THE WILDEBEAST AND THE GNU YEAR
In the dusk before the dawn of an unnumbered turning, when the sky was a cracked drum and the plains hummed low, a lone wildebeest stood on the rim of the Gnu Year, hooves planted in dust older than prophecy. He was called Thundermane, Son of the Dry River, Keeper of the Unscheduled Stampede, the one who could hear the ticking of the earth long before clocks were invented. Behind him, the herd murmured like distant thunder, their breath rising in ghostly chords— a Doomgrass choir tuning their throats for the ritual of the Arbitrary Demarcation of Time. Thundermane lifted his head to the wind. It carried no omens, no warnings, only the scent of grass that had not yet grown and storms that had not yet chosen a direction. “Tell us,” cried the calves, “what awaits in the Gnu Year?” Their voices trembled like loose fence wire in a gale. Thundermane answered with the patience of stone: “No year is gnu. Only we are. Time is a circle drawn by creatures who fear wandering. But we— we are wander...