The Porcupine Whose Name Didn’t Matter
By Martin Bell
Painting by Christina Vanginkel
Joggi stood before the mystery of his own life much as any other porcupine might have. That is to say, he was exceedingly cautious in the face of it. I do not mean to imply that it was difficult for Joggi to acknowledge the mystery. On the contrary! He had no trouble whatsoever recognizing the ebb and flow of his own limitations and the infinite variety and possibility within his universe. Joggi knew about the ongoing beat of life. The daily. The humdrum. The having one-day-showed-up; and now, like it or not, the finding-oneself-here in the midst of existence, virtually crushed by an environment, called upon to create the entire world; the bittersweet mingling of all of this with an inner insistence to go on, and on, until… Until what? Joggi knew about the ongoing beat of life. It throbbed somewhere deep within him. Beneath the prickly spines. In the center of his tiny body. A thumping. Steady. Insistent. Unrelenting. The mystery.
Totally aware, more lucid perhaps than he desired to be, Joggi lived and loved, laughed and cried- tentatively. One might say that anger, frustration and tenderness had been so delicately woven into the fabric of his person as to make difficult our perceiving any of them.
Joggi was cautious in the face of the mystery. So cautious, in fact, that almost nobody knew his name. Most of the animals in the forest had seen the nearsighted porcupine moving slowly about, poking his pointed black nose into the vegetation, bristling, puffing, squinting and stumbling. Few had spoken to him. Now and then someone would say hello, and ask after his health- an attempt to strike up a conversation of sorts. This never really led to anything, however, because Joggi would not- no, that isn’t fair- Joggi could not risk such a head-on collision.
Joggi’s decisional hesitancy usually expressed itself this way. When asked what his name was, he would answer, “It doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter what my name is! Can’t you see? What difference does it make? I won’t tell you what my name is, because it just doesn’t matter!”
That would be the reply. And, more often than not, that would be the end of the conversation. Joggi could not embrace another, he would not tell anyone his name, and the result was always the same: the other animals avoided him.
Once significant exception to this was Gamiel, the raccoon. Gamiel did not mind Joggi’s reticence at all. It did not bother when the prickly porcupine was silent for hours at a time, and he had never even thought to ask about Joggi’s name.
Gamiel could remember very little before the accident, and much of what happened since was blurred somewhere in the recesses of his brain, all but lost to memory.
Raccoons are generally alert and resourceful creatures with keen perceptions and excellent memories. But all of this had changed for Gamiel. Ironically, he wasn’t even certain why. There had been a flash of light, and then something hard ripped into the side of his head. His whole body had convulsed with the pain; white hot, wet, thrashing. God-when-will-it-stop pain that pitched him bleeding from the tree into the underbrush and drove him forward without his left side pulling any weight at all, by instinct only; screaming pain that shrieked behind his eyes the one and only word of hope he knew, and then, as suddenly as it had come, was gone.
Gamiel had only to look at himself in the quiet waters of the forest pond to recognize why no one would come near him anymore. Everything had changed. He did not even look like a raccoon. The whole left side of his head was missing, he had no fur at all around his eyes where once the elegant mask had been, and he could barely pull himself along with his right front leg. Gamiel had only to look himself in the forest pond to realize why everyone hurried past when he called out.
But the crippled raccoon never again would look at his reflection in the quiet waters. Not because he wasn’t willing to see his disfigured image, but rather because he wasn’t able to see anything at all. Ever since the accident, Gamiel had been totally blind.
Joggi found Gamiel about two days after the pain had stopped, and approximately three hours after the raccoon had given up all hope.
A sound close by. Gamiel trembled.
“Is someone there?” he whispered.
At first Joggi didn’t say anything. He looked at Gamiel and noted that his left side was paralyzed. Then, after a moment, he realized that the animal was blind. The nearsighted porcupine moved closer.
“You’re a raccoon,” he said out loud.
“Oh yes, indeed I am!” Gamiel stuttered.
“Only I think something awful has happened to me. I cannot see anything at all, and I can barely move. Please, tell me what has happened to me! Am I going to die? Why won’t anyone stop when I cry out? Why can’t I see? What has happened? Please… I’m afraid…” And in Gamiel’s searching, empty eyes tears began to form.
Joggi sniffed. In the center of his body the beat of life. Faster now. Answer him. Don’t just stand there with your spines bristling and your heart pounding. Answer him!
Joggi spoke with a steady and quiet voice.
“I believe you have been shot. I cannot be certain, of course, but that is my opinion. Are you in a great deal of pain?”
“No. At first there was pain. But I can’t feel anything now. In fact, my whole left side is numb. No. No more pain. Just, well… nothing.” Gamiel’s eyes opened and closed aimlessly.
Joggi was silent. His tiny body shivering; breathing laboured, short, difficult breaths. What now? An extended period of time.
Gamiel spoke in a hoarse voice, “Are you still there?”
Joggi’s heart beat faster. “Yes, I’m here. I was wondering what to do now.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do anything! Honestly, I mean that! You don’t have to do anything at all. Just stay with me for a little while. Just be there. Just don’t go away. Please. You don’t have to do anything! Just stay with me. I’m afraid! You won’t go away, will you?”
Joggi swallowed hard. “No,” he said deliberately and with as much conviction as he could muster, “No, I won’t go away.”
“Thank you,” Gamiel said quietly. And then the wounded raccoon fell asleep.
Joggi stood beside Gamiel all that day. Then when evening came, a cool breeze made his spines whistle slightly. The sound woke the raccoon.
“Are you there?”
“Yes. I told you I wouldn’t go away.”
“I’m hungry.”
“I thought you probably would be,” Joggi replied. “Can you move at all?”
Gamiel stretched his right leg forward and pulled himself along the ground.
“Good for you!” said Joggi. “That will do nicely. I can bring you food, but you will need to maneuver for yourself in order to get water. I believe you have enough strength to reach the pond; it isn’t very far, and I can guide you directly to it. Come on. Let’s see how it goes.”
That was how it began.
An unusual partnership, perhaps. Certainly the rest of animals in the forest were surprised to see the pair of them moving slowly about, managing to live one day to the next without really doing much of anything. Occasionally Joggi would describe something for Gamiel, or answer a question, or direct the crippled raccoon toward a tasty morsel of food. Gamiel, for his part, chattered happily, basked in the sun, and generally enjoyed his friend’s company.
They made a home for one another, Joggi and Gamiel. Not a regular home exactly not a place. More like a shelter from the excessive pain that each of them had known. A coming together of two lonely and frightened creatures. A bond of trust that asked no questions, expected nothing at all except the merciful being together that made waking up tomorrow possible. Gamiel didn’t mind when Joggi was silent for hours at a time. He could sense the beat. Thumping, ongoing, steady. There. It was enough.
Joggi was with Gamiel for one full year before the injured raccoon finally died. It was a quiet event, almost a surprise but that Joggi had been expecting it for so long. Gamiel’s strength just finally gave out and the mystery enveloped him completely.
“You know, I’ve been expecting this for quite some time now,” Joggi said to the raccoon who lay there on the ground, no longer able to hear him. “I am surprised that you managed to stay alive as long as you did. I knew the day that I found you it couldn’t last. Not for long. You’d been hurt too badly. I never expected you to live this long. And yet… well, I hoped that it might have been a little longer. Do you know what I mean? You see, I never knew anybody very well before. Not that we ever talked much, or anything like that. But I felt like I knew you anyway. Even without talking. I have a really hard time talking to anybody, or getting to know anybody. And nobody ever wants to get very close to me because of all these spines that I have sticking out of me. I don’t suppose you ever knew that I had spines sticking out all over me, did you? They’re sort of like needles and they’re sharp. I guess they scare everybody a bit. I hope you don’t mind my talking so much. I really don’t know why I’m talking to you now. I suppose it’s just that I had a little more to tell you before you died; I have been wanting to say this for almost a year and never quite found the right time to do it. It’s too late now, I realize, but I’ve been wanting to tell you that it has been an honor to meet you, and that you are indeed a very handsome raccoon, and that I would like to consider you my friend.”
The porcupine cleared his throat. A tear dropped onto his nose. In the center of his body the ongoing beat of life. Beneath the prickly spines. Wildly thumping. Tell him! Don’t just stand there with your spines bristling and your heart pounding. Tell him!
“Oh, and by the way, I’d like to tell you what my name is. It’s a funny name I supposed. But I’d like you to know what it is.”
A moment’s hesitation and then, “It’s Joggi.”
Without another word, the tiny porcupine turned away from Gamiel’s lifeless form and began to cry. What he did not see was a great silver wolf standing, statue-like in the shadows, fiery eyes smoldering.
Job 2:11-13 . . . When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon Job they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.
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Barrington Bunny (another story by Martin Bell)