The Zen warrior went hunting

*

When the Zen warrior went hunting he traveled alone. Broke the basic rule of safety that was: have someone else know. Or accompany. Let them be told. But instead alone. Carried his equipment without help. Traveled far. Took very little food. He hunted his own lack of appetite among the animals. He would bring a prize home if he could manage to eat the small amount that he only wanted to. Not more. He hunted this strange thing.

He set his stand in the woods. Bare and skeletal as was everything. The snow upon the oak. The oak the oak another oak. Snow on each. Snow above them the warrior below. In the air a chill no words for, there weren't words. Below a given temperature all words froze. Only what was in the pocket, only those words could be said at all.

Raccoon tracks, a deer trail. Down that trail they were bound to come. That was tradition. And crows overhead, then no crows, at least no sound of them. An hour then an hour then another hour. Each one colder than the other somehow. So in essence they were like what? The feel of them went deeper then deeper into -- but there the pocket lacked a word. Didn't have it handy.

The hunter looked around. The looking did not make a sound. He raised his weapon. Nonexistent! Air between his hands. Air held steady by his fingers. That was all. He aimed, carefully aimed. A shot in this air, the shot made of air -- that was the entirety of the shot. No animal either fell from this shot or evaded this shot. There was no shot. Here we are -- free at last -- in a world so quiet that there is simply no animal that shoots, or has ever shot, any other animal, not today, not ever. Neither simply nor entirely nor in any other way. Here it doesn't happen. And so the hunter sort of chewed on this fact. And his pockets were empty.

*