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.
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