Friday, May 29, 2020

The Chippening

          “When I was young my father would spend summers mending fences and clearing brush around our farm. Every morning I’d run to the window, just as he would cross the tree line at the edge of our homestead and disappear for the day. I can still picture him in his overalls, caked with dirt and muck, and swinging his wood ax, it’s long wooden handle smoothed to satin by use and the passage of time.
          At dusk he’d return, his hands would be cracked and blistered from the heat of the sun, glistening from the sweat of his work, and battered by the order he was laboring to create.
          His ax, he’d return to its place with force, into the side of the stubborn old swamp maple just below my bedroom window. Each day, slicing though the air and chopping a new notch in the body of the tree. It was as if he was putting the day to rest with the last bit of strength he had left. Each day leaving a new chink in the armor.
          I can still hear the - CCCRAACKK - of the ax. It was like the sound of a slap. A single note of applause. Try it .You can mimic it. I swear it is the same noise. Each morning he'd take the ax. Each night he’d return it - CRACK.
          Today, when I think about it...when I try to really remember those hot summer days...I struggle to picture him coming home. I can’t visualize him walking up from the woods. Nor can I see him tired, or triumphant, or defeated from the day. And I certainly can’t see him replacing the ax. And maybe - the more I think about it - maybe it is because I never did see him come home? Maybe I couldn’t watch, maybe...he just looked too tired, too hunched, and too broken.
          But I can feel it, the same way you can feel a rainstorm or the color of dusk, you know? I can still feel him coming home...and I can hear the sound of it. I remember the crack.

Every evening. Crrrr-Ack.

A little deeper. CRACK.

A little deeper still.

          Then came that morning. The morning of 'the Chippening.' I ran to the window expecting to start the day, except, it was much later than usual. And when I looked out from the window, the ax and my father were already gone. The ritual was broken; all that laid behind was the tree. The old battered maple, no longer upright. No longer standing. Its top laid low around its base, its branches looking up at its trunk, roots and crown now level with each other. It must have splintered and fallen in the night.
          The odd part was that I never heard it fall. When my father came home at dusk, I heard the CRACK, like I usually do, but I never heard the tree fall.

I saw the ax, I saw the deep cuts...I saw the Chippening.

Deep down, even then, I thought it would hold.

Deeper and deeper, I saw that ax make room in the trunk of that tree. Deeper and deeper, until there was not enough to hold the weight. And then that morning came, while I was in bed, while I wasn’t there, while I wasn’t watching - it toppled.

No one was there to see it.

I was only there to see what was left. The remainder. The Chippening.”

***

          Patrick looked at the man, giving the man’s story a beat and time to linger. He considered everything he said, took a large gulp of suds, and responded thoughtfully, “I think it would make more sense if you called it ‘The Chipping.'”

The man finished his drink and let Patrick buy his next round.

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Trust the Process



Undecided, Dave began to sink into the muck.

As frenzied grains of silt muscled over each other to smother him, he thought, "Maybe the voting process here in the Kingdom of Mud is dirty?"

“Pppppthhhit,” raspberrying the grains lemmying into his mouth, he finally conceded, “Alright, you win! It's a great Kingdom!”

Victorious, the fine silt cheered. In unison they ebbed, erred, and burped Dave onto the shoreline of the muddy pit.

United, the dirt droned, "Mmmmmajority rulessss."

Dave, catching his breath, remembered the rest of the world beyond this isolated hole and this very vocal minority.

He settled.

Monday, May 11, 2020

Hi, I'm Dave.

The voting started promptly at the beginning of time.

Air didn’t bother showing up, quite literally, gone with the wind. And water, well, water flooded the polls early but couldn't collect enough to sway the moot.

Eventually it came down to Fire, the most combustible, who sparked some interest and then wanted a recount before there was even a vote. However, this protest was stifled when Earth shook things up with her nominee, Dave.

Dave waved, and it started to sink in. He spoke, "Hi, I'm Dave, and I think I'm ready to be your guy."

He was not ready.