tree not twenty feet away spreads its wings and flies off with a harsh cry ending in a dying fall. Katherine watches the soaring bird until it’s out of sight, a bird so large she might ride on its shoulders.
Along the privy path she clings to trees. For balance, but also to experience the textures of their barks. Once there, she finds her pain’s no more than she can bear—one can bear a lot more of a lot of things than one imagines; also, if you bite down hard on the soft part of your hand, but not so hard you make it bleed, your simultaneous pain in some unrelated body part will not seem quite so great.
Or if you distract your thoughts from it. What animal breathed against her wall last night? A deer? There should be tracks. Small, deep holes in the wet ground, like in her
Child’s Book of Forest Animals
.She looks for examples on her way back to the cabin, finds none and turns to picking up wood—small, damp stove-wood branches to sundry on the porch, a few larger ones for the fireplace later. Wet wood smells beautiful, but it’s heavier than it looks. Collecting it’s something she didn’t plan for, something she must do each day.
Best shoot yourself as soon as possible.
That’s not funny.
Oh, but it is. Here you’re tramping around in the middle of nowhere picking up sticks so you won’t freeze to death, when all you came for in the first place was to die. Small wonder skeletons all grin.
The trail forks here. Last night she hadn’t noticed. The broader path leads back to the cabin, past a briar thicket she dodged earlier, its thorny, meandering sticks easy to spot. The narrower path she remembers from the plat as a thin, wavering line that leads out to the pond and then the meadow. Magical to see it come alive, that slender blue-ink thread. She can’t help but follow it, no matter how she feels. Drops her wood in such a way it points her to the cabin, moves tentatively onto the narrower path, again clings to trees to save her strength. There’s the walking back to also be considered, mustn’t forget that.
But already here are cattails. Cattails at the bottom of a tangled bank. A jutting rock she can almost get to. Can get to. And sit on.
Close up, the water smells reedy and cold. Shadowy fish dart beneath its surface. One leaps, flashes a silvery rainbow, sends concentric circles over the dark water. As if on cue, a pair of mallards explode out of the marsh and squawk themselves into the sky—as if they, and the fish, are part of some perfect nature print she has magically wandered into. How can such beauty exist with no one to observe it? Do people take these sights for granted? Her time’s too short for that.
Around the next bend, the meadow is a blowing field of wild grass and pine seedlings grown up past her knees. As she walks into it, waves of small, startled birds rise up ahead of her then drift back down a few feet farther on. Surrounding the meadow’s center is a rusted fence. Its fragile gate swings open easily. Inside, the worn-down ridges of old furrows rise beneath her feet like ancient graves.
Hard to say how large it was, this fenced-off garden, what fraction of an acre. Large enough for whoever lived here. Now it’s the windthat lives here, in the grasses. And it sings, that’s all she knows to call it. Long, low notes, like breath blown across the slender neck of an empty Coke bottle. The grass smells of sunshine, the wind rushes into her open mouth. At the far edge of the meadow, a large tree with a thick trunk and branches reaching to the sky stands with the morning sun behind it, not unlike the tree out of her dream. She closes her eyes, extends her arms, turns once around slowly and smiles.
“The perfect place to die.”
What a dreadful thing to make of it. An ad.
Ad that would win a Clio. Old habits die hard.
She laughs. It has a different ring when there’s no one to hear it. Fuller and unguarded.
Hiking back, arms filled with still-damp branches, she rounds a
Along the privy path she clings to trees. For balance, but also to experience the textures of their barks. Once there, she finds her pain’s no more than she can bear—one can bear a lot more of a lot of things than one imagines; also, if you bite down hard on the soft part of your hand, but not so hard you make it bleed, your simultaneous pain in some unrelated body part will not seem quite so great.
Or if you distract your thoughts from it. What animal breathed against her wall last night? A deer? There should be tracks. Small, deep holes in the wet ground, like in her
Child’s Book of Forest Animals
.She looks for examples on her way back to the cabin, finds none and turns to picking up wood—small, damp stove-wood branches to sundry on the porch, a few larger ones for the fireplace later. Wet wood smells beautiful, but it’s heavier than it looks. Collecting it’s something she didn’t plan for, something she must do each day.
Best shoot yourself as soon as possible.
That’s not funny.
Oh, but it is. Here you’re tramping around in the middle of nowhere picking up sticks so you won’t freeze to death, when all you came for in the first place was to die. Small wonder skeletons all grin.
The trail forks here. Last night she hadn’t noticed. The broader path leads back to the cabin, past a briar thicket she dodged earlier, its thorny, meandering sticks easy to spot. The narrower path she remembers from the plat as a thin, wavering line that leads out to the pond and then the meadow. Magical to see it come alive, that slender blue-ink thread. She can’t help but follow it, no matter how she feels. Drops her wood in such a way it points her to the cabin, moves tentatively onto the narrower path, again clings to trees to save her strength. There’s the walking back to also be considered, mustn’t forget that.
But already here are cattails. Cattails at the bottom of a tangled bank. A jutting rock she can almost get to. Can get to. And sit on.
Close up, the water smells reedy and cold. Shadowy fish dart beneath its surface. One leaps, flashes a silvery rainbow, sends concentric circles over the dark water. As if on cue, a pair of mallards explode out of the marsh and squawk themselves into the sky—as if they, and the fish, are part of some perfect nature print she has magically wandered into. How can such beauty exist with no one to observe it? Do people take these sights for granted? Her time’s too short for that.
Around the next bend, the meadow is a blowing field of wild grass and pine seedlings grown up past her knees. As she walks into it, waves of small, startled birds rise up ahead of her then drift back down a few feet farther on. Surrounding the meadow’s center is a rusted fence. Its fragile gate swings open easily. Inside, the worn-down ridges of old furrows rise beneath her feet like ancient graves.
Hard to say how large it was, this fenced-off garden, what fraction of an acre. Large enough for whoever lived here. Now it’s the windthat lives here, in the grasses. And it sings, that’s all she knows to call it. Long, low notes, like breath blown across the slender neck of an empty Coke bottle. The grass smells of sunshine, the wind rushes into her open mouth. At the far edge of the meadow, a large tree with a thick trunk and branches reaching to the sky stands with the morning sun behind it, not unlike the tree out of her dream. She closes her eyes, extends her arms, turns once around slowly and smiles.
“The perfect place to die.”
What a dreadful thing to make of it. An ad.
Ad that would win a Clio. Old habits die hard.
She laughs. It has a different ring when there’s no one to hear it. Fuller and unguarded.
Hiking back, arms filled with still-damp branches, she rounds a
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