Otis Escapes, parts 4003 - 4006

 4003. There was not a moment to lose, not even a second or a split second. Otis lunged for the Fowler and because of the way the Fowler was standing; he landed against the back of the Fowler’s legs. At just that moment the man had raised the axe up over his head and so the impact of the wolf against him caused him to fall over backwards. He smacked his head on the ground and was dazed for a moment.

 4004. I want to describe what happened next but it made almost no sense. Later the Rooster explained it to me, and so it is possible to give some explanation. The Fowler had dropped his axe and although he was unhurt, he was confused and incapacitated for a moment.

 4005. It was a perfect moment for the two of them to escape into the woods. It certainly was unnecessary for Otis to hector the Rooster with arguments about why he should go off into the unknown with a wild wolf. 

4006. What better argument is there for an old Rooster, set in his ways, to change his way of life, even to do something reckless and unheard of, what better argument, I say, that an axe raised up above your neck?

Otis Escapes, parts 3999 - 4002

 3999. He realized that his neck was cold. The odd thing about the coldness of Otis’s neck was that it was the exact spot where the Rooster always slept during the night. Even when he was sound asleep he was aware of that stupid Rooster, and the Rooster was aware of him. It was a primitive sort of defense and alarm system. 

 4000. It was sort of like a small string attached them to each other, if one were to move the other would feel a tug and wake up for just a moment. Otis had become so accustomed to the presence of the bird that he was not aware of it until he was asleep in the woods alone. 

 4001. He decided to return and give the Rooster one more talking to, to see if he could change his mind.

4002.  A day later he arrived at the Fowler’s wagon and from the woods just a few feet from the encampment he saw to his horror the Rooster, with his head stretched out across a tree stump, and the Fowler holding him down with one hand and an axe in the other hand.

Otis Escapes, parts 3995 - 3998

 3995. Once the Fowler realized that Otis was gone he jumped down from the wagon and began to call for him, but he received no answer. There was something about the silence of the woods that told him he would not be seeing Otis again anytime soon. 

 3996. He returned to the task of preparing his super. He looked at the various pigeons and sparrows but he was suddenly struck by the thought that without Otis the Rooster was on no use to him anymore. At the same instant the Fowler had that insight, the Rooster had the same exact deadly realization. 

 3997. Even though the Fowler and the Rooster thought the same thought simultaneously, they both considered the possibility that Otis might soon return. It was Thursday and the Fowler thought, “If Otis does not return by Saturday I will have the bird for dinner Saturday night. The Rooster thought the same thing. 

3998. Otis by this time was far away and had wanted to put as mush distance between himself and the Fowler as was possible. He did not consider that he would be recaptured, but he ran all day at a steady loping pace just for the joy of it. After the sun went down it became cold in the woods and he lay down in some brush and was soon asleep. In the middle of the night he awoke with a start, an odd thought was troubling him.

Otis Escapes, parts 3991 - 3993

 3991. “Rooster listen to me,” said Otis,  “every night I have to kill innocent dogs in a ring. This is a crime against all the things wolves believe. I will not do it another day, and so I bid you farewell, although you are my only friend in the world.”

 3992. That Rooster should have recognized a superior argument when he heard it, and in fact he did recognize it, but even though he was a rooster, and had a bird’s superior intellect, still he was proud and would not give in. He watched the wolf walk off into the distance. The wolf looked back once, he looked back twice. He stopped again a third time, but the third time he did not look back.

 3993. You may think to yourself, “Now the wolf is all-alone, how will he manage?” but you are wrong to wonder that. It was the Rooster who was now dangerously all-alone in the world.

3994. That evening the Fowler returned to his wagon and drew back the flap and looked around inside. It was six o’clock in the evening. At six o’clock the Fowler was in the habit of preparing his dinner. He was thinking about a pigeon, but on the other hand, perhaps three sparrows would do. He looked around and saw that Otis was not there.

Otis Escapes, parts 3987 - 3990

 3987. He made his way into the same wagon he had escaped from, and woke the Rooster from a sound sleep. He began to explain his plan to the Rooster but the bird would hear nothing of it and objected violently. “Are you out of your mind Otis,” he said, “we have a perfect life here with the Fowler. Do you not realize that what we are doing in the dog fighting rings is theater, pure and simple, and everyone loves us?”

 3988. This notion struck Otis as strange. Obviously the bird was correct, and yet Otis could not accept it. It might be theater to begin with each night, but by the end of each night Otis had to dispatch from the land of the living two or three dogs who had never done him any harm, and the Rooster had no such obligation. 

 3989. The Rooster understood what was bothering Otis and so embarked on a different line of argument. “Look,” he said, “I will admit that the comedians we traveled with and the plays we were part of were wonderful, and also, I know that you never had to murder anyone. But a dog and a rooster without the aid of persons can’t do those things. Where will we get the audience? How could we make ourselves known?” 

3990. “No,” said the Rooster, “if we run off we will just be a wolf and a rooster abroad in the land and at the mercy of every hungry person. Here we are safe, and what we do has its purpose, in a manor of speaking.”

Otis Escapes, parts 3983 - 3986

  3983. For the comrades in the troop, and in the audiences they entertained, his part was just an amazing happy accident, and they no more thought to give him any credit for his acting skills, than one would give credit to the way a tree complements a landscape. 

  3984. Like so often happens when one thinks with fondness about one’s past, after a while contradictory thoughts begin to intrude, and so it was with Otis. He began to think on the subject of the significance of  “play acting.” The questions he put to himself were similar to ones Aristotle posed to himself long ago.

  3985. Why is it, he wondered, that so often actors on a stage present a scene that is so much more compelling and exhilarating than anything anyone encounters in everyday life? He had observed certain poor people, who could hardly afford the admission for a simple one-act play, and yet they would come to the performance every night, and after a week they were just as engrossed in the production as at the first performance.

3986. Otis did not understand the audience’s obsession with his former troop’s theatrics, but one thing he was sure about, he wanted to recreate that past experience somehow. Having made his escape from the Fowler’s wagon, he made bold to return with the objective of setting the Rooster free. His intent was to convince the Rooster to join him in a journey to God knows where, with the preposterous objective of becoming stage performers yet again.

Otis Escapes, part 3979 - 3982

 3979. He did not go very far into the underbrush, and sat down to rest and think about what he should do. He was utterly alone. Almost his entire life he had never been alone for very long. Otis was a wolf, that you know, and so you can assume that he had always been a member of a pack. But his pack had rejected him.

 3980. He became friends with the Blacksmith’s boy, but that had ended in disaster, and he had to flee. Then came the itinerant performers. The skits and one act plays Otis had performed with them now seemed long ago, even though only a few months had passed. He was aware that in his entire life the time spent with the itinerant stage performers was the most exciting and meaningful thing to ever happen to him.

 3981. His memory of that time was a memory of a golden age of his past, a time when every day was full of unexpected and yet exhilarating experiences. He had a sad thought as he sat there alone in the woods in the middle of the night. “What if,” he wondered, “my life will never produce another time like that, what if I will be doomed to go through life alone with only a memory to take any pleasure in.

 3982. His memories of his past were a bit idealized however, because he chose to overlook what had been missing. As completely as he understood all the skits and their meaning and significance, absolutely nobody understood his involvement, and his creative contribution.