“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”

― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Cedar Breaks

(Unfinished Sketch)

R had been hiding out at Fred and Ethyl’s house, in their basement. Fred and Ethyl weren’t their real names, of course, it wasn’t safe to know anybody’s real name – and they had this old-fashioned sense of humor. R felt safe in the basement but Fred and Ethyl said they had seen this non-descript car, so non-descript that it had to be ordinary on purpose, driving slowly around the neighborhood. Fred and Ethyl were worried and they kicked him out – left him in the woods.

The woods were mostly Cedar, Fred called it a Cedar Brake. There were a whole series of them along the lake, with thicker woods full of bigger trees and heavy brush, in between. R spent a lot of time looking at the Cedar trees nothing better to do. They were dark and twisted their trunks looking like misshapen limbs – bodies curled together. There was fresh new wood growing from roots up to the dark green fuzzy needles and a lot of old dead stuff mixed and twisted in.

R wasn’t much of an outdoorsman and it was getting hard on him, living in the breaks. He had plenty of food so far. On the way out from the basement they had stopped at this warehouse store and Ethyl went in and bought cases of canned food – chili, beans, some kind of ham. R knew he’d get sick of eating this stuff fast, especially eating it all cold, but what’s to do?

Fred had given R and old sleeping bag and a big sheet of plastic, in case it rains, but it hadn’t yet. The package said something about a painter’s drop cloth. He didn’t relish the thought of huddling under the sheet in a storm.

R had found a flat spot along the top of a little ridge above the lake. The trees here were thicker than down in the Cedar Breaks, and that’s where he set up with his sleeping bag, piece of plastic, and the suitcase he had brought. R tried to keep up appearances as much as he could, washing his socks and underwear out every morning down at the lake. His suitcase held his extra suit – wool, Italian, very expensive. Each day here, though, he wore some tan trousers and a dress shirt. He had two extra shirts but he cold tell they were going to get terribly worn pretty soon. He wished he had some more appropriate clothes – more suitable for living in the breaks. His suitcase also contained four fat green cylinders of money, big bills, wrapped in a rubber band. He had given two others (the smaller of the ones he carried) to Fred and Ethyl saying, “Here, take all I’ve got on me,” while keeping the rest hidden away tucked up inside the suitcase.

There used to be some sort of park along the lake. It must have been a big deal years ago – there were a handful of old run-down cabins lining a stretch of leaf-covered asphalt. R thought about breaking into one and sleeping there, but he was worried that he’d be found out – the first place to look – and the one cabin that he had stuck his head into through a torn screen had such an awful smell of old death he couldn’t bear to pry open the door. There were still people on the other side of the lake; he could hear the chugging diesel motors at night as they pulled giant camping trailers in and out. When the light was right he could spot old retired folks sitting in colorful folding chairs along the water. By their posture he guessed they had poles and lines in the water. R wondered if they ever caught anything.

It hadn’t taken very many days for R to fall into a rough uncomfortable routine. Without anyone to talk to, the days were already starting to smear. It was late afternoon and R was sitting at an old picnic table in a large Cedar Brake above the old cabins. There was only one seat board left – the other side was bare rusty pipe with flecks of corroded bolts that used to hold the wood. The top was missing the middle board too – but it was the least rotted of all the picnic tables left.

R bent over to flick a spot of dried mud off his leather loafer when the bullet whizzed by. It passed so close to the back of his neck he thought he could feel the heat radiating off the slug as it flew by passing through the back part of his shirt collar but missing his flesh altogether. Then there was the echoing report of the shot and the smack-crack as the bullet careened through some cedar limbs.

R threw himself to the ground and was up in a flash dashing through the thick maze of cedars as fast as he could. Another shot threw chunks of wood through the air. R caught a sudden smell of fresh shattered cedar; it brought back an involuntary memory of hiding in his uncles’ suit closet as a kid, smelling the fresh cedar and old wool.

R had seen his share of gunfire but it wasn’t anything like this. He was used to handguns in crowded city streets – the survivor was always the first to shoot, the whole thing over in seconds, the most ruthless and quick would be the one that survived. Everything was so close. R was always the first to fire.

This was different. R was being hunted with a high-powered rifle and as he ran he’d glace back with every twist and turn. He could see nothing. His mind raced with thoughts of camouflage and ex-military snipers, trained and paid – specialists in this kind of work.

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.”

― Anais Nin

Many Waters

(Twenty Minute Writing Exercise)

A thousand little streams screamed down the steep jungle mountainside and joined together into a quickflowing rocky river before leaving the coastal valley and dumping into a gravel delta formed since the last eruption. Here the river broke up again into rivulets dumping their sediment and spreading out until they reached the sea. The short stretch where the water all took the same course was called Zahouetek – a corruption of the native’s ancient language – a combined phrase that meant “Many Waters.” At least that is what Marvin had been told.

“I wrote in to the Guinness Book of Records People and told them to list the Zahoutek as the shortest river on earth,” Marvin said.

“Is that so,” replied Cynthia. She answered it as a disinterested statement, not as a question. Marvin answered anyway.

“Yes, it’s true. But there are these two rivers… the D River in Oregon and the Roe River in Montana. They were fighting it out for the shortest river until Guinness gave up and didn’t list the shortest anymore.”

“So, this isn’t the shortest? “

“No, I guess not. Still, it’s pretty short, isn’t it?”

Cynthia didn’t answer. She dipped a toe and then turned to walk back up to the house. For a second, she was silhouetted against the mist that rose from the cold river into the warm air above. Marvin thought she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. As she turned toward the house, she caught Marvin looking at her and her face clouded with anger as she spun away from his eager gaze.

She had not walked more than ten feet when the thumping sound of a helicopter started echoing down the valley.

“Oh! Oh! He’s coming back,” squealed Cynthia, her languid laziness suddenly dispelled by the sound. She started hopping and walking fast towards the little flat landing pad next to the house on.

“Shit! He’s coming back,” Marvin muttered as he followed, with a little less speed and a lot less enthusiasm. “I wish the damn thing would crash.”

“What? Marvin? What?” Cynthia asked without turning her head. “I can’t understand you when you talk and you’re behind me like that.”

“Sorry dear, nothing, nothing at all.”

The chopper was descending quickly down the center of the valley. It would land at the house before they could reach it. It was a small two-man craft piloted by Ralph McKenzie – a geologist that was on the island studying the volcano. At first, Marvin had welcomed Ralph’s presence. It was nice to have some new company on the island. Marvin had bought the property for its isolation and its natural beauty. He and Cynthia were the only people on the island – everything had to be brought by launch from Port du Monde. Even the servants commuted across the straight. Marvin thought that being alone with Cynthia would bring them together… but it seemed to get on her nerves.

When Ralph first showed and talked about the work he wanted to do Marvin gladly had the landing pad constructed. The trouble started right from the start, though. He didn’t like the way that Cynthia, his wife, stared at the work crew as they graded and finished the oval patch of gravel that the chopper would use. She seemed impatient, chewing her nails as the men slaved and sweated in the heat.

As the days went by and Ralph spent more and more time at the house, Cynthia’s interest in the geologist and the work he was doing up on the mountain grew. The little helicopter was the only way to reach the upper reaches of the volcano and, of course it could only carry Cynthia and Ralph alone.

One time Marvin insisted on taking a ride and visiting Ralph’s observation station, but he wasn’t impressed. The smell of sulfur and the roar of the gas down in the crater made for an uncomfortable atmosphere. Marvin couldn’t understand the attraction and never went back. Marvin was considering forbidding his wife from making the trip, feigning concern for her health, when, a month ago, Ralph banned it himself.

“The volcano is gathering power. I’m afraid it may erupt any day now. I don’t want to put you at risk, Cynthia.”

Marvin’s wife fluttered her eyes. “If it isn’t safe for me… how can it be safe for you?”

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Ralph said. “I’ve been doing this all my life. I know when the getting is good.”

By the time Marvin had reached the house, Ralph had already landed and entered the building. Cynthia went in after him and when Marvin strode up to the door, they both came out, pushing past him.

“Ralph says we have to go, have to go now!” Cynthia shouted at him.

“Yes, I’m afraid so, old boy,” Ralph said calmly. “The volcano is going to go any minute. The lava dome has cracked, I’m afraid it’s going to happen.”

Marvin was suspicious, but there wasn’t much he could do. “Well, I guess we better radio for a launch.” The servants had taken the day off, at Cynthia’s request, and had crossed the straight in the boat. “There’s no way off the island right now.”

“Well, that’s what I just now checked on, chap,” said Ralph in that awful cloying tone he used sometimes. “The radio is out, just came from there.”

“Out?” asked Marvin.

“Completely out,” nodded Cynthia.

“So you see, old chap, I’ll take the chopper and Cynthia across the straight and we’ll send a boat back for you. Simple as that.”

“Simple as that,” repeated Marvin. He didn’t like it at all. There had been plenty of time for Ralph to sabotage the radio.

So this is they would do it. Abandon him there, waiting for an eruption, no radio. He knew that launch would never come. And then Cynthia would be rid of him, and she would be with Ralph, her beautiful geologist. And they would have his money.

But what could he do? Marvin thought and thought. He couldn’t suggest that Cynthia stay behind, that wouldn’t look right. Ralph had to pilot and there was only room for one more.

“Simple as that,” was all he could say.

Cynthia looked way too happy and eager as she climbed into the chopper. Ralph didn’t even look at him as he spun up the rotors and took off. The tiny craft dipped through a bit of mist and then sped off over the sea.

“Simple as that,” Marvin muttered as it disappeared. “So that’s it,” he added. As an answer, the mountain grumbled and the earth shook. A large piece of the slope tumbled off and crashed into the river, throwing up a wall of water and foam.

“Well, I guess ol’ Ralph wasn’t kidding, was he?” Marvin said to nobody in particular. “Well, he thinks he knows everything, but he doesn’t know it all.”

Marvin walked quickly down to the edge of the water, where there was a little shed. He dialed the combination and pried open the door. Inside, hidden under a dark tarp, was a small, plastic kayak, with a paddle bungied to the seat. Working quickly because the mountain was shuddering again, this time more violently , Marvin hauled the craft down to the river. He slid it in from the shallow bank, undid the paddle, and set off as quickly as he could.

“They think they know everything, but they don’t know it all!” Marvin sang as the little boat shot through the shallow gravel bar at the end of the river and coursed out into the sea. He had kept his little kayak a secret – it had come over on the launch and he had stuck it in the shed while Ralph had Cynthia up on the mountain in his little helicopter. Marvin grinned as he paddled. The straight would be a long trip, paddling by hand, but he knew he could make it. The two of them, they would have their story already, how Marvin couldn’t make it, how he had sacrificed himself so they could live. But he would fool them, he would show up, very much alive, and asking why they hadn’t sent the launch when there was still time.

At first, the little craft skimmed across the waves, but Marvin noticed it getting slower and slower. At first he thought it was only fatigue, but he realized the boat was suddenly riding a lot lower in the water. He twisted around and saw a quickly flowing leak filling the inner floatation cell of the kayak with water. Running his had back he found a hole, a big hole. It had been plugged with some red putty or something, and it had dissolved in the water. He was sinking. He was going to drown.

“I guess they did know it all, in the end,” he said, as the red plastic boat slipped beneath the waves. The mountain behind him let out a roar of agreement.

“Spider venom comes in many forms. It can often take a long while to discover the full effects of the bite. Naturalists have pondered this for years: there are spiders whose bite can cause the place bitten to rot and to die, sometimes more than a year after it was bitten. As to why spiders do this, the answer is simple. It’s because spiders think this is funny, and they don’t want you ever to forget them.”

― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys

The Ubiquity of Spiders

Sam Monaghan’s father had moved his family – Sam and his baby sister Brenda – out to the tiny town of Gilmer right after his wife had been attacked. They had lived in a brownstone in the old meat-packing district – they felt like urban pioneers. Until the one afternoon when Sam’s mother, Paula, came home from work to find the two tweakers that Sam’s father had hired to paint Brenda’s nursery waiting.

In the city, Sam had been an elite baseball player – the offensive star of a select team, The Bombers. In Gilmer, however, he had to suddenly give up the sport, which left a frustrating gap in his life, like a missing tooth in his jaw. The attackers had used his bat on his mother and he couldn’t bear to hold one in his hands again.

“Sam, I wish you would make some friends in the school here,” his mother said to him as he pushed her chair out onto the porch so she could watch the sun set.

“I know mom, I’ll try. I just don’t have anything in common with these kids.”

“What about Duane, dear? He lives on the next farm over, you can walk there whenever you want. He’s only a grade below you.”

“I’ll see mom. I’ll see.”

She was talking about Duane Clankman, who was a year older than Sam, even though he was a grade below.

The walk to the Clankman farm wound down through the creek bottoms, on an old abandoned road, not much more than a couple worn wheel ruts and a rusting iron bridge missing most of its roadway. The riot of weedy creekbottom swamp forest grew in from the sides and over the top until the way was a winding green tunnel.

The thing was, Duane had a cool old barn on his family’s farm. Over the start of the school year, Sam began to get in the habit of walking over there. The loft of the barn was full of hay bales, and Duane had arranged everything while the loft was being filled so that there were tunnels in the hay. They would pull a bale out of the opening and then crawl down a series of narrow tunnels into a pair of secret rooms hollowed out. Duane had even thought of leaving small openings for light and air.

Sometimes other kids, usually Frank, whose father was missing somewhere overseas, and Maria, whose father roofed houses would meet up there and the four would crawl through the tunnels and sit in the rooms talking about their friends, their school, their hopes and their dreams.

As the fall fell away, the sun began to set earlier and earlier. The kids smuggled some old flashlights into the hay so they could see their way out, though they would turn them off and sit in the darkness whenever they could. One day Duane showed up with some old candle stubs and a pack of matches from a bar in Broadtown, but the others convinced him it was too dangerous to light candles in the hayloft.

He’d stay as long as he dared, then Sam would rush home along the overgrown path by the light of the set sun, smeared gray and orange across the wide country sky.

“It’s late, Sam,” his mother told him as the screen door slammed shut behind him. “I don’t want you walking back from the Clankman’s in the dark.”

“It’ll be all right, Mom, there’s nothing out there, nothing to worry about.” Same saw a flash of pain across her face and the falling from the uneven spot where her broken cheekbone hadn’t healed quite right. “Really, Mom, don’t worry about me. It’s safe.”

“Well, I guess…” she said. “Here, take this flashlight with you every time, though, it’ll make me feel better.” She reached into a paper bag with a receipt still stapled to the edge and handed Sam a big four-D cell metal light. “I had your father pick this up in town for you. The nights get really dark out here.”

Sam ran his hands over the bright metal ridges along the long, heavy handle. The switch on the side had a solid, firm feel as he clicked it on. Even in the bright kitchen the beam stared out clear and strong… Sam flicked the beam into the shadows behind the table and watched the darkness flee. He grinned and felt his heart jump – this was so much better than the cheap plastic lights they had been using.

That night Sam purposely stayed around the Clankman’s until it was dark as pitch. He wanted to use his new flashlight on the way home. He walked as far as he could until the night was so black he literally could not see his hand in front of his face. He raised the heavy torch and slid the metal slide switch. The light leaped out, poured from the glass lens and the path ahead jumped into view.

He could see the twin ruts running through the center of a tunnel of scrub. He could see the archway of plants, gray-green in the beam. He was not expecting the jeweled constellations of bright lights that surrounded his path.

All along the way, bright twinkling blazing spots shot back at him. Some were white, and some were bright green. They were everywhere and Sam jumped back from this beautiful mystery. Then he gathered himself, swung the beam, and walked through. All along the creek bottoms the fiery jewels, yellow-white and emerald-green, surrounded him, leaping into life whenever his light touched them, blinking out when it swung away.

He felts his soul lightened by the sight and walked through the jeweled gauntlet, crossed the rusted old bridge, and up through the forest on the other side. The lights persisted through the creek bottom scrub and ended when he reached the fields around his family’s own place.

Sam through himself into bed, excited about the lights, flicking his flashlight under the covers, until he finally fell asleep with the torch on, still clutched in his fist.

He was dismayed to find the batteries almost dead in the morning, the bulb only a faint orange glow. He gulped down his breakfast and rushed out early to meet the bus to school. He wanted a few minutes in the salmon dawn to look at the creek path and see if he could figure out what had made the bright jewels the night before.

As he walked down toward the creek he peered into the scrubby brush, covered with thick twists of thorny vines, he immediately saw the white tufts of webs thick through and between the leaves. He picked up a stick and poked one of the webs and jumped back as a huge brown spider came crawling quickly out, jumping up onto the stick almost to his hand.
At that moment, he heard the bus horn calling him and he had to abandon his quest and run for the stop.

At study hall he started pulling out the encyclopedia and then asked the librarian for help finding books on spiders. It didn’t take him long to find a picture that looked what had jumped out at him that morning.

It was a wolf spider. The book said they were very common. He felt the hair rise on the back of his neck when he read, “Their eyes reflect light well, allowing someone with a flashlight to easily locate them at night. Flashing a beam of light over the spider will produce eyeshine. The light from the flashlight has been reflected from the spider’s eyes directly back toward its source, producing a “glow” that is easily noticed. This is also especially helpful because the wolf spiders are nocturnal and will be out hunting for food, making it easier to find them.”

So that was it – the white lights were bits of water clinging to the webs and the green lights were the spider’s eyes. He sat and thought about that for a while. He thought about walking through the path, past and underneath thousands of wolf spiders. The thought didn’t bother him. He wasn’t sure why, but the spiders didn’t frighten him. Their green lights in the flashlight were too beautiful.

After school he told the other kids at the Clankman’s about the spiders. Frank didn’t seem to care, Maria was frightened, “You mean those spiders have always been there, we just didn’t know about it until you shined that light?”

“I suppose.”

“Uggh,” she cringed, “That really creeps me out. I’m never walking down there no more.”

Duane’s reaction surprised Sam. He was angry.

“I can’t believe it, all those nasty bugs down there, living along my road.”

“It’s not your road, Duane, Beside, there not hurting anything.”

“Still, who told them they could do that.”

Sam wasn’t sure what Duane was so pissed about, but he hardly talked any more that afternoon. When it was dark Sam put the fresh batteries he had brought from home into the flashlight and tried to convince the others to walk down to the creek with him and see the spider’s eyes. Nobody would go.

Disappointed, he walked home by himself, and barely stopped to look at the lights, though they were as thick as the night before.

The next morning was Saturday, and Sam walked back to look at the spider nests. He was curious about where the wolf spiders went during the day and if he could find any of them. When he looked across the bridge at the path on the other side, he saw Duane already there.

He had a big metal can with a hose running out of the top of it. There was a handle attached to the top and Duane was straining to pump the handle up and down as hard as he could.

“Duane, what are you doing?” Sam called out across the old bridge.

“I’m gonna kill all those damn spiders – that’s what I’m gon’ do, dammit,” said Duane.