I sat there in the cold morning. A
faint mist crept along my back yard. Its fingers tickling at the edge
of my porch, but never venturing further as if there were some
barrier between the mist and the treated wood. Treated wood, no
longer simply the growth from the earth it once was. Maybe that made
it unnatural now and thus forever apart from the elemental world from
which it came.
Yet as my fingers wrapped around the
warmth of my coffee mug, I saw the longing there. The soft caress of
a lover's fingers, mist gliding across wood like the lithe hand of a
master pianist across the edges of my makeshift barrier between my
home, my fortress and the wild earth beyond. Those tinkling digits
toying with a lover it could never have. I took a sip and smiled at
the overturning coal this image stoked in the back of my mind.
“I know the feeling old friend,” I
said to just me, the porch, the mist, and my cat. She stared at me in
that curious, judgmental way that only felines, dear friends and
significant others are truly capable of. Its that look that seems to
be in awe of your simplicity and simultaneously wondering when you're
going to learn from your errant ways.
“Alright, alright, I'll get back to
work,” I tease. But I know she cares not for what I do. Her
interest in the squirrel currently offending her territory is of far
greater interest to her than the simple clicking that comes from my
office each day. I'm sure she finds what I do incredibly boring. That
much time spent in one place is entirely wasted if it does not
involve napping. I'm not entirely certain that she's wrong.
So I leave my little sphinx to stalk
the backyard and remind the local vermin whose domain this truly is
while I retreat to mine. The domain of the office worker, the
entrepreneur (when they aren't busy making online videos to mentor
the masses on glories they have yet to achieve), and the writer. The
writer, of course, being the lowest of the three. What we do is a
hobby, unless we're one of those magical creatures like Neil Gaiman,
Stephen King or J.K. Rowling who managed to weave straw into gold
early on in their careers. The rest of us are odd creatures with a
habit of skulking in a room alone for hours at a time, accomplishing
nothing and studying a variety of topics online that likely has us on
an F.B.I. watch list.
I switch out my coffee mug for a fizzy
energy soda. It was one of those nights. I listen to the tiny
couples clink against inside of the can, creating some cadence that I
might be able to discern were I more musically inclined. The atonal
melody continues while I carve a hex into the wood of the desk and
sacrifice a live chicken to conjure the spirits of creative writing.
True creative writing, not the mind numbing “writing prompts” of
college essays.
Write about a time when you were
really happy.
Or:
A
small boy's toy boat is washed down the river.
Or:
She
tried to forget me, but I knew she never would.
I
shudder and toss the third one back to the discard pile with the
lyrics of washed up Emo singers and rapists to the trash bin where
they both belong. The second one is only interesting if there's a man
eating clown at the end of the stream, and I think somebody's already
done that. And the first one, really? Happy? Could we be any more
generic?
I
toss the book into the same waste paper basket as the Emo careers of
countless douche bags from the early 2000's and lament that the
chicken blood has gone cold and the muses aren't coming. I've got
feathers all over my office for nothing and my wife is going to be
less than thrilled when she finds this. One of those judging looks
described earlier is the best I could hope for. That and I think the
chicken's wings still have to be flapping while the incantation is
made to summon the divine power of story conjuring. This chicken
isn't flapping anywhere, unless I were to charge a few hundred volts
through it. Or is it a few thousand? I'm not sure where the cut off
point is between dancing undead chicken and poultry-geist flambee.
I
stare briefly at the wall socket, the image of the pop-n-lock undead
chicken dance amusing me far more than it should, and I cast all the
mystical implements aside, take a sip from the beat boxing soda can
and resume my story. I lament that it doesn't involve undead chickens
or the love child of morning fog and a sentient back porch that has
suffered decades of suburban caucasity and now warns the world of the
impending croc and polo shirt wearing Armageddon foretold by the
grizzled, ancient charcoal grill. But perhaps the next one might.
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