation. His name is Semeru, given to him last year by a woman who said the war was over but she would still give him a name.

Semeru is quick and full of energy. He calls the three dogs stupid. He asks again if the dog will teach him to fight. A cat appears, laughs, and says, “You got your ass kicked.” Semeru shouts, “Fuck you, cat!” and the cat bounds off.

The dog asks for a safe place to sleep. Semeru knows one: the clinic. Hong works there. There is a shed in the back with shade and grass. Semeru tells him that Hong was a doctor during the war. Hong helps at the clinic, goes into the mountains to help communities, and walks around the city recording the population, learning people’s names, whether they are sick, what medicine they need. He sends that information somewhere else, and it becomes a way for missing people to find one another. Semeru says he wishes they could do that for dogs. The dog supplies the word: a census. When the dog asks whom Semeru would find with such a census, Semeru shuts his eyes briefly and says, “Too many.”

Semeru says the city is his city. He was there through it all. He describes the destruction: the terrible noise, the bombs, the collapse, and then more bombs. The dog asks if he means the bomb noise. Semeru says no, and falls silent. He asks where the dog came from. Then the dog asks if Semeru has ever met a dog named Fuji, a dog with blue eyes, a pale stripe on her chest, and a mole on her tongue. Semeru thinks for a moment and answers no.

A strange thought flickers in Semeru’s eyes. He asks, “Do you dream of the well?” The dog startles. Semeru describes the dream: the well in the forest. He has never actually seen a well in person. He only knows what one is because of the dream. The dog has to wonder whether the thing in the dream is even a well at all. Semeru remains certain. “I just know it is,” he says. The dog supplies the word: faith.

Semeru asks the narrator what he believes in. The narrator gives a straightforward answer: the coast. He believes in getting to the coast. Semeru has never seen the coast. The narrator explains that home is what he is trying to reach.

Semeru offers a lead. The woman who named him might know. She comes from the mountains, down to the city from time to time. When the narrator asks if Semeru has ever been to the mountains, Semeru points his nose toward the distant peaks and starts to whine. Never. The people there carry rifles, he says. It’s chaos up there. Hong came back once with his arm wrapped up. Still, many people live in the mountains, and the woman is the best of them.

Semeru leans in and shares a secret: the woman can speak to him. She hears him when he talks, sometimes even hears his thoughts, and she answers. Semeru is too delighted to notice the narrator’s reaction. When the narrator asks when the woman will return, Semeru says he never knows, but when the supply truck arrives, they’ll know if they stay near the clinic.

Then a noise splits the air. A small black dot floats overhead. Drones make the narrator think of the dead boxes in that train car, of Jason trying to fly one and crashing it into a tree. Are soldiers nearby? Semeru sticks out his tongue. No. The drones are flown by children, Semer

3. The Mountains

Chapter: "3. The Mountains"

Etna sleeps in the small, dark space beneath Jason’s cot when there is a cot at all. Jason’s hand hangs down as he dreams, smelling of gunpowder and metal and chewing gum. Sometimes Jason tucks the gum under his helmet rim, and when it falls, Etna picks it up and gives it back to him while he sleeps.

Jason was not born in this country, though his parents were. He credits his steady hands to the piano. Etna finally understands what a piano is one day in an abandoned house in a nearly abandoned town. Jason never plays it. He only sits in front of it, bent over and staring. This happens not long before the unit gets furlough, and not long before Fuji disappears.

On the day Etna, Jason, and Fuji reach that town, they stumble upon two enemy soldiers. One fires from a second-floor window, and Fuji, recovering from a bullet graze, goes down. Jason gives the command, and Etna charges through a shattered window, climbs the steps, drags the soldier down, and goes for his throat. The attack gives the unit enough distraction for another man to fire above Etna. Fuji recovers quickly. An old man with no shoes leads them to a house.

In this rare house, the men spread into separate rooms. Under the piano bench, Etna and Fuji find another den. Across the floor lies a dog that has been dead a long time, long golden fur, her eyes entirely gone. Fuji walks to the dead dog, inhales her, and comes back without a sound, then lies staring in a pose that reminds Etna of the first time she saw Fuji, young and frightened, in the back of Soojin’s truck.

Jason steps over the dead dog to reach the piano. He gazes out the window and says clearly: “This was the town where my mother was born.” The town has been destroyed twice. “Look at where it got them.”

While Jason talks, Etna watches the carcass and thinks the head trembles. Fuji has noticed too. Then a butterfly climbs out of the dead dog’s empty eye socket, colored the way Fuji’s eyes once were, covered with black dots. Etna calls to it. When it does not answer, Etna growls quietly, enough to make Jason turn around. “Holy shit,” Jason says, and takes out his phone. He does not take a photo. He only stares. The old man comes inside with wood, and the butterfly climbs back down into the dead dog.

Now, heading up into the mountains, Etna wonders whether a time will come when the memory of that day is lost. Etna keeps returning to so many things: the farm, Fuji, the birds, a valley floor. A doctor once said Etna was halfway through life, and Etna carries that as well.

The mountain road

The road grows rough and narrow. Semeru, the young dog riding with Etna in the back of a pickup truck, tries to hide his fear of both the mountains and the ride. Etna rests a head and a paw on his back to steady him. “What are you thinking about?” Semeru asks. “A piano,” Etna says. Semeru asks if Etna is angry at him for coming along. “Yes,” Etna says. “It’s a strange way of showing that you’re mad,” Semeru points out, since Etna is still lying on top of him.

They travel all morning and afternoon. The road goes from paved to dirt to almost no road at all as they enter the thickest forest Etna has seen since the first months of the war. They pass a cluster of fallen trees forming a giant X, and in the crux hangs another fighter jet. In the cab, Hong and the driver hardly speak. Occasionally Hong turns to check on them through the back window, tapping a knuckle against the glass and giving a thumbs-up.

That is what Hong is doing when the truck rounds a bend and brakes suddenly. A pile of stout logs blocks the way. The first shot passes between the driver and Hong and then back out between Etna and Semeru. A second bullet shatters a side window. The driver screams, drops the rifle, and bolts toward the village they passed. Hong grabs the rifle and fires out the open door.

Etna tells Semeru to stay low, waits for one more shot, then jumps down and rushes toward the closest shooter. The man is short and stout like the logs. He sees Etna and lowers his weapon slightly in surprise. Etna lunges at his face, locks her jaw around his cheekbones and nose, and bites down as hard as possible as he falls. She hears his bones break, tastes him, and feels his face fold flat. Then she goes for his throat and rips it open. His body trembles as she turns and runs back.

Outside the truck, Hong is aiming into the trees. The back window is shattered. Etna calls to Semeru, jumps up, and finds him crouched in the corner, smelling him all over for wounds. He is all right. Hong is unhurt too. “Fucking coward,” Hong says, cursing the driver. He stares at Etna, at the blood on her mouth, hesitates, and then says, “Thank you,” running a hand over her head.

Etna notices that a bag of medicine is missing. Hong takes the other bag, slips it over his shoulder, and says, “Come on.” Semeru shakes his body and jumps down. “I didn’t do anything,” Semeru says. “When the man came and got the bag.” “Good,” Etna says. “Hide and stay low.” “He didn’t even notice me,” Semeru says. “It was like I wasn’t even there.” “Good,” Etna says again.

Hong stands trying to decide which way to go. Etna knows they should not go to the village, but Hong cannot hear. He takes a step toward the village, then turns around and changes his mind. They enter the forest, leaving the road. Only once they are walking does Etna notice a lost tooth, something that has never happened before. It does not hurt, but she presses her tongue against the empty space, and a little blood leaks out as they hurry.

The woman at the well

The afternoon warms and cools as they walk. Hong makes them stop at every noise. No one is following them yet. Hong’s phone has no service, but he keeps using its map, muttering to himself. Semeru pants but seems all right. Etna tells him to keep his ears up, and he does. Semeru apologizes again, and Etna tells him to shut up, that he did great.

Ahead, beyond the trees, a small cabin appears. The roof has crumbled. Hong approaches from one side, and Etna and Semeru flank the other. Near a tree line stands a stone well. Semeru rushes to it, sniffs eagerly, stands on his hind legs, and peers down, tail wagging. Etna joins him and inhales deeply: far water, earth water, ancient water. Her head begins to hurt, her eyes blur, and it feels like being held and wrapped in cobwebs. She growls quietly, drops off the well, and spins around.

A woman is walking toward Etna, Hong following behind. She carries a medicine bag and her own rifle. Semeru barks once and runs to her. The woman kneels and greets Semeru, then looks at Etna and says, “Etna, you’ve gotten old.” “So have you,” Etna says. It is Soojin, the woman who once took Etna from the farm. Etna stands and places her front paws on Soojin’s shoulders, leaning on her. Soojin runs her hands over Etna’s paws and legs. In Etna’s memory Soojin is still young, but now the years show in her thin frame. Her long hair is in the same braid, and around her wrist is the same drone device that children were using in the city.

“So it’s really you,” Etna says. “You’re known. In the city.” Soojin confirms it. Etna asks if that is the bag from the truck. Soojin pats it: she got it back. She saw the man running through the forest and fired, maybe clipping him. Etna says the man was the driver, who fled. “Sometimes people do,” Soojin says.

Hong asks if Soojin is talking to Etna. Soojin nods. Soojin pulls up Etna’s lip and examines the place where the tooth is missing. “You’ll be all right,” she says. Etna asks if she has seen Fuji. No, Soojin says, not since the day she dropped Etna and Fuji off. “What happened to her?” she asks. “I don’t know,” Etna says.

Soojin grows quiet, then says she heard Etna did a very bad thing. “I’ve done a few,” Etna says. Soojin pulls on Etna’s scruff. “They’ll be after us,” she says. “For the medicine. For what you did. For me. Now they’re on the hunt.” She explains: the people do not

4. The Sea

Etna wakes near the sea, though she cannot yet open her eyes. She knows water is close, smells the deepness of it, but it is different than she remembers, almost like first snow, like the moment the sky turns to night. The sun lies across her snout and ears and the tips of her paws. She is weak, shaky, dizzy, thirsty, hurting everywhere. When she tries to stand, she stumbles against a bowl of water, drinks a little, and is sick. She takes a few steps out from under the tree where she was lying, heading toward what she thinks is a horizon, but it is a cliff's edge. Even those steps are too much, so she collapses and crawls on her belly until she can see a very long coastline below, a beach, endless blue water, and the tide. That noise is the tide. It sounds heavy and patient, like a hand running through her coat. To the left lies an unseen point; to the right, more coast and, inland, a mix of forest and broken, burned land no one has touched again. Stretched out near the edge, she keeps scanning for something she will recognize.

A voice asks, "How do you feel?" Etna lifts her ears and turns her head, but she cannot tell where it comes from. She sees a small cottage near the tree, an open window with no one behind it, a wheelbarrow, a tree stump with an axe, a watering can, and a small turtle's shell standing upright with pink flowers growing out of it. Wind pushes clothes on a line. The voice tells her not to worry. Achilles will be back. He went down to catch some fish and has gotten good at it. He made the rods himself and wades right in.

Etna looks up into the tree and sees an enormous bird perched on a branch, staring at her with wings tucked in. The bird is unlike any Etna has seen before, with a thick, sharp beak and feathers of impossible colors, and eyes Etna has also never seen, eyes like they are breathing, like they carry worlds. Etna is shy of those eyes and fixes her gaze on the bird's brightly feathered chest. She asks if Achilles is the Greek, remembering a window at night with Semeru beside her. The bird confirms he is Greek, and says he is the one who found her. She says she might have spotted Etna from high up but would have been too high to notice if she were alive. The more the bird speaks, the more her voice levels with the tide, sounding both close and distant, all around.

The bird explains that Achilles goes scavenging. He returns with an axe, clothing, shoelaces, a book, phones, though he has no use for phones and burns them. No phones in the new world, Achilles says, and no drones. Etna asks what kind of bird she is. The best kind, the bird says. An ancient kind. The forever kind. Then she asks what kind of dog Etna is. Etna tries to remember how people described her and has no idea. The bird grunts but does not press. She tells Etna that Achilles is harmless, that people have left him alone. Etna asks if there are many people on the coast. There are scattered communities forming, the bird says, everyone trying to start over, though people still fight over the usual things, though not as much as in the mountains.

The bird suggests Etna could stay with Achilles for a while. It is small but comfortable, and Achilles knows how to do things, is clever enough to fish and scavenge. It would be good for him too, to have a dog. Etna asks if the bird stays with him, and the bird says loudly that no one owns her. Etna asks her age. So old I've become young again, the bird says. It's all a circle. Like the tide. Etna does not understand and thinks the bird lives in her own world. The bird corrects her. She is in this world. Etna looks at her eyes again and grows shy. The bird is the first bird Etna has seen since she was a pup. She has memories of living with birds before the war, seabirds, she thinks. What happened to the birds? the bird asks. What happened to the dogs? Etna does not know how to answer. The bird leans backward and vanishes into the leaves, then only her head emerges, her eyes carrying a swirl of sunlight, water, wind. Etna tells herself she is imagining all this. Maybe I'm the one imagining you, the bird says. I wouldn't mind, Etna says. Don't be so hard on yourself, the bird says. You're here. You're breathing. You arrived and you survived.

A cloud shadow skirts the cliff's edge. Etna scans the coast again for anything familiar and asks if there is a farm nearby. There were many farms here, the bird says. Etna says she was born on a farm, thinks it was around here, that she has to be close. She describes what she remembers: birds, goats, a fat pig, a hornet's nest high above her, like that turtle's shell but hanging. The bird considers this and says that beyond the point, a few hours' walk, there was an animal sanctuary that rescued birds, turtles, goats, all animals. But the soldiers came. Maybe that is where Etna was born. Etna asks if a young man and a young woman lived there, people with soft voices. The bird says Etna has a soft voice and asks if she knew that. Etna had never considered it. She shuts her eyes and sees her mother stepping over her like a giant, the triangle of her ears like sails. She asks if those humans were kind. The bird says they stayed until the end, they did not abandon the animals. Good, says Etna. That's good.

Achilles appears from out of the forest below. He carries his fishing rods, has a beard, is shirtless, tan, with a wide chest, pants rolled to his shins, long hair wrapped in a bun. When did he get here? Etna asks. Near the end, the bird says. He came out of the forest, found this abandoned house, moved in, and never went back.

The bird asks Etna her name. Etna hesitates and tries to remember what the farm owners used to call her. A shape forms on her tongue but vanishes. Then she says, Etna. My name is Etna. The bird repeats it, noting the volcano in Sicily. Etna asks if the bird has ever seen a volcano erupt. The bird says she has. What does my name mean in Greek? Etna asks. The bird tells her: To burn. The bird tries to make her smile by telling her to close her eyes and open them, and now she is in Sicily or Greece, and she could not tell the difference. Etna does not smile.

Etna asks the bird to check on the farm, but first to go to the waterfall where there is a dog named Semeru on the banks and a man named Hong somewhere near the bottom. The bird understands. They were Etna's pack. They came all the way. They came and they died. The bird tells Etna she does not know how to feel about that, or that she is feeling many things, the things humans love to write poems about. These feelings come from not just what happened now, but from the years, these miserable years. We need friends, Etna, the bird says. We need a pack. Even if we lose our pack. Especially because of that. Don't be alone like me. Etna asks if the bird is alone. The bird goes silent, then says she will go find them, she promises, and she will see about the farm.

But she does not leave yet. She shifts on her branch, a leaf falls, and she points her beak at Etna. You've traveled far, she says. She asks how long Etna has been traveling. Etna has lost track. Flashes of landscapes flicker through her mind: nights and nights and nights, moonlight and thin trees, a helmet filled with old rain, the old dog, a skeleton inside an airplane. The bird asks what now, what next. Etna cups the wind in her ears, following Achilles, then moves across the distant point, and admits she is not sure what to do now that she is here. She made it home, she thinks. But nothing familiar has come to her. She feels as though she is still far away, still moving, or as if she has come here for the first time, smelling and seeing everything for the first time. Everything is new and unknown.

Etna asks the bird if she dreams. The bird dreams about being unable to find somewhere to land. She is high in the air and peers down and there is nothing, not even water. She is the last thing left in the entire world. Etna asks how she survived the war. The bird answers, Which war?

Etna licks her paws and tastes the remnants of the waterfall, Soojin's blood. With the tip of her tongue she presses a speck of that blood into the space where she once had a tooth. She breathes, feeling the blood enter her the way snowflakes melt into her. The bird watches and asks to listen to her heart. Slowly, Etna rolls onto her side on the grass. The grass bends and glides over her snout. The bird listens, humming almost a song. She tells Etna she still has a long time.

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