Enemy Mine

Enemy Mine

A Short Story by Charles E.J. Moulton

Pain. Spiritual pain. Physical pain. Uncanny how confusing life had become. The confusion of trying to outrun a rifle. The agony of trying to survive someone wanting you dead. The torment of being seen as inferior. Being chased like a puma across the savannah by a relentless hunter. Someone who had spent years running away from humans who hated him eventually lost trust in his own worth.

The strange thing was the look in the hunter’s eyes. Tired stubbornness — those were the words that came to mind. The hunter almost seemed to ask why the puma would not die. Not because he was a puma, but because this particular puma had spent his whole life running. He had started defining himself as a victim. It had simply become his identity. The puma had stopped looking for friends. Instead, he looked for hunters. In every friend, he searched for a potential enemy. And if enough hunters hate you, you eventually begin to wonder why. And run.

This hunter seemed to carry many weapons at his side: knives, guns, hand grenades, sabres. And all the while, the hunter’s stare gave the puma reasons why he should be hunted down. According to the hunter, hunting this puma was a necessity. In fact, the puma should count himself lucky to be hunted by someone so eloquent. Dying by his gun was an honour, according to the hunter.

But the puma suffered. His old age had become sheer pain. Not physical pain, but emotional pain. The pain of disrespect. He longed for a friend. A true friend. So in the evenings, he would find a lakeside or a mountaintop where he could watch the sunset and see the stars rise. He would talk to God and, because the puma had no real friends, he invented friends to talk to. He called them angels. Sometimes he felt their presence and even sensed their help. He dreamed that they sat beside him while he slept. And when he finally fell asleep, sometime very late at night, he prayed that the bullets of tomorrow’s hunter would miss him.

The great tragedy was that the puma had experienced this all his life. He was growing tired. Very tired.

As he looked back at his pursuer, reloading his gun, he saw all his hunters shining through the eyes of this one man. This hunter was different — blonder and heavier than the others. He did not wear sunglasses, but hid his green eyes behind elegant frameless glasses. In that hunter, the puma saw a portal. A challenge. A catharsis. A gate to heaven. Who knew? Perhaps it was a mission impossible. This one — was he truly a hunter, or was he hunting someone else entirely?

The hunters had changed over the years. That was true. At first, the hunter had been his own father, telling him what prey to hunt and even what to like. Another time, the hunter had been a scrawny little thing with a gun far too large for his size, hiding frightened, exhausted eyes behind oversized sunglasses.

This hunter was angry, yes. He chased him, yes. The puma was frightened, yes. The puma reacted according to his experience — the experience of having spent his entire life running. In fact, even seeing a human was enough to make him fear death. Funny, though, how simply running away attracted hunters. So what had truly created the victim inside him? The fear itself?

That was when the puma stopped running. He had been running all his life. Escaping into the night to woo puma ladies, fathering illegitimate cubs he would never care for, eating intoxicating marula berries and waking with a pounding headache.

Now he turned to face his pursuer. No more running. In his heart, the puma told himself he was ready to discover whether the angels he spoke to were real or not.

His paws trembled despite the heat. His fur shook despite the firmness of his stance. He looked into the hunter’s eyes and saw green eyes staring back at him. Sweat rolled down the hunter’s forehead. Pale skin was streaked with traces of blood-red exhaustion in his cheeks.

What surprised the puma most was that the hunter’s eyes were not angry. There was no rage there. Not even irritation. Nothing aggressive at all. In fact, the hunter trembled just as he did. His finger twitched against the trigger.

That was when the puma realized what he saw in his pursuer’s eyes. It was the familiar feeling that had kept him running all his life.

“Is this the reason for all your wars?” the puma found himself asking.

The hunter lowered his gun and looked into his victim’s eyes. Suddenly, there was a connection between them. Hunter and hunted lowered their guard together.

"If both of us are afraid of each other,” the hunter said softly, “why have I allowed my fear to turn into anger? Why have I convinced myself that you are dangerous? You are not weaker. You are me — only more afraid.”

And for the first time in his life, the puma found a friend to watch the sunset with.

And it was lovely.