Elk County
In the dream, the elk was standing silently by the dead volcano. I could tell the volcano was dead because its black bones were now blooming as flowers and plants–wild daisies, chamomile, Indian paintbrush, bladderwort, lilac, and fiddle fern. The elk was a reflection of the sky, the place where the volcano's spirit had gone to rest. I felt like I could stand and watch him for one hundred years and he would never blink. Birds would come and sit on his antlers and pick berries from the trees below his feet. Deer and bear would play around his hooves. Giant boulders would roll down the volcanous mouth when the elk shifted his weight.
One day a man came and made a map of the county. The elk was so huge the man decided to call it elk county and made his house in the elks heart. Every day he would go to catch fish in the elks eye and at night he slept in the elks backbone. When he died, the elk breathed and the man's soul turned into a cloud.
