Remedy Z: Solo Read Free

So that deer hunt was not at all frivolous and I felt only the smallest pang of guilt at the animal's passing. Deer were such a good prey that offered meat of the finest quality. This one was special in both form and timing; it deserved to be remembered. His antlers were a prize and I would honour him by having his weapons adorning the hearth back at my cabin. “He really is on the fat side,” I thought, touching his belly. His hide was still thick, having not yet shed his winter coat. The fur was both beautiful in pattern and utilitarian; to be appreciated. “I might use this for a lining or insulation for a coat?” I thought to myself. I would use the fur, the meat, take some bone for weapons and even drain some of the lanolin into an old pill container. 
    My “Original Bowie Knife” patterned blade slid out of old leather, the smell reminding me of family who taught me all I knew and loved me enough to be persistent and confident that I could survive. 
    The blade glided from the deer’s nether-region up to its throat with ease. The smell of a fresh kill is earthy, bloody and warm. I remember the first time with grandpa and dad; I indelibly experienced butchering a deer. Gross at first, you never forget it, but you get used to it. I made all the appropriate cuts and skinned the deer with some good skills. No meat was left on the skin and I didn't cut through the precious fur, keeping the hide intact. After liberally salting the hide, I rolled it up and stowed it in my pack. I would tan it later. Then I continued, fashioning steaks and deer bacon, as thin as I could in the field. While I was skilled, the blade was special. 
    I named this knife “Orion”; it was a family heirloom and my favourite. It was put to good use on this task like it had for generations in my family. The knife I used had been a gift from my grandfather. He gave me quite a collection and it was a gift that kept giving in my circumstances. German steel from a time before everything was made in China or India, relived old times in my hands. The steel held an edge through all of the adversity I put it through. My Grandpa had put that edge on it. The knife was sharpened at such an angle that the blade had a legacy of sharpness much like the genes of my survivor ancestors to whom I owed much.
    My grandfather had been a man from a time gone by, even in his own time. He had been someone I remembered as strong, loving but stern and with a fire in his heart and a love of adventure. He and my father had taught me to shoot, fight, and fish and do things with my hands: survive. Much of those things, core to surviving, had been learned at the family’s weekend home and the bush near Tantangara. So many had forgotten the ways of survival or had never known them in a time where we needed them most. My family were an exception holding onto old ways and some pride in where we had come from and the struggles we had endured in getting there. Relatives and my immediate family had been a little like chameleons in a modern world of computerisation, information overload, air-conditioned buildings and bullshit-bingo. But times had changed for the worse, for everybody. As a great scientist once said, extinction is the rule, survival is the exception. That quote had become particularly relevant in those dark times. My grandfather was an exception as were my father and I. Grandfather had raised his boys, like him, to be a jack-of-all-trades; never happy with a lazy life and he passed on a need for hardship and adventure. The women of my family were also great, perhaps more so, but you will hear of them later; they are sadly missed in a world that could use their ways, all of them.
    I lost my family during the Great Change; nothing great about it. When things had fallen apart, around the world, I had lost so many, so quickly and in the chaos could not have been sure about my parents or siblings. I had lived in Canberra, the illustrious capital, and was considered