I thought i might post some of my short stories just for the fun of it, check it out ans see what you think.
Insignificances
They both stared at nothing –- desirous of everything. They spoke nothing –- thought nothing –- maybe even felt nothing. Their processes were much deeper, much richer, a million gems dwelling ten thousand feet down –- and farther –- and all they whispered laid buried, unheard, unnoticed but by its faintest rumblings, the slightest tremor, the most fleeting glance. Their elbows touched –- through thick coats and cold — only the smallest amount of pressure, the split second of contact, both wondering if the other noticed, if there was recognized that briefest of insignificances.
***
Robert looked out his window at the long, lone highway that wound its way by his solitary house on the hill. He could see the whole of its descent into town, stark and dead. Weather had been cold for weeks and the snow, lose and dry, white dust in the hand of God. He watched as the wind danced it up into soundless curtains across the black asphalt. A lone pickup made its way down that chilled stretch, the sound of the engine foreign and strained in the cold.
And Robert knew Daniel would be waiting.
He always was, that one, waiting for God knows what, but not much longer. Soon, that road would be carrying more than one sole truck. Soon Daniel would be on that lone black way to anywhere else, anywhere that could actually be called home. Robert supposed waiting for spring was pointless. The thing would be long gone by then.
Daniel had been looking for roots his whole life, ones that would go down deep into the soil. He had been pulled to and fro these last four years; maybe, come to reckon it, his whole life. Now, watching how these days kept not quite dawning, half light shooting sideways and illuminating the world upside down and what-not, he came to realize that staying was doing nothing for him. There was just one more favor he owed, thing he just had to do ’fore he left. It could have waited the four months till spring if he had wanted it to, but he didn’t, so it wouldn’t. Being cold for a day was a small price to pay for being finally gone.
That God-forsaken tree had stood out on the hill, right-butt up against the forest for as long as anyone could remember. What was peculiar about the tree was not merely its age, or its height, or its girth or even the particular shade of its broad leaves in autumn as they died and fell. No, the one remarkable feature of its existence was the oak’s solitude. For as long as could be recalled, even before the logging and the exploitation, that tree had always stood near the forest, close enough to almost be in its shadow, yet it was not the forest. It was different. There was the tree and then there was the forest, and the two shared no commonality.
Robert watched as Daniel pulled up in front of his house. Both were already set to go, wrapped in four layers, long underwear and thick gloves. It would be a long walk and slower with everything they would have to carry. But a thing like this had to be done proper, with a certain amount of respect and dignity; that was just the way of it. They would go on foot, and return on foot. In any case, the snow was most likely too deep to do otherwise. The trek back would be slower, but they had always known that. Daniel simply stated his greetings, and the two gathered up the necessary tools and set off toward the snow-laden hill.
They walked in silence, a half hour, an hour, wind dancing that light white curtain and leaving not a sound. “I’ve decided to leave this place, Robert.” was all Daniel had to say.
Robert took a long time to respond, his breath heavy from walking in knee-high snow. “I know, been speculating you would for awhile now, snow coming in and that coldness in the bone. I know how it is. I’ve been seeing it happen my whole life, watching these people coming and staying just long enough to realize that there is nothing to stay for.”
Daniel sighed. “You know why I’m leaving though. Was never planning to stay as long as I did.”
“Neither was I, and that’s the truth,” Robert responded. “No one was, and watchin’ one by one as they headed off, sure, I’m 29 but watching them all go, I swear I could be fifty. I’ve been living here, enduring and watching as the world split. Yet what is there to show for it? A lot of tears but nothing to really plant myself in. I don’t blame you for leaving.”
“Knew your wouldn’t,” was all Daniel said.
Quiet now, he walked on and so did Robert, only their breathing heard between the two of them, at last coming to that which they had been looking for. Had they been talking, the sight would have surely silenced them. Covered in a thick layer of snow, iced and caked on, yet in all that disguise she was still clearly recognizable.
Robert had rarely seen a bolt of lightning so late in the year, coming out of the night sky end of November. The night had been a terrible blowing and whipping about with heavy pounding rain that by morning had turned all to ice, thick and hard. It wasn’t the lightning that had caused it, but merely served to weaken the tree in the first place. What really did her in was the ice, so cold and heavy and clear. Robert had heard the crack, early morning. It woke him up straight out of bed like a gunshot, sending his bare feet to shock on the cold wooden floor with a jump. Looking out the window, all the world a gleam of ice, he saw her and that was when he knew what he must do.
The two stood looking at the fallen tree, all those years now lying on the snow covered ground, twisted and tangled like some abandon child. There was no conversation. They both looked at that beautiful tree and set to work. Daniel began unwrapping the two-man saw and Robert began to clear off a section of the tree where it was the widest round. The work was done in silence. Push. Pull. Back. Forth. Fshweww. Weehew. Daniel was leaving. Push. Robert was stuck. Pull. Nothing would be the same. Back. Everything failed. Forth. It was cold. Fshweww. Robert did not want to put down roots. Weehew. Not here. Crack.
A cross-section. That was all he wanted, a perfect piece of time — round and round and round, marking with its relentless rings when it was good and when it was bad, years of plenty and years of lack. Just a cross-section to quite simply remember that some memories are etched in your every being, that watching as everyone left meant something, that there were things older than the highway and that long cold that eventually drove everyone away.
***
It was that circle of years that caught her eye. Robert had seen her before, at the diner when he went in for coffee. He did that a lot since Daniel had left. He had noticed all her peculiarities, the little things that make up people — an awkward step, a consistent sideways smile, a fleeting gesture, a hurried clumsiness. She had seen him, too, passing the hill on the way to work, saw as he built up the stone façade that now graced the front of his house. But it was that polished section of time, that snapshot of three hundred years, set like a gem, there in a circle of rock and mortar that made her stop and get out to stare.
Robert came out of the shed where he had been warming himself by the wood stove. He walked up beside her, lifting his hand to point, ready to say something profound about that prefect circle, but no words came. He just dropped his arm, elbows brushed, and they just stood and stared, maybe at the rings, maybe beyond them to where the tree had once stood, maybe at nothing, it was of so little importance now. Each stood in that perfect communion – that revelation of eternal solace and solitude. They quite simply were of no significance. He did not matter, same as she, with all her quirks and beauty — blonde hair just cut short and for the first time pulled back, put up – perfect.
END
