Fallen Winter: Cover

Here's the cover to my zine of short stories.  Obviously, still on drawing paper, but I've decided and this will be it.

Spring Ukrainian and Things to Come

I'll be releasing a zine at Quimby's on North Avenue within the next few weeks, named Fallen Winter.  It will have some of the short stories from this blog as well as some of short snippets, accompanied by some personal illustration (still in progress).  The above is... right, Owl, and is just a prototype.

Splitting Wood on a Cold Day

He had buried the dog as deep as the frozen ground would allow three days prior, twenty five yards west of a silver pond.  He stared down the snowy canyon at crystal reflections of powdery evergreens illuminating off the surface and he tried hard not to feel remorse.  In fact, he felt kind of silly for feeling anything at all when he thought of how his father shuffled through dog after dog during his childhood, never allowing himself any emotional connection; merely enjoying their company for the time that they had to breath and run and shit on this earth. 

            The wispy winds echoed throughout the canyon and, alone, he stood with black and red flannel, staring through cold brown eyes, as flakes fell slow, catching on his beard.  That image of a black-bagged mass with glossy moonlit reflections disappearing into the broken earth intertwined with the white draped coffin of his father and the heavy weight on his shoulders as he, too, dropped and disappeared beneath shovelfuls of moist clumpy dirt. He followed a bird circling in the sky and remembered the hot tears slowly streaming down his brother's puffy red face, mad at the world; mad at the weight on his shoulders; mad at him; mad at everything; mad.  And there, at the edge of that cold canyon, he stood, shrouded in white emptiness.

              The stiff canvas of his jacket purred when he walked into a snowy meadow off the back of his house.  He carried a smooth handled ax, which rested on his shoulder and a heavy iron wedge whose imperfect surface caught the threads of his brown cotton gloves and barbed out a few strands.  He glanced behind, almost expecting her to be trotting in his wake, but the deep boot imprints were lonely and filling with flakes, which fell slow and steady, the size of golf balls. 

             Ahead lay a fallen tree, fresh and uncovered aside from little mounding lines trailing across the frozen, antler-like branches.   He rested the ax against the trunk and looked back at the house, which was barely discernible through the speckled snow.  One golden window glowed bright at the back corner of the house where their bathroom was.  His eyes watered in the wind and he breathed deep lung-filled hot air into his gloves, warming the tips of his fingers. 

             He had sectioned the tree with a chainsaw earlier in bright morning, cutting the trunk into three-foot parts.  The saw dust was already lost in the snow.  He bent down and rolled the heavy trunk out of its comfortable sinking placement in the earth and, gripping the rim of its strong bark, he hoisted it upright and with one hand he buried the shimmering blade tip in the middle of the trunk.  Far to the left where he had just walked from, a snowy top heavy tree bowed to the canyon and he kind of smiled at it because it symbolized how he felt, but then, in the same moment, he let his dry-lipped frown return and disregarded it because it was just a projection from his own thoughts begging to be construed in the natural world. 

            Refocusing on the task before him, he removed the blade of the ax and replaced it with the wedge, tamping it in a bit with the blunt side of the cold iron.  And he thought why he must always be alone and why it seemed everything escaped him.  His father had disintegrated and his brother was away and his lover lived in another city and his dog died and his mom cried for him in hot summer nights and in cold winter days and he looked around that snowy canyon again with squinted eyes.  This burning feeling began torching his heart and blazed low, but hot, working itself up his esophagus, getting lodged in his throat, finally heating his brain and with a grunt he raised the blunt head of the ax and slammed with all his might on the tiny wedge, splitting the salmon colored, healthy wood in two.  The wood splintered and the wedge fell out of sight in the snow.  He fished it out, knocking the snow off on one of the split pieces and placed it back in his pocket.  Then, repositioning one of the halves, he quartered it with the sharp edge of the blade, swinging like he was trying to bury the stump rather than split it in two. 

            After he split three of the logs a steady drip of sweat beaded and fell from his nose.  He walked to the edge of the canyon and bent down, resting on the backs of his calves and he took a deep breath, staring still at the pond. 

            Fantastic golden memories began flooding his brain and the landscape changed from its icy desolation into a warm, fresh summer day with flies buzzing and cicadas screaming.  Bright green shoots of new growth swayed in the breeze across the mountainous valley, reaching for the sun, and in a path that weaves through the rocky crags, he saw a shirtless man with a glistening back, red bandana tied around his sweaty head, followed by a tank-topped girl whose shoulders were pink and whose white shorts were dusted a redden brown.  Finally, after the two had disappeared back into the shade of an evergreen, a brown and black dog came gliding past, accelerating to catch up to the man and woman, and they finally popped out of the shade and into the flat brush by the pond. 

            He closed his eyes and breathed deeper and deeper.  He forgot about the cold air stinging his cheeks and when he reopened his eyes, a grey-eyed girl with little amber halos around her pupils was standing in front of him with a slender smile and a sweating red forehead.  He pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and dabbed her forehead, grasping the back of her neck and kissing her deep.  Her body leaned into his and he wrapped her tight, holding on like it was the last time he'd ever see her.  They sat in front of the pond, the surface glimmering gold, and the dog nosed under his dirty hand waiting for him to rub her ears, which he did in slow circles. 

            Never did they speak and never did he feel like they had to because everything was simple and everything was digestible in that one moment. And she leaned her head on his damp shoulder and closed her eyes and he watched as she breathed softly and smiled like there was nothing in the world more that she needed other than his shoulder and the sun which beamed bright on her tanned legs. 

            His heart was full and his throat was kinked when he reopened his eyes and saw that barren canyon and that still frozen pond.  The snow fell steady and the sun was clouded grey and his hands were frozen solid, buried deep and clinched on the cement-hard ground.  He stood up again and wobbled, trying to find his footing in the snow and once he did he turned around, hoping that that beautiful comfortable image would return, but it howled silence and filled slowly, like a dripping bathtub with the plug stuck deep.  That burning feeling torched his heart and ran up through his throat and for the first time in what seemed forever he bent over and cried, sobbing grunts and dripping mucous, soaking his gloves, which were stuck to his face. 

            Pulling his head up, he turned and ran back to the ax and picked it up with his right hand, high on the neck, close to the blade, and he swung like a railworker into the side of the trunk, burying the blade deep enough to get stuck. And he continued to cry and pulled with all his strength to remove the blade, but it wouldn't budge.  He plopped his boot on the trunk and pulled again, feeling the muscles in his arms tense and close to tearing, and letting go he fell back into the snow and lay still for a while, staring at the sky.  Breathing as deep as his lungs would allow, sucking flakes with every few breaths he closed his eyes as hard as he could hoping to get his mind back to that image of the grey-eyed girl with little amber halos around her pupils.  But the harder he tried, the only image he produced, was that glimmering black mass of a garbage bag in the moonlight of a subzero night. 

            Pulling himself off of the ground and brushing off the snow that stuck to his canvas jacket, he walked back toward the house, leaving the ax sticking out of the trunk at a forty-five degree angle, pointing toward the hidden sun.

            When he opened the door and felt the warmth flush his face, he saw on the counter, a sweating low ball glass of amber liquid.  It had long been poured and was warm to the touch, with a sweaty reflection pooling toward the edge of the stainless steel counter.  He took off his jacket and removed his gloves, stripping all the way down to his cream colored long johns, which were sticking to his back and legs.  Pounding down the hall toward the bathroom, he opened the door and steamy warmth released from the swing. 

            She sat low in the tub with her hair wet behind her ears and didn’t look up when he sat on the edge.  She mechanically grabbed her glass and pulled it to her lips, sloshing cubes ringing as she drained the last sip, setting the glass back on the floor next to the tub.  He pulled off the last layer of his clothing, balling the long johns and tossing them on the floor.  Then, dipping his frozen toes in the warm water he sank deeper and deeper until the wet heat touched his chest.  He breathed in the longest breath of his life and exhaled slow, with eyes closed, and his face red.  The room was lit by candle and was golden on the backs of his eyelids and he tried once again for that comfortable image to reappear, but it evaded his conscious and the harder his mind ran toward it the faster it seemed to escape.

            As he was looking at the girl, lying in between his legs, she finally opened her grey colored eyes and closed them slowly once again.  Then, sighing on the exhale, she stood out of the water; dripping drops cascading over the curves of her body, and grabbed a towel next to the tub and began drying.  She whispered that she was pruning and left the bathroom shortly with a towel wrapped over the top of her head and another around the top of her chest.  When she pounded down the hall, getting softer with each step, he submersed his head in the water and screamed.

Owl

Perched in darkness with golden-green eyes glowing and head shifting silently, three-hundred-sixty degrees around, because her neck can do mysterious things and because unlike most, she can see, the owl waits.  

In a way, you could say she's preying, over a moonlit forest floor; praying for movement or anything to evaluate and perhaps lash out upon, rip apart and mangle to feed her growing appetite, but in a way, you could say that she's not even interested in satiation, rather the hunt; the idea of the hunt.   

Critters will scurry and their easiness isn't appealing, because she knows that they can't see her and in one swoop it could all be had and the hunt would be finished, and what a messy finish, she thinks, her feathers neatly arranged below those pointy tufts.  

So, she sits silently and calmly, on top of a snaky cage of branches, bursting out in right angles. And it sways at a calculable crunch from the steady pace of the elk, who is the vessel, unaware of her furtive, light presence, just searching for a clear stream and some brush to nestle in.

The Horse Capital

And there I was in horse country with a couple friends when it was bright outside and the horses were running fast that day, glistening muscles in the sun.  We decided that we had lost enough money and went "downtown," which was essentially a few main roads crossing in diagonals; all one-ways so as to clog traffic as often as possible to give the impression that it was, indeed, a downtown.  Jim looked at his watch often, praying for his time to be up so he could go home and not have sex with his fiancé and Jason had that look in his eye like he knew he was going to take advantage of some rich architect's stupid, beautiful daughter and Erik just left because he was too drunk and figured he should just go ahead and drive home.  It was a pretty normal Saturday afternoon in horse country.

            We walked to a pub from Jason's apartment where they had tables set up outside and eight dollar double bourbon n' gingers.  We drank the cool liquid and it warmed our eyes and half way down Jim decided it was time to go home and sit with his fiancé on the couch and watch interior decorating shows and comment on how they were going to arrange the apartment after they got married.  Jason returned from the bar with two more plastic cups full of the amber liquid and we both knew that it wasn't right to drink bourbon out of plastic but because we couldn't take glass onto the patio we had to make a really tough decision and the breeze was too enticing so we sat with shades on watching the people smile and spill drinks.  We were having a decent time, but of course that void of not having locked down a pretty girl still weighed us down and made us a little crazy and we didn't even really talk the whole time, but searched for prey to hunt and there were tons of ladies and they were surely drunk enough after the races, but that goddamned sun seemed to stifle any motivation. 

            "I'm dyin' here," Jason said finally.  "I'm telling you Daniel, I'm fuckin' dyin'."

            He took a long drink and removed his shades.

            "Yeah?"

            "Look at this place, it's wide open." He pointed at a few girls leaning on the brick wall of the bar.  "Let's just start playin', I'm tired of sitting around wondering whether or not I'll be jerking off tonight."

            The girls laughed and had those fake tan legs and flowery sun skirts just fluttering in the breeze and their hair looked shiny clean with thick healthy strands flowing. 

            "Well, okay sir.  Let's do it then."

            And as we stood up to walk toward the squeaky clean white teethed brown (but still white enough) beauties, a team of polo wearing large armed gel haired sunglass wearing bros stepped in and made the engagement and started with the classic manly grippings of the plastic cups and continued with uproarious laughter and complete brain-washed manipulation and the spell worked as the girls each one by one at different intervals of the show that was being played for them reached out their delicate arms with clear white tipped fingernails and grabbed the round arms of each of the guys and that was it.  The engagement was final.  They were set in stone and at such a miraculous speed too. 

            "I wonder what they said," I lamented lightly, turning on a heel, wheeling around back into the chair.

            "They didn't say shit. I mean, what could they have said?  You don't have to say anything when you're arms blow out the ends of your shirt and you just had your teeth whitened with a nice looking watch and Ray Ban sunglasses.  That's what they said. That's all they said and that's all that anyone needs to say around here."

            "Sounds easy."

            "Psh, you have to sell your soul to be that fucking stupid.  Look at em'! There's not one thought running through those meaty skulls.  You wouldn't do that.  I wouldn't do that.  We're more about the soul, that unattainable center."  Jason drained the rest of his cup and crunched it in his fists. 

            "They don't have soul, who the hell are you kidding?  We're not in the right scene.  We've never been in the right scene.  Unattainable center?  It's plopped right there under that skirt and it looks like it's far from unattainable."

            "That's what I'm talking about, man."  Jason stood up and went to the side of the bar where two drinks were poured. 

            I watched the group continue the bullshit and then walk away tossing the empty cups on the pavement.  They walked under the pavilion and disappeared into the breezy street.   

            

Bar Life

Green neon lights cut through the bar like a saw.  A sweaty crowd relished the bass beats and lost themselves in euphoric dancing, otherwise interpreted as an imitation of sex whereas the participants thrust their crotch into the back (or front) side of their counterpart.  It's a real jovial time; a release from the menial lives they lead during the week. 

I'm normally part of this sweaty crowd.  I, like the others, start off timid, smiling and feeling really uncomfortable until I start drinking.  After a few drinks a force takes control over the body.  The little man pulling the levers and cranking the handles becomes subdued and mute.  The mind lets the force field down and gives the body a green light to act like a dumbass. It is at this point where you try to find someone who is on your same level of drunkenness to have fake sex with. Most of the girls are fat and since everyone is sweating you can only imagine what that smells like.  Sometimes I've left the bar with the terrible smell of sweaty perfume infused into my sweater or t-shirt, which is fine for the drunken scurry home, but when you wake to that smell it is just a reminder of the big, fat near-mistake you almost made.  The strange thing is that you can pretty accurately gauge what kind of girl you were faking sex with the night before merely based on the scent of the perfume on your sweater or t-shirt.  For some reason, ugly girls wear acrid-smelling perfume and pretty girls wear delicious-smelling perfume.  You would think that there would be big discrepancies with a statement like that, but, hence the strangeness, there isn't. 

There was one night where everything went right and I woke up with delicious-smelling perfume on my clothes and a delicious-tasting girl next to me in bed.  I had a devastating headache and the odd urge to be alone.  And she sighed softly next to me, purring like a cat.