C'mon schoolboy; time to learn a lesson for a change.
"See," Coral was saying, tapping the far page, "this is how they tool the cambium layer away from the limb."
"Poor limb," I said.
"The limb's dead," Coral said. "And, see," she reached for the far corner of the far page, "after they beat the cambium layer into a sheet, they decorate it like this." She turned the far page back, and bango, Coral's elbow came into my arm.
First contact! First contact!
And that's when I heard them; the voices from The Beyond. Heard the large grandmothers yelling out from sewing circles, "Pull your goddamned arm back." Heard the string-bean grandfathers singing rounds in barbershops, "Hold your goddamned ground." But then the purer pipes of Pan came a-calling. Calling me back to the woods where there were no civilized sewing circles condemning me, no organized war parties ordering me to charge.
When a schoolboy's experiencing first contact with a girl, he really has to choke his chain to curb his animal. A good way to choke is to run the steam of sex through the dehumidifier of Anthropology. Take the woods Pan was calling me back to--a time so distant there were woods enough for every tribe. And if a man from tribe A crossed paths with a man from tribe B, no weapons were raised. They'd just wave, and say in passing, "Not out of the woods yet, thank God." Then it was back to business as usual, back to the work they loved--loved so much they didn't even call it work. They called it: Hunting game and chasing women of tribe C.
Show and tell over, Coral--surprisingly unshaken by the flesh exchange--returned to her station behind the desk. "That's it then," she said, pursing her lips, "I'm going to beat nettle stalks into fibers; use them in a weaving."
"Lucky stalks," I said.
Coral waved me off, went on detailing her next art project. Though my body leaned heavily on the Front Desk, my head wasn't out of the woods just yet--not as long as I still had that after-elbow in my arm.
Isn't that how it goes though; the young man thinks the highlight of his life will be the heavy ordnance he'll drop on some woman some dark Saturday night. But in the end it's always the light shrapnel he took in the arm midday Monday that takes him to his grave with a smile.
Which begged the question: If a man has achieved zenith with said elbow in his arm, does this not mean life has already overstayed its welcome?
Answer: Yes, yes it does.
Desperate to die before this precious after-elbow died out, I looked around for a place to die. Certainly, a Front Desk was no place to die. No, we old souls were more the kind who took to the woods to die. Of course, the woods was quite a trek from here. It came to me then; the orchard--the orchard left to go. No, that's where a man of caliber goes to die.
I saw myself, then, down in the orchard, gaze forward, marching as to death. Of course, I was the kind who, on his death march, saw fit to go out of his way a little. I stepped over to those four dear friends of mine. No, if there ever were a four I felt it an honor to have called my friends, it was these four trees right--wait, I'd killed them.
Here, let me start again.
There I was, then, down in the orchard, down on all fours, burrowing out of sight under some bramble. Burrowing so low my nose was turning up shards. Shards of glass, say. Shards that finally cut that silo nose of mine down to size. Wait, this was no time to go under the knife; I'd come here to die. What I needed were some shards with more depth, more character. Shards of . . . of basalt, say. Yes, magical shards I'd take in hand so I could find . . . find some--so no one would find my carcass in the morning.
Well, other than the coyotes.
Which was perfect. So perfect, I pulled my elbows off the Front Desk, pulled out my pad and pen, wrote those perfect words to die by: "That's the way you want to go; in the morning. Your chest ripped open like the neighbor's cat. Your heart, your liver, breakfast for wild beasts--the only spirits deserving of a life."
I looked up to find two things. One, the after-elbow in my arm was gone. Two, Coral, having assumed my note-taking had to do with my interest in her nettles art project, was now detailing her weaving to the point where life had really overstayed its welcome.
Pocketing my pad and pen, I turned, raised the work boot that marks the start of every death march. But, true to script, the working man couldn't march out his death door for the privileged craft shoppers marching in.
Posing with leg raised, I waited for the two yup-and-coming couples to pass. The excited pair of wives passed first. "I love her," said one to the other, "but that's no reason to let the bitch stab me in the back." The depressed pair of husbands passed next. "I hate him," said one to the other, "but had I not modeled my behavior after the ruthless bastard, I'd never have climbed this high up corporate."
Though my path was now clear, I stood with leg raised, peered into the Craft Shop. Not to see what was in there, but as a symbolic look back.
"Oh, how I would miss all the hen's eggs crisscrossing the nether earth plane, ladders on their backs, searching for the very wall all the king's horses and all the king's men had custom built for Humpty Dumpty's."
Pocketing my pad and pen--a challenge with the one leg raised--I thanked God for giving me the wherewithal to climb walls of my own making. Which brought to mind my writing. Which brought to mind what I wrote about--the shortfalls of nether earth males. Which begged the question: What would my better protagonist, in his dying shoes, take a last look at?
And, in the interest of character development, I put my boot down, took to leaning a little longer on the Front Desk.
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This is great. You capture human longing well. I am impressed and I am looking forward to reading more!
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