My Sister in the Forest. Part II - The Hunter.

William Forger was a man of gargantuan height and breadth. If you were to think of a large wooden cask of brewed hops then you will have an ample visualization of his chest. He rarely spoke to other people of the town and kept mainly to his cabin, which sat on the outer rim of the village. William was by far the largest man to ever live in our town. His shoulders were as broad as cliffs and in the snowy season children would follow him and jump, two feet at a time, into his boot marks as he sauntered from side to side with enormous lunging steps.

In the winters Forger would take two weeks time and cut wood in the Black Forest for all of the elderly folks in the village. For this he gained the compensation of baked goods and fresh bread year round from frail, withering old women. When he would go cottage to cottage to deliver wood the old women would, with shaking, aged hands, grasp his muscular forearms and think back to when their husbands were strong and capable. Many of them dead or deaf by now. Forger was the town’s head game hunter. He led hunting parties year round into the Black Forest to gather quail and deer for the town. He was fearless. He had a past that would make any man hard to the gentler side of life. Four winters prior he had lost his bride and his newborn son.

In the middle of a warm spring in 1806 he had taken a three days venture into the forest to hunt the elk of the western planes with three other men from the town. One day while he was gone his wife went to the edge of the wood to gather berries for a pie that she would bake for a family with a sick child. She gathered up her baby son in a basket filled with blankets and walked the two hundred yards or so to the wood’s edge.

She was more beautiful and graceful than words can describe. And, even if I tried, I would be doing the work of God’s hands a great disservice. Try to picture Eve if you can, the mother of all women. Her hair was an indescribable shade of yellow and her skin, flawless. If you were to look into her eyes on a clear sun-lit day you would think less of the day for it. She was kind and gentle, warm and giving. All of the women in the town loved her. All of the men wanted to be her husband and to do chores for her and to love her. But those jobs were for William.

In the summers leading up to her fifteenth birthday Forger would watch her as she would go to the creek in the wood and would wonder things about her.

How could something so beautiful be worthy of viewing by a man such as himself?

OR

How does a woman keep her skin so flawless in a world such as this?

He loved her from the first moment he saw her and when they were both of age they married. He built her the cabin on the edge of the town and they were happy and loved one another with an indefinable love.

When night had fallen and the lights of the cabin were still not lit Ms. Kreps, a mid-wife who lived in town, became worried and ventured up the gentle hill to the cabin. No lights lit, no one in the beds, just silence. Ms. Kreps ran down to Roger Rawling’s cottage to tell of the missing pair. Roger Rawlings was the mayor of the town, a strong stalky man with large hands and a scar that ran from his left ear to the bottom of his chin. He was an Indian killer from the early years. He didn’t speak of it much but everyone in the village loved him and respected him none the less. To find the missing woman and child he gathered two separate parties of men. One party to search for the wife and baby and the other to ride the three days to fetch William’s hunting group. But before the men had reached William the towns people had found the wife and baby, or what remained. For fifty feet in any direction it was as if a cloud had opened up and rained down red water on the lush grassy floor of the forest. The town’s people feared for their own safety, gathered what they could and returned back to their homes. The basket, the damp red blankets and his wife’s spotted, torn summer gown were left on the porch of the Forger’s cabin.

It took seven months for William to come down into town after that, and even then he only spoke one or two words here and there. Mainly you could find him talking quietly to Roger Rawlings about the needs of the elders or about what level the meat supply was at. He came to church on Sundays but remained in the back pew with his head bowed low. I like to think he was in prayer but I never knew for certain. I never did speak one word to that man.

Once that first year had come and gone after his wife’s murder he would go into the forest every spring for the full length of a month. At first people thought it was to hunt, but he never returned with anything. Just his rifle, ax, knife and a large hook connected to a length of chain. The hook and chain were used for hanging and cleaning deer and other large game. So as to why he took it with him into the Black Forest every year was a mystery. For, cleaning had always been done at cabin side where he could hang the pelts and skins of his kill more easily. The men never asked why or questioned what he was doing out there in the bleakness of those woods. They just knew that he did what he needed to do and that was enough for them. It was enough for all of us.

At a natural spring after a nine-mile hike.

She palmed the warm spring water onto her face again and again, rinsing the dirt of the trail from her cheeks. She knelt in such a way that he almost mistook her for a landed angel.

She stood slowly at the bank of the spring and as she rose he noticed that the heat of the water had placed a pinkish-red sunset hugh on her skin. he has always thought her to be beautiful but at that moment the sight of her made all of the thoughts fall out of his head.

With eyes closed she stepped a few un-balanced paces from the shore with water dripping off of her chin. For a towel she lifted her tee shirt to wipe the mineral rich water from her brow and temples.

He stared at the skin of her pale, soft stomach and, even with the past seven months being what they were, thought to himself,

"What a wife I have."

My Sister in the Forest. Part I - The Twins.

What you need to know are these things:

1. Grandmother has an appetite of ferocious proportions.

2. I fear my sisters dreams.

3. I will never again venture into the Black Forest.

4. I miss my sister.

Part I – The Twins

My sister loved when the fresh snows of November would fall slowly, trickling, sprinkling down upon the needles of the forest. One could, on a quite regular basis, find her sitting, staring with lingering thought, into the denseness of the Black Forest. Even with freshly laid snow she would find appropriate time to sit there on the edge of the small town. Constantly and frequently I would find myself sitting with elbows on windowsills watching her from behind the wavy, uneven glass panes of our home. Wondering, pondering her thoughts, sometimes in anticipation and other times in fear of the things that she contemplated.

From birth we were at odds. You see my sister was dead when she was born. The cord of my mother’s womb had strung itself around her neck and had made it impossible for her to breathe. The doctor's fumbling old hands worked quickly to untangle the slippery mess and once free he patted her back with the heel of his hand. Two minutes had passed before she made the tiniest of coughs and come to life, animated into the residence of the living right before our mother’s eyes. They say it was a miracle. I leave this determination to the hearer of this tale.

We are twins of age seventeen, she and I, both having deep chestnut hair with fair skin. Our fingers were nimble as were our toes. The knobs of our knees were of disproportionate size to the rest of our legs. They jutted out like crab apples sitting atop a naked tree branch. They were the subject of many a joke aimed at us by the Gillings brothers. Another set of twins that lived across the town from us. Incessantly annoying and unforgivably ugly. Between my sister and myself though, from a merely cosmetic stance we were, for all intensive purposes, perfectly alike, except for the scar that ran along the flat of my left foot. From ball of heel to tip of large toe I had been run though by an orphaned hunters knife while running in the Black Forest.

My sister and I had been playing a game of hide and seek. The sun had set below the foothills to the west and twilight came on like a deep veil over the forest. I was seeking and could not find her. I shouted and shouted for her. I was beginning to become scared, my shoulders becoming tense, as I grew weary of the forest. Fear crept on like a cold blanket.

“Isabelle!” I shouted.

I knew not where she hid and thus found myself at a crossroads. Knowing that I could not bear to be alone in the forest at dusk I yelled,

“This is no longer fun sister, I’m going home!”

I ran as though being chased. I ran as though if I were not to run death would have me. I ran because of the tales that the hunters would tell at my father’s table. I ran because of the things that my mind had created from tidbits of wives tales. I ran because I wanted to live.

As I had finally reached the forests edge my thin shoe split and I found myself prostrate on the forest floor, bare stomach aching on the frozen, compact powder snow. I slowly rolled over, reeling from the pain, only to see a large swatch of blood creeping over the white snow that layered the ground. The hunter’s knife had cut deep and had made short work of my tender skin. I began to weep and that is when my sister appeared. The crimson cloud of snow continued to grow as my sister stood idly by. I looked up at her to see her staring, without movement, just watching as my blood pooled in the heel of my shoe proceeding to pour out onto the snow. She made not a sound and said not a word, just watched, standing over me. Then finally, in utter monotone,

“I’ll fetch Mother.”

She walked away slowly with a lull in her step that made me sufficiently uneasy. I began to feel woozy.

That is when Isabelle was lost as a sister. She had become something else. She was someone that I did not know.

Jaq in his hospital room with the annoying guy.

As the man was asking his question the answer had already popped into his mind reeling in preparedness,

"It's red food coloring." Jaq mumbled.

The man persisted in his line of annoying questions. All the while Jaq suckled the tiny bottle of crimson red fluid. That is, until the nurse left the room.

Jaq lunged. Jumped then clung. Ripping the flesh of the annoying man's neck with his canines and incisors.

The annoying man tried to yell but Jaq had cut his voice box. Scalpel. On the table. Within reach.

"Yummy..." said Jaq.

"Uughggggggglleeee..." said the annoying man.

Comforting un-comforts.

I like beer. I do.

I unbutton my jeans when i'm home alone.

I read Steinbeck because I miss those times.

Even though I never lived them.

I hate running cold water over my hands in the winter.

Whiskey is more than liquor. But I don't need it.

Only 33 short years.

The stars were whispering and the planets were mumbling and then He said, "Hush."

And all was still.

Pluto made a quiet complaint about not being able to see.

Jupiter and Saturn kept on congratulating Earth on her new gift with their booming voices.

Venus was very jealous and stayed quiet.

Then finally, He powerfully said, "Quiet." And there was not another word. He asked his son if he was ready and the son nodded and then He turned over his shoulder to see if the Star was ready and he was as well.

All at once the earth smiled and giggled and the Star expanded and grew and shined more brightly than it have ever shone. Neptune and Mercury cried tears of quiet joy and Pluto continued to complain about not being able to see. Then all the massive bodies turned to wave their goodbyes to the star and he smiled one last bright grin and then faded out. A sacrifice for the Sacrifice.

Then, once again, everything was quiet. Everything waited. Everything was still and good and patient.

Twenty-four

They'll look back on twenty-four and all of their relationships that had gone by the wayside and will say things like:

"But, I learned a lot."

OR

"Whatever."

OR

"It just wasn't meant to be."

OR

"Fuck it."

But what they fail to see through impatiently blinded eyes is the future that is yet to be. The future that has already been created but not brought to fruition. The future that the Big Voice in the Sky has not yet whispered.

Car door.

Jainey has to drink the rest of the gin before she gets out of the car because she knows that if she doesn't that Chris will drink more than his fair share and then she won't be able to get a sufficient drunk and thus will not be able to forget the nights events.

The Robot and the Sparrow.

Coffee Shop

The one on 36th is for the freaks.

The one that sits at Elm and Regan st. is for mathematics grad students.

12th is too small to study in but is always filled with men, ages 36 to 55 playing chess.

49th is always filled with geeks playing games on boards.

Carmen st. is the one where the trendys meet. They have outside seating.

There is one on the second floor of the that laundry mat on 1st but they barely serve coffee.

I think it's a drug front.

Rock Tree st. is the hodgepodge where it's ok to be who you are, but if you go in and don't know what to order everyone gives you an odd look.

There is that Starbucks on 3rd, but...you know.

I bought a coffee maker.

But it's hard to find any oddly shaped older men wearing berets sitting in my kitchen.