What a Marriage Needs

By Jeff Gard

In the plains below us, tall grasses part as the rest of our hunting party appears near the edge of the grazing herd. The older olagonas close rank around the yearlings, still wobbling across the ground on spindly legs.

“Do you feel it, Tauv?” asks Leal.

I close my eyes and reach out with my mind toward the edge of the olagona herd. Suddenly, there are wild stallions in my chest. My fingers tremble around the edges of the net. I’ve never experienced anything like this. It’s like all my senses have gone mad.

“What’s it called?”

“Fear, I think,” Leal answers.

I open my eyes and search her golden, almond-shaped eyes. Can this be the girl who routinely stole my porridge every morning in camp? As much as I chased, I could never catch her. Leal’s long legs always gave her an advantage. She was better at everything: the bow and arrow, a slingshot, weaving baskets, catching fish, hunting. I still can’t believe the elders matched us. Her mother runs the tribe. My mother curates medicines and poisons. The match will yield healthy children, the seers promise.

“Is it a good emotion?” I ask.

She frowns. “It’s not what we need. Mother said we need something…warm.”

The elders tell of a time when our people felt fully with our souls. They say there is a world beyond what we can see, taste, touch, smell, and hear. That our souls resonated with something called “emotions.” I’ve asked them to describe them to me, but words fail even our best storytellers.

Proximity to olagonas allows us to feel their emotions in our souls, but to retain that emotion, one must capture an olagona and domesticate it. A marriage needs emotions, the elders often say. Who am I to argue with their collective wisdom? So, here I am, crouched on a cliff with my betrothed, as my parents, grandparents, and every couple in the tribe has done before. The problem is, each olagona has a unique emotion, and capturing the wrong one could doom our marriage.

Down below, the hunters whistle a shrill barking sound that stirs the herd. More charcoal heads appear from the sea of butternut scruff. Red eyes look in all directions.

I’m knocked back a few paces as if struck by a great wind. My vision grows blurry as my eyes begin to leak. I taste salt upon my lips.

Leal sniffles. “This is sadness, I think. Or possibly grief.”

“Is it good for a marriage?”

“I don’t think so.”

The herd scatters. The ground rumbles beneath our feet under the assault of a thousand fleeing hoofs as olagonas race toward our outcrop. I grab the net tighter. Leal pulls her end taut.

“How do we know which one to capture?” This is just one of a dozen questions I’ve been holding back. I could have just as easily asked what it takes to be a good husband and father, but Leal is just as clueless as I am.

Yet she answers confidently, “Mother said to aim for the warmest thing we’ve ever felt, like the sun radiating from inside of you. Your body will feel light, like you could float to the heavens. Your feet will feel like trees taking root.”

Her words don’t make any sense. How can we feel weightless and rooted at the same time? How can any person contain the sun? These emotions seem dangerous. Maybe we’d be better off without them in our marriage.

Olagonas charge up the side of the cliff, some falling down while others leap over their backs. The frontrunners clear the ledge, scrambling over the boulders that protect us, and escape our net.

I peer over the edge and concentrate on the oncoming hoard of red eyes and become an empty vessel, allowing their feelings to flow into me, so I can test each one. There is something jagged and something cold but nothing warm or floaty. If we can’t find the right kind of olagona, does that mean our marriage won’t work?

Leal’s eyes dart across the herd. Occasionally, she steps aside to let an olagona pass. Her shoulders stiffen, and I follow the trajectory of her gaze. There. Near the end of the stampeding beasts, I sense heat and weightlessness.

We duck as several olagonas fly over our heads. We’ve got to time this just right. Our marriage depends upon our combined effort.

“Now!” Leal shouts.

The net stretches taut between us, and the animal slams into the rope and throws us backward. It drags the two of us several feet before its hoofs get tangled in the mesh, and it rolls onto its side, its red eyes fixed upon us.

Warmth spreads from my fingers to my toes. My heart is melting. My limbs feel rubbery and uncertain, but that is not the only change. When I look at Leal, she is transformed. No longer is she the girl who tormented me as a child or the one who bests me at everything. Her almond-shaped eyes are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

I want to wrap my arms around this powerful woman and never let go. With her, everything seems possible. Together, we can conquer the plains and lead our people in prosperity. No longer two individuals—from this point forward, we will be one person in two bodies.

She runs her fingers through my hair. I caress her cheek, and my eyes are drawn to her full lips. I want to kiss her, but there is an earthquake rattling my chest.

“What’s it called?” My words are thirsty.

“They call it Love.” Her lips meet mine halfway.

The thrashing beast in our net stills and, in a resigned huff, gives us its blessing. This olagona will now live with us, and if this feeling ever falters, we need only look into its red eyes for the emotion to bloom again.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeff Gard is an assistant professor of English at Briar Cliff University in Sioux City, Iowa. When he isn’t writing or teaching, he enjoys board games, disc golf, binge-worthy television shows, music, and procrastination (see above). Many of his fiction ideas arise from random thoughts that strike in the middle of the night when he should be asleep. His stories have appeared in Every Day Fiction, The Arcanist, Daily Science Fiction, and Flash Fiction Magazine.

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