Historical Fiction Excerpt

"Jules!" I hear him call after me. "Jules, don't scamper away like this again."
He places his hand on my shoulder. I can hear him breathing heavily. In and out, catching his breath. His breath was always unique. I could tell his breath from anyone in the room. It was raspy, because he smoked like a bark fire, but it was also deep and wet, and comforting.
I slowly lowered my rifle.
"It's gone, daddy." I cry. I think I've disappointed him. I know I have. But he doesn't skip a beat. He laughs, and I can feel his body shaking with gusto.
He crouches down on one knee, and I worry that the crackling of his joints will scare away all the birds.
"Jules, you do not have to run. You're not going to catch the sika like that. It's too fast." he pokes my stomach and I cant help but giggle. "And you are too small. I don't want you getting hurt."
I exhale slowly, and look up into his bushy scraggly beard. It has sticks and some leaves stuck in it, from chasing after me through the marshy river shore.
"I couldn't see it."
I glance back towards the now empty copse of catkin trees. There once stood a proud sika buck, and I was so excited. When I took aim with my rifle, my hands were shaking, and it took me a moment to realise that the deer was looking back at me. I was so scared. I let out a whimper. That was all it took, and the deer darted through the thick leaves, jumping over vines and roots.
"You really wanted to make me proud, didn't you Jules?"
I nod.
He chuckles. More softly this time.
"The world is always like this, Jul. Sometimes it's hard to see where you're going. Sometimes it's hard to see what lies ahead."
It's confusing. I look up at him, my cheeks wet with the moisture of the dense air.
He extends a long tree-like arm southward, down the flooded riverbed.
"That deer got away because he knows the jungle. He knows where everything is, and he knows where to run. He understands it because that's where he lives."
"But we live here too..." I ask.
"Yes my little emerald." he says, standing up. "But we are not deer."
I can feel his thick fingers ruffle my damp hair.
"I'll ask Basque to help you with your shooting tommorow. Would you like that?"
I didn't respond. I wasn't thinking much about shooting.

I stayed up all that night thinking about what my father had said.
I wasn't sure if I wanted to kill anything after that. Not even the tiny spittlebugs that sometimes invaded my window whenever I gazed out at the moon for too long. After all, the sika are just trying to live here too. I knew my family had lived here for a long time, but I doubted we were here before the sika. This is their jungle. I knew from then on out that I would need to learn to live in this place like they did, so it could be my jungle too.