Creative writing

FIREWOOD AND REVERY


September 20, 2011


This is something I promised I would never do, and then I did it once before. I have been immersed in a writing project and have little left at the end of the day. Like they say in sports, you leave it all on the field. But I know people check so, I am posting an older short story that has never been published, just for the entertainment value, and so you won't forget me. Take three days to read it in parts. I will be back. And just for the information value, this fancy new Mac only adds to the creative process in the sense that the work looks better on a larger brighter screen. As far as more intelligent prose it is more like an enlarging mirror or a flat screen HD TV.... all the blemishes are magnified. So it goes.

And some music to listen to while you read. There's a connection.



Copyright © 2011 by Tim Jones

He swung the maul between slices of developing fantasy. "Been on this hill too long," he muttered aloud to the trees, took another cut and then let himself drift into the other world. The combination intoxicated, mellowed the anxiety that drove him to the wood pile. He picked up a new section of birch cut for the length of the stove, set it on the block and lashed at it, but the heavy maul bit only slightly and then bounced away, twisting his arms and shoulders. The birch fell off the block, then the block itself, another larger section of birch, fell over from the glancing blow. He righted the block, set the resilient victim back in place and took another, this time more vicious swing. The wood parted into two equal sized quarters, but the bark on the side away from him held, leaving a hinged clamshell of birch, an open book of firewood facing him. He picked up the book, gripped
each half and ripped them apart. Laughed. "That the way you do it?" A voice intruded. One of those moments: If someone had walked up just then: "Don't hit 'em with a axe, just rip 'em apart."
"Yeah!" he shouted to the crowd, a showman professional wrestler growling at his fans. He tossed the two pieces toward the pile where he would stack them neatly later. How come no one was ever around when the time was right? He hunched a thick birch section onto the block.
"Hello," a voice called, too thin for a man, but husky enough to be there in the woods. "Hello."
A figure moved along the trail toward where it turned and began the climb uphill to the cabin. He reached for the maul. And watched the trail below. The figure, bent under the weight of a backpack, walked with the assurance of physical confidence, the hesitence of unfamiliar personal ground.
"Hello." Again. He swung the maul. This time the voice came from part way up the hill. He was aware now, the hint of a smile crossed his face ending in an upward curl at one corner of his mouth. He retrieved one of the split halves and set it on the block for another lick.
The figure continued climbing, approaching. Not much of a swing for half a section, just let the maul drop, always try to leave both halves still standing on the block. "Hello." The voice softer now, closer. The maul dropped, caromed to the side sending a splinter shooting off into the snow and leaving the remainder to teeter, then fall off the stump. Recognition. And, from how long ago?
"Hello. Are you Tom Compton?" The breath coming tough, a good hill up to the cabin, but not too tough, somebody in reasonable shape. Now he was sure. She looked the same, hadn't changed in how long, ten, no, closer to twenty years. But why the question about who he was. The curl at the corner of his mouth broadened into a full smile. Sweet Judy Blue Eyes. Warmth in welcome, recognition, recollection. Even more warmth than the work made. Thoreau was a fraud. He had the woods but he never did the work. He cheated. Wood warms you twice, he had written, once when you chopped it, once when you burned it.
It was obvious. Thoreau had his wood delivered already cut. Thoreau never cut the trees down (once). He never hauled the wood from where it fell to his cabin (twice). He did split, that was his once (three times). Obviously he didn't go through the hauling and stacking for a year ahead of time (four). But he did burn it. Don't they all. That's five at least and not counting any extra ones like the day the sled broke loose and took off down the hill spilling its logs one by one in the deep snow and alder. And then there was that other warmth, the one that came from the hours at the chopping block. Sweet Judy Blue Eyes.
He set the other half of the birch on the block. What would she be doing here. God, college. How long ago? How could she have found him?
"I came to find you. Are you Tom? Down the trail they said this was how to get to your place." She looked the same, always the hint of mirth in her round blue eyes. Did he? Of course not. "From school I knew to look in Anchorage. At the paper I met a guy who knows you. He told me where you live. I didn't know how to let you know I was coming."
Raise the maul. Drop it with power behind it and feel the reassuring shudder of resistance through the arms as metal meets wood. Square, equal portions fell off the block. Still hadn't left two standing there. That would have to be Morgan. The only one left there who knew where he was. He wondered what his friend thought when this beautiful, outdoorsy looking coed walked in asking for him. Probably smiled. Got really cordial and friendly. Sucked a cigarette. Too honest, too moral to try for himself. Just told her where and how.
He hoisted another section to the block. Why would she come? What would cause this woman, twenty years after the bitter disappointment to hunt him down somewhere in the wilds of Alaska? Raise the maul, let it drop; another bounce. Damn, you gotta mean it. At least it hadn't fallen. Raised and dropped again, this time with some muscle behind it. The section split. They'd dreamed of a life that involved mountains and clear streams, a clean, pure life together.
A snowmachine snarled past on the main trail far below, the pitch of the engine noise rising and lowering as the driver feathered the machine over the jarring bumps and moguls in the trail. Why come and find him? Now? From where? The last he knew he'd been told she married a rodeo cowboy, happy and heading for the Rockies.
He took one of the halves and set it on the block, but the original chainsaw cut had been angled and the wood tipped over into the snow. He retrieved it, turned it on the stump until it balanced tenuously. Hate those where you've got to swing quickly before it falls off again.
"You found it. What we talked about. A cabin here. The mountains. You're splitting wood to keep warm." The half stood for a split second and he swung. Ouick. Another glancing blow as it fell. Another splinter. And in front of an audience, just when you wanted to do it right.
"I heard you might have found it. I wanted to see." He picked up the larger piece of the splintered half. Spirit soaring. Beauty returning.
Time came for a change, a break. He walked over to the jumble where he'd been throwing the split pieces and started stacking them. Leave air. It had to season for a year, no moisture caught in little pockets. The air had to circulate. Stack carefully. He didn't want it to fall out from under the house into the summer rain or the early fall snow. She's here. Time to share that dream we started so long ago. And she came on such a long shot, such a chance. What a chance to take at such a distance in time and miles. He placed the last piece of wood on the stack and returned to the maul and the block and the unsplit birch.
"Hello, are you Tom?
Why? How? It didn't seem real. He swung at a huge section. It gave, cracked, but didn't split. Another shot. This time one side fell, the other went shooting down the hill into deeper snow, over-the-boot, sock-soaking deep snow.
"I'm trying to write a book." He slogged downhill to his knees, then mid thighs in the snow to retrieve the errant birch. This could work.
"I want to find the men I've loved and talk with them. Write vignettes. Renew the friendships that the loves came from. I think I can make a point; I can come up with something younger people could understand."
He slogged uphill through the deep snow, a swimmer with his arms wrapped around dead weight, falling, rising, bringing the heavy wood back to the block.
But she loses it. She realizes the dream we'd had in those piles of leaves so many years ago is here, now, and all those things we talked about, half knowing they couldn't happen, really did happen only she wasn't here. And now, despite all that, she's welcome. And open to that welcome. Here it is. All we wanted. Now. It exists. "You really count me among the people you loved?" Aloud. But the wrestling fans in the woods didn't respond to that kind of emotion.
He floundered up to the chopping block and set the heavy split on it. He swung the maul, this time to the audience he wanted, an appreciation he looked for. This time somebody was watching, somebody he wanted to know that this was perfection. This was the life. We're here. We can. The section split perfectly, falling off the block in even pieces. He retrieved them and tossed each toward the stack. He looked around for more, even kicked at loose snow but that had been the last one. Nothing was left to split. Empty.
"My God. I told her I didn't believe in love." The fans in the trees remained silent. A dumb Friday afternoon college beer hall argument. But he'd said it and she'd believed and ran out of the place. "I told her I didn't believe in love."
He stacked what was left of the wood he'd split, then walked into the cabin, opened the stove, stirred the coals and added wood. He dragged a cardboard box toward his chair, the box that held the memories, the photographs, the poems of life until then. In the last of the evening he reached for the whiskey bottle where he hoped he would be able to rekindle what had been... and what never had been. But whiskey doesn't warm a man like wood does. Even Thoreau knew that.


Conversation with an older writer

October 22, 2013


In August I posted an excerpt from something I have been working on for the past couple of years titled "Conversation with a young prostitute." It was an experiment in a couple of ways, first, generally it's not a good idea to expose work until it's finished; there are just too many pitfalls waiting for you in comments from people who have not seen the finished work or all of it.  That can be pretty discouraging.

Secondly, the writing itself is experimental, at least for me. Briefly, the full story explores a modern relationship that occurs totally online and is expressed only in instant-messaging format with the inherent spelling, grammatical and typographical errors intact.
-->
To no one in particular he said, "I suppose I better not let that Smith get too Goddamn far ahead of me."  Then he crossed the room, passed through the doorway and disappeared into the night.

Angels' light

Last night, talkin' 'bout last night


November 15, 2013

1 comment:

The times they are 'changin'

Another long snippet

A fictional adventure into a cluttered mind

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Three white lights

The one you feed

Creeping white death, another snippet

The day the New World turned Brave

Stopping by the woods another snippet

Dark mystery on a white background


February 11, 2011
In the woods a new fallen snow becomes a newspaper into the world among the trees, a clean sheet awaiting imprint to chronicle the comings and goings of the citizens within its circulation area. All one needs to read that journal is to slap on a pair of snowshoes and take a tour across the broadsheet to see who’s been there, what direction that critter took, whether it was running or walking, in fear or confidence, some chased, occasionally the trail ending abruptly when one is caught from above by the owl, the snow disturbed where its wingtips touched as it grabbed its prey. News without headlines, the passing in nature that needs not the added drama of bigger type, only the imagination of the viewer to fill in the details. Occasionally one ends in mystery, just stopping for no apparent reason or going out of sight into the distanceNow a new mystery has been added, promoted by the availability of electricity and motion sensor technology. With sensing lights on both sides of the house, the yard illuminates without apparent reason sometimes. A cat running through the yard perhaps or a bird flying by. During the huge windstorms that blow through here often they will be on constantly, triggered by the bending swaying branches of the trees. Tonight, though, a mystery.
Tonight the west side light came on. There is no wind so that was not the cause. New snow had left its sheet over the ground awaiting the news, but there was no news, no telltale tracks hinting at what might have moved past. So, what was it triggered the light? The spirits of the forest perhaps, wisps of fairies dancing just above the snow. In the dark few birds fly by and the feeders remain untouched. No spy of my imagination slipped up to a window, no cat followed the squirrels across the yard, no moose came to nibble the lilac. What mystery motion could have sparked the light into brilliance? Perhaps morning will reveal the answer. And then came a tapping, tapping tapping at the entry door…

In the next day's light the mystery deepens

February 12, 2011
Sun rose bright on the east side of the mountain and set just below the peak before rising again on the west side. Won't be long until it passes over the mountain instead of behind it. But even the clarity of sunlight did not solve the night before's mystery. Not a track to be seen anywhere within the arc of what the light would have illuminated. A line of squirrel tracks from one tree to another was all that spoiled the surface of the new snow and that happened early in the day. Perhaps back in the woods the critters held a wake for the fallen hero Brian Jacques who died Feb. 5 at the age of 71. I recall my son and I late at night when he was younger taking turns reading alternate pages of his Redwall books, (there are 22 of them) following the adventures of Mathias and nibbling on scones once we found out what they were.

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Best headlines ever

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

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A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

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GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

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Memorable quotations

The best way to know you are having an adventure is when you wish you were home talking about it." — a mechanic on the Alaska State Ferry System. Or as in my own case planning how I will be writing it on this blog.

"You can't promote principled anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people." — George Kent

"If only the British had held on to the airports, the whole thing might have gone differently for us." — Mick Jagger

"You can do anything as long as you don't scare the horses." — a mother's favorite saying recalled by a friend

A poem is an egg with a horse inside” — anonymous fourth grader

“My children will likely turn my picture to the wall but what the hell, you only get old once." — Joe May

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” — Ernest Hemingway

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth. Kurt Vonnegut

“If you wrote something for which someone sent you a cheque, if you cashed the cheque and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”Stephen King

The thing about ignorance is, you don't have to remain ignorant. — me again"

"It was like the aftermath of an orgasm with the wrong partner." – David Lagercrants “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

Never debate with someone who gets ink by the barrel" — George Hayes, former Alaska Attorney General who died recently

My dear Mr. Frost: two roads never diverge in a yellow wood. Three roads meet there. — @Shakespeare on Twitter

Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

"The mark of a great shiphandler is never getting into situations that require great shiphandling," Adm. Ernest King, USN

Me: Does the restaurant have cute waitresses?

My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

I'm not a writer, but sometimes I push around words to see what happens. – Scott Berry

I realized today how many of my stories start out "years ago." What's next? Once upon a time?"

“The rivers of Alaska are strewn with the bones of men who made but one mistake” - Fred McGarry, a Nushagak Trapper

Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stared at walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. – Meg Chittenden

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. – Benjamin Franklin

It’s nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of. – Shirley Hazzard

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence -- Bertrand Russell

You know that I always just wanted to have a small ship to take stuff from a place that had a lot of that stuff to a place that did not have a lot of that stuff and so prosper.—Jackie Faber, “The Wake of the Lorelei Lee”

If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

German General to Swiss General: “You have only 500,000 men in your army; what would you do if I invaded with 1 million men?”

Swiss General: “Well, I suppose every one of my soldiers would need to fire twice.”

Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.—Gloria Steinem

Exceed your bandwidth—sign on the wall of the maintenance shop at the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center

One thing I do know, if you keep at it, you usually wind up getting something done.—Patricia Monaghan

Do you want to know what kind of person makes the best reporter? I’ll tell you. A borderline sociopath. Someone smart, inquisitive, stubborn, disorganized, chaotic, and in a perpetual state of simmering rage at the failings of the world.—Brett Arends

It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

3:30 is too late or too early to do anything—Rene Descartes

Everything is okay when it’s 50-below as long as everything is okay. – an Alaskan in Tom Walker’s “The Seventymile Kid”

You can have your own opinion but you can’t have your own science.—commenter arguing on a story about polar bears and global warming

He looks at three ex wives as a good start—TV police drama

Talkeetna: A friendly little drinking town with a climbing problem.—a handmade bumper sticker

“You’re either into the wall or into the show”—Marco Andretti on giving it all to qualify last at the 2011 Indy 500

Makeup is not for the faint of heart—the makeup guerrilla

“I’m going to relax in a very adult manner.”—Danica Patrick after sweating it out and qualifying half an hour before Andretti

“Asking Congress to come back is like asking a mugger to come back because he forgot your wallet.”—a roundtable participant on Fox of all places

As Republicans go further back in the conception process to define when life actually begins, I am beginning to think the eventual definition will be life begins in the beer I was drinking when I met her.—me again

Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison.”—a state department of Fish and Game official explaining why the state would not go along with a federal plan to reintroduce wood bison in Alaska because the agreement did not specifically allow hunting

Each day do something that won’t compute – anon

I can’t belive I still have to protest this shit – a sign carriend by an elderly woman at an Occupy demonstration

Life should be a little nuts or else it’s just a bunch of Thursdays strung together—Kevin Costner as Beau Burroughs in “Rumor has it”

You’re just a wanker whipping up fear —Irish President Michael D. Higgins to a tea party radio announcer

Being president doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are—Michelle Obama

Sports malaprops

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel