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Show I iiiaiilliii' Ben was dreaming. He was no longer a man, but a wooden doll stretched out on the floor of the workshop belonging to Gepetto, the old man who had made the wooden boy Pinocchio in the story Ben had heard many times as a child. The old man was on his knees, grasping a wood rasp with both hands, filing away at Ben's face. "Nose too long, lips too fat," the old man said as he ran the rasp slowly back and forth across Ben's nose and mouth. The rasp made a rough, scratching sensation that felt good rather than painful to Ben. "Fingers too fat," Gepetto said, suddenly removing the rasp from the face and beginning to work on the fingers. Again the sensation was a pleasant one for Ben. The only unpleasant sensation was Gepetto's breath. It was rank, like a can of fishing worms that had been left in i the sun too long. Ben wanted to turn his head to the side but couldn't. He was made of wood and couldn't move. : After a while Gepetto left the fingers and resumed work on the mouth and nose. The smell of his breath was becoming more unbearable un-bearable with each brush of the rasp. Ben felt like he would suffocate or i perhaps strangle from the stench if '! he didn't move. He focused all his ! energy on turning his head, l straining with all his might. ; He didn't succeed. But as he relaxed his mouth, he noticed a i strange unevenness on the surface ! beneath him. He wasn't on the workshop floor, but on cold lumpy sand. Damp sand. The rasping continued on his mouth and nose, still feeling good. Ben realized he was not in Gepetto's shop. He wasn't a wooden doll, either. That had been a dream. But he could still feel the rasping I sensation, regular and rough, against his nose and mouth. And the rotten worm smell was bad enough to make him want to retch. Ben strained to open his eyes, finally succeeding but seeing nothing but blackness. The rasping i continued. The smell seemed to penetrate to the inside of his stomach. His mind was confusion. Nothing was clear. He tried to focus his thoughts on remembering what he was doing before he lost consciousness con-sciousness and where he might be. Gradually it began to come back to him - his body slamming into wet sand and rocks, the tumble from the narrow trail into black space, the horse sliding down the hill towards him, the sweet honey he had enjoyed en-joyed so much, the bee tree, catching cat-ching the horses in the canyon where Flat Nose George said there were many bears... Suddenly Ben knew what was happening to him. A bear was licking the honey from his face and hands. Earlier the bear had probably had been eating from the rotten carcass of a winter-killed deer. That explained the smell. Ben's mind was clear now, though he felt paralyzed with fear. In spite of the incessant licking by the bear's wet, rough tongue, Ben's mouth felt dry. Slowly, he moved his right hand towards his hip until he could feel the butt of his sheath knife. If he stabbed the bear would it become angry and attack him? If he startled it by screaming and yelling, would he frighten it away, or would it attack? If he held still, pretending to be dead, would it eventually leave when the honey was gone, or would it begin eating him? Slowly Ben inched his fingers around the butt of the knife. Even more slowly, he drew it from the sheath. The bear was licking around his nose now. - Ben didn't want to use the knife if he didn't have to. In the darkness, he wasn't sure exactly where the bear was standing. If he lunged and missed, or only wounded the bear in a non-fatal spot like its front shoulder, it might not give him a second chance to stab again. Ben decided to wait, as hard as that was, to see what the bear would do when the honey was gone. He would gamble that it would leave. If it decided to try some of Ben's flesh, that's when he would strike with the knife. Ben's lips and nose were raw before the animal lifted its head to sniff around. Ben wished he could tell it where the bee tree was, where it could find a lot more honey. (To be continued) |