To the Bright Edge of the World

by Eowyn Ivey

He would not look away. Everywhere, even in the blackest abyss, he believed one might witness the divine. The shadows and contrast—absence itself—as important as the light and marble, for one cannot exist without the other.

Elemental. That is the word he used again & again. Hunger, sun, cold. Pure unto themselves. No false veil between a man & the world around him, he said. No pretenses. Nothing to hide behind.

There is a poetry to it, he said.—That’s what always draws me back to it. Even with all the ways it fails, I can still find that to admire. The poetry of it. At my best, I imagine it the highest of arts. An expression of what we wish we could be. There is hope in our wanting to be something better, even if we never manage it. Maybe that is what I can hold to. The wanting. Do you know what I mean, sir? I am not sure I do. All that matters is how a man lives in this world.

However, all negotiations were called off when it became known that the Indians believed the witch doctor had not in fact died but instead had taken up residence in a spruce tree on Byers Island, in the form of a black bird. The Grady Whaling Co. argued that no compensation should be paid in such a case, for while there was a corpse, the bird was very much alive and well.