He sat and stared into the clean, sterile confines and vast emptiness of his office. It was something that had become a ritual to him; the daydreams and deep trances that seemed to overcome work lately. Outside a window and below him, men dressed in their daily routines and formulas scurried around to and fro like insects on the face of the earth’s corpse. They came back and forth in their freelance slavery; crawling in and out like such, from her recesses and from the small places they inhabited and holed. He had watched them for far too long, and wondered if anyone of anything watched him, or cared of his own little movements.
He was a man fat off the land, a well to do sort who had monetary status and value, and could buy most the things he wanted, or at least, some. Yet, as he sat and stared at the movements of the clock, something within him was dying.
He often thought of himself hanging by the neck byway of rope or cord, and swinging from the ceiling in the office, and sometimes in the luncheon room, perhaps.
And when he felt this it was not in the sense of dread, but a great relief of pure golden joy, and it poured over him with release and calling. It beckoned him, and pulled at his arm, and he wanted to unbuckle his belt and wrap it as fast as he could around the nearest affixture and be off, by god- off to the outright magic realms of either deep sleep or high adventure. He could envision himself shattering the window with a chair and climbing out into the open air, and screaming at the freelance slaves below to slip off their collars and throw off the clothes that strangled them. And he felt the wind on his face as he envisioned himself jumping out of the window and praising the benefits all the while, before being plunged into the ground and thus released like a bird from the jaws of a snake. There was no survival or danger in his life or work, other than the dangers of excess and decadence, and he found he had pin pointed this now as the malady, which was afflicting and killing his spirit.
He shuffled home through the other automatons and made his way through the streets and machines and went through the usual movements and paces that resembled a funerary rite in a cold parlour. He took the elevator to the floor of his apartment, where he lived alone and when he got inside he spilled onto his favorite chair and fell into a deep sleep.
He could hear his grandmother calling and he smiled. There was a farm and golden field he was standing in. He was dreaming; something he loved to do in life, and it was all he had. He could see his grandfather with a strange look on his face that turned to a sprawling smile as he held up a stringer of big, fat fish.
“I caught these slimy, arrogant things there, Willy-boy; caught the devils there in the well springs!” His grandfather said, laughing.
“The well spring of life!” He said extravagantly, turning to him in an exact replica of the scene of his past, as he handed the big catch to his grandmother, who would take the devils in, no doubt, and take off their heads and fill them with stuffing. He could smell something warm and pure, like a mixture of sunshine and green, running water. It was so real, like he was a boy again. The faculties of his mind were something strange indeed, the industries of phantasm and memory that produced goods and replicas of exquisite antiquities. He smiled as he dreamed and this was the only time he ever did anymore.
He was awakened by the ringing of a phone, and tried to ignore it and chase the dream. He was metaphoric and dreaming of the big rivers and creeks that ran along the old farmland he grandfather had owned in Arkansas. He had been there once, and had always wished to return, though time had stolen his grandparents and his youth and made him a prisoner to his daydreams and ghosts. He was getting better at his dreams; going further- and yet now it was invaded and intruded upon by the ringing of the telephone on a desk.
He got up and answered the call, and one of the strangest, auspicious things that had ever occurred to him had happened. It was his brother, and he sat and listened to him, with a strange sort of feeling as a great revelation unfolded.
His father’s estate, apparently, was being sold off by the feudal lords that were his uncles and kin. His father had died over a year ago, in a big hospital surrounded by family. He listened and divined something at that moment, something that made him rise into a fervent pose that demanded action. His grandfather’s estate was owned by his father and now he had all the means to seize what was rightfully his.
“ I want that acreage, my brother.” He stated, and in a manner that was firm and sure.
He couldn’t believe it- and the dream before- it was like magic!
“There is a few acres, Will, but good god, man, it is in Arkansas! It’s not the farm in Virginia we are talking about here, but a place granddad bought for fishing and you know he died there after grandma passed but-“
“The well springs-“ Willy interrupted, slurring his speech like a drunken man in a dream.
“What, Will?” His older brother, Jim, seemed puzzled. He was never close to Willy, anyhow, and thought him a bit odd at times; a plodder and dreamer.
“No, shut up, Jim. I want that land- I don’t care, I’ll hear nothing else.”
And after the thing was sealed, he felt a certain feeling that was like a precursor to something great and new ahead. That night he could hardly sleep, and planned the whole thing out to himself; he would take the money out of the bank in the morning, and make all the necessary measures and arrangements needed to make the whole thing happen. This is what he needed- he truly had to have. It was like magic; like something from a dream stepped out to him and made itself real. He would take the vacation, he schemed, and it would be permanent! He laughed to himself, like a prisoner who found a hole to escape by morning, into the free air at last! He would never work again- No; he would never go back to that place, that thing which turned him grey and useless. No sir, he reasoned, he had worked hard and slaved the years away and he would spend those savings on a way out- a trap door to uncertainty and suspense.
“Thanks, grandpa..” He muttered to himself as he slipped into a deep, velvet sleep.
The next morning he took care of all the paper work of the project and never showed up for work. He spoke again with his brother, shook his bank man’s hand, and went back to his apartment and awaited his brother’s arrival.
It had been simple and clean; he took it to himself to redeem the land taxes with his bank credit and it was all done in Arkansas. The estate was a mere six acres with an old, rotting cabin that was overgrown and surrounded by thick woods now. It would not be the farmlands he remembered, and they were overtook with brush and owned by others now, anyways, but it would be by the green river and he would have the old cabin.
“Perfect..” He would mutter happily and dream-like to his brothers descriptions and factual remarks of the place. Jim began to sense he was a little mad from work, perhaps.
There was a knock at his door, and his older brother, who seemed to take charge of his affairs, admitted in a friend from the office.
”Of course, it’s unlivable Willy and you can’t ever-”
“No, that’s nonsense, Jimmy. I intend to move there and clean it up. I intend to live there.” He said, and the other two men were astonished at this.
“What about work-“ It was Larsons, a mole from the office, and somewhat friend.
“I am not going back- not now, not ever.” He stated simply, and he meant it.
He explained he would live off the land, away from the noise and invasive machinery, and that that was all there was to the matter.
“I will never work again- Not for them. Only for the land.”
“Listen, Will, survival is not played by the same rules anymore. Today it’s different. You simply cannot live without work. You’ll get out there and see for yourself how hard that is.Now, listen, I know what you’ve got in your head here and-“ But he cut Parsons off and ran both him and his brother out. As he was pushing them both with his hands out the door, Jim handed him a package from his bag.
“It was some of granddad’s old stuff, Will. The contents are mostly old papers and stuff. No one else is interested. Here you go.”
And then he hurriedly closed the door and went inside to examine the package.
He could hear them whispering something outside for a few moments, and waited until they left finally. He then tore into the package and went over the papers. He read them over and placed the official documents into a envelope with the deed and afterwards noticed an old map of Arkansas in the back of the package. He went over it that night, tracing the path from New York City to Arkansas, that long trail to which he was destined to travel. And when at last, he had divested all there was to know about the arrangements of travel and had packed his things, he returned to the old, thinly worn map. He felt of it and smelt it- It was the smell of life and living again, and of nostalgia and return. It had been in that very cabin. There was even a line of eccentric poetry on the back, written in his late grandfathers hand. It read:
I found here there, in youth again… and she came to me and took all I had
Her light was so white
He let it ring around in his head for several minutes. How poetic of the old man, he thought, and what a romanticist- to have written that about Grandma. Or maybe he was talking about the land. All was fine as he took he last sleep ever in that damnable apartment. Tomorrow he would be off!
The next few days he spent in travel and going through the motions of transferring at stations and stops by bus and motor car. It was exhausting, the ride from the city to the depths of Arkansas and it began to rain more the lower down the highway and southward of his departure. He took no care in enjoying the travel or scenes until he got into the deep green hills of the south where he began to look around in wanderlust like a boy again. He saw the pastures rolling green and cattle in fences. There were rabbits hopping about in the fields and in the latter part of the night they saw a deer run across the highway and leap a fence. There were woods like up north, but something seemed different somehow. He and his driver took a night in at a motel and again traveled in the morning to his destination. As they got nearer to the land by some fifty miles, he began to see old houses, abandoned and overgrown, and was touched by a strange feeling of beauty in them. They became more and more and even a few whole towns and he wondered about things that were vanished and lives that once were. As they came closer to the place, the roads became more windy, and they were lost for a few hours until the driver worked out the directions with someone at a store. And then, as they turned onto an old rocky road, he felt a certain consanguinity with the tree tunnel and pathway through the woods and knew he was there. He had only been there once in his life, and this made the whole thing so much more exotic and magically nostalgic. They came into a large field and Willy sprang on his feet from the motor car. He motioned for the driver to leave. And never return, he thought. He was disconnected from any sort of conversation and he shunned away the driver and instructed him to turn around and travel back to his profane world or errors. He laughed to himself.
“Go on, get. I can walk from here.”
And he took off down through the new, green grass and with a mere bag of clothes and and another with some food and other various items he had packed. All in all, his belongings were scant, and the driver watched him and wondered if the man was insane.
He walked into the greenery and overgrowth and reasoned it was surely wild and unmanned for many, many years. The old cabin stood there before him now, and he felt a feeling that could only be described as return. But to what, he wondered? He had only been here once, after all, but it was simply something he could not explain.
The chill of spring was still in the air and many sapling trees and weeds grew all around the place and into the small porch in the front. The old door was in bad shape and he quickly flung it open with a look of wonder and it revealed the interior of the place. It was old and wouldn’t last too much longer but he didn’t care, and was dead serious about its longevity when he thought of it outliving himself. The old familiar smell was gone, and the vacant smell of old dust and decaying wood permeated the aura of the inside. There was a wooden rocking chair and a small cot only, as if his grandfather had got rid of any other furnishings. An old cast iron wood stove was the only thing in the room that conjured up any sort of remembrance to him of society, and he chuckled to himself as he admired the old cob webs that were void of their former masters, just like himself. Had he gone mad, he wondered? Indeed, mad with the love of life and living! There was a small window covered with some grime, and an old spittoon of brass was under it, beside the cot. He sit down his things in the simple room. The walls were crude and rustic, cut from the very land itself by hand hewn oak and cedar logs and mudded with clay earth. Some light came in from the walls, but Will didn’t mind atall. The ceiling was vaulted and bare with only wood rafters. He noticed a few old jars and things in a wooden crate that was placed on a board on the rafters. He went through it as he sit on the ground like a child. He found an old oil lamp and some oil, and some ruined canned vegetables in a jar before finally finding underneath it all two glasses and an old bottle of homemade wine. His mind was feverish with delight now- he had found a connection to his grandfather for sure,now! He put the things away and went outside to examine the roof. It was an old tin roof and probably had a few leaks but what did he care about that? The place, no matter how shabby and dirty was a hundred times better than the confines of that apartment.
He breathed in the spring air deeply and stretched out his arms. Then, he watched for a moment as the sun sank and the night overtook him. He would rest tonight, he thought, and walk to the old grocery store in the morning to buy some things. He was already chewing on an old piece of straw he had unknowingly picked up from somewhere and if his brother and the stiffs at the office could only see him now, he knew they would think him mad indeed. He would sleep on his bag tonight and put on a good sweater and sleep off the trip and in the morning he would start his new life. How great he felt as he fell backwards onto the old cot and the moonlight streamed in from the dirty window above.
When he awoke he stumbled outside to find the morning sunrise and the ambience of the dew covered wood and mist, which seemed to pour out all around like a ghost and hang in the sweet scented air for him to take in for many moments before he set out on foot to the store. He could hear the creek running its secret mysteries by it’s sound and knew it housed the life which he sought. He stopped and was charmed by the lady-like wonder of the creek an he thought of how he knew it’s name not. Oh, how sweet was its sound as it carried through the trees and flowed it course along the cove. It took him with it for a moment, and he thought of the slimy, fat, arrogant fish that must be swimming in there and this made him lick his lips and smile. He thought of his granddad then, and could almost here him on the phantom winds, and he was utterly lost in a daydream. He could see a fish jump on that hot day and onto the banks of the creek as his grandpa exclaimed:
“Look at the god damned things, Willy! They’re popping out of the god damned water!”
He could almost see him there, with a look of astonishment and exaggerated wonder almost akin to fear. And he heard the early caw of crows that bitched and fetched plump insects that popped up from the jaws of warming fields like it was meant to be. He was simply overtaken by it all, the pure beauty and was baptized beyond god and man in a blasphemy that transcended all love and being. A certain thing akin to fear in his own right followed him, a certain ecstasy coupled with uncertainty and the wide openness of it all. It followed him into along the highway that lay a few miles outside of the woods and did not let him tire after five miles, even, of walking afoot to the grocer. It was like he was in love with some fair maiden and he could be whisked away like a schoolgirl to fairyland.
When he arrived at the store he must have looked strange in his office attire; his casual slack and button up shirt and loafers. It was not matter, he reasoned; he would have the loafers walked into nothingness and his silky city boy shirt torn by bramble and briar and then they would see. The decisions he made concerning his purchases were quick and clever and already the plodder in him died; that saboteur that toiled away so much of his life already in that dreaded office. He examined the store and found what they had that he would need, and he knew it was a game that was being played out of life and living. He found no fishing pole but instead some hooks and line and bought them and a new cast iron skillet in the camping isle of the store. The store was not bad, but it was ripe with the goods of a city and society he no longer wanted to be a part of. He thought about the vegetables and agreed he would buy them long enough to make due until he could buy his own. The section had many odds and ends of things appealing to tourists and campers of the Buffalo River, and they were outfitters of canoe rentals and shuttles for travel. There was the offer of guided tours but all these things he shunned. He would cut his own path, he thought, and doubled up on the cooking oil and canned meats. He didn’t let it bother him because it was temporary, and besides, he would overcome the machine eventually. Already, he was surely on his way, he felt. He bought matches and something to drink; a water for now and he would have to figure out the sure way to a good spring.
Upon his first day, it was like a new eternity, and he figured a formula involving his trips to the highway side store, and how he could have what he needed and it could be carried back in intervals and he could have it all arranged by spring’s end.
When he returned back to the cabin he had discovered a rat staring at him above a package of saltines he had packed away. The thing was as big as a small dog and caught him off guard at first. He followed it to a corner where there was a pile of rat feces and a hole. Within the next few days he guarded his crackers and food goods with a sense of survival and a no nonsense approach that was closer to his grandfathers demeanor than his own former self. This made him feel big and strong, and an heir to the wellsprings of life and living, and he set up post at night, until he finally killed the thing with a spear he found that was natural and fashioned by nature herself on the third day. It was sharp and served death to the intruder. He even gave the rat a burial outside and returned him to the earth. The rain came down lately and he did not roam the woods and follow the water, but instead stayed inside and listened to it come down on the old, rusted tin roof. It leaked a little but he defended the mishap and found grace catching the water in an old pot. He then caught rain from then on in a big metal tub that was playing outside and in jars for drinking. He spent his first days eating canned food, nuts, and saltines and walked around the woods just close enough to still see the cabin. He gathered sticks and broke up wood for the fireplace and dried out the damp ones. His first fire glowed brightly and hellishly, and created a big orange glow to the place and made him feel warm and good. The first fire was the hardest to make and he would remember it always. All that was needed was a nightly fire and in the morning to fight the spring chill that crawled up from the cool of the hollows and misty woods. He would sit and stare, smelling the new forest dew of morning, and taking it all in slowly, he would simply dissolve into nothingness.
By his fourth day he walked into town again for more goods and had caught the eyes of many folks at the roadside store. His loafers were muddy and his hair was wilder from living without a mirror and grooming for the days past. He met a man there, a outsider sort, who approached him outside the store. He explained his name was Bran, and the man was a wooly, rustic type; a countryman, he could divest. The man wanted hunting rights in winter and had seen Willy walking out of the place. He had explained he hunted there for years. The two struck up conversation and Willy supposed he would be the only person he would talk to in the outer world from which he banished himself entirely.
He agreed to the deal of hunting rights under the conditions that he was informed of it on the very days of the hunt, and he was given a small portion of the kill, which was venison or turkey, this spring. Before the week was over, the slender man of Scottish descent had brought him a half a breast of wild turkey and a load of firewood in his truck.
This startled Willy to the point of unreason, and he explained to Bran not to bring the truck into his land again. Bran, of course, thought this strange, and knew the man was green in his hunting and fishing skills, but said nothing. He figured that he could even die out here without this knowledge, but let the man along to his freedom.
“You have a horse you hunt on, you say?” Willy said, thinking. The tall man nodded. Willy seemed to be in deep thought.
“Well, then, that is the way you must enter through here. I don’t want the noise of a truck here, I am sorry.” Bran somehow understood and nodded, his eyes far away and thinking of even how more primitive life was when his father was his age.
Willy ate of the turkey breast for the first time and marveled and the wild, pure, taste of the game bird, and was astonished by the creature in thought, through and through.
The man told him of a few springs around, and said there were many and were fit for drinking. He told him of wild hogs in the deeper woods, and said they weren’t native and destroyed ginseng roots, which the man hunted and sold in the fall for money. The man knew little of other wild edible roots and plants, and he said he reckoned his grandparents knew more than himself and was at a loss of the gnosis of foraging in this manner. He did say, however, that he could provide him with some onion sets, whole eyed potatoes, and tomato seeds and beans to get him a better run on the summer and taught him when he returned how to properly grow them. And in the days ahead Willy concentrated on taking care of the many seeds and things he would plant in the soft ground of the area.
Bran was a quite man, and smoked from an antler pipe the buds of aerial tops he had grown, unbeknownst to Willy, on his grandfather’s very land. It was here that Willy took up smoking the rich herb for pleasure, and Bran even sold him his antler pipe with a little plastic bag of the stuff, and some seeds for the summer. He would immediately put the herbs in another container, a wooden box he found inside the cabin that housed an old smoking pipe of his grandfathers.
“Did you know my grandfather then?” Willy wondered.
“ I reckon. We Logans have always hunted this land.” Bran said simply, staring into the small fire outside that night. He was a man who seemed to have thoughts but didn’t rely heavily on words.
“What made you come out here like this?” Bran pondered aloud.
“You might understand…I am done with the world; with the noise and clatter of it all.”
Willy said certainly, after a few moments of pondering himself like a man who was searching for something in his soul.
“You just up and figured you would find something out here in the woods?”
Bran said again slowly and curiously, not quite sure of the city man’s choice or if he was in sound mind.
“I don’t know. A guy like you loves the land, eh?” Willy asked and the man nodded, thinking it over.
“Well, I do too, you see. It is like I am in love.” He said, seriously and Bran seemed to look concerned and thought something even as serious for a moment and then laughed a little.
“Ah, hell..” Bran said and got on his horse. He would go to hunt a wild hog instead, or hunt mushrooms even, leaving the lover boy and city slicker to his fire and romanticisms.
“You better be careful tumbling around. I know you will get some fish eventually, but it’s going to be tough. When summer comes the cottonmouths are thick in here and the hollow she’s a whore, Willy. Now, them cottonmouths will chase you and if they bite you, you can’t just walk out of here to get help. Cottonmouths are snakes, man, and they take over all the best fishing holes here in bear creek. This is a lonesome place and it gets woollier in places. The ticks come out and the summer is hotter than hell but you got a lot of shade here for cool, but that invites them snakes. Copperheads, rattlesnakes, but where your at, cottonmouths, mostly.” Bran was stern now spitting a big wad of tobacco juice onto the ground.
“I’ve already said a mouthful, I guess…”
And he rode off in somberness to his own. His warning was something Willy would keep in mind
And in the all the days ahead he saw no more of Bran, but the seeds he gave him began to grow and swell from the ground as the days grew longer and warmer and the rains slowed.
One misty morning he set out on his first fishing trip and fashioned a pole without a reel from a stout piece of river cane. His first days were mishaps and he caught no fish on the crawdads or grasshoppers he set to hook and he lost many hooks and much line. He even found a small spring to drink of one day, but still he dreamt of a big stringer of fat fish like his grandfather had and within a few weeks of fishing every day he was no longer as green as the spring herself or a young sapling hickory, but was catching a few here and there and taking them home to sizzle in hot grease on a pan. He spent his first month walking further and further up the creek, and discovering the land. He would often get distracted after he smoked a tiny piece of the aerial tops and found it hard to focus on anything but the greenery. Here she is, he thought; paradise. And he laughed and walked around the woods, lost under the canopy of trees and sky in pure bliss and love.
Something seemed to call him at all times, though it was stronger at nighttime, and he could explain it only in the poetry of mind. And at last he stopped smoking for pleasure at night by the summer, and was darkly troubled by the haunting sounds of frog songs and the terrible and tortured fiddling of crickets. As the days grew longer the nights seemed darker and eerie. The pipers of the dark cried out in torture and he stuck to going to bed early and rising the same. And by the time morning came, he came accustomed again to the sound of the birds and the flight of bees and the dragonflies that hung around the fishing holes.
One day he walked further than he had ever walked before and stopped in the cool for a smoke from his antler horn. He sit down on a rock slab that hung out over the thick, deep green rushing river, to where there was a spot that was calm. Something like magic happened that day and the fish were popping out of the water-like they were insane, and doing flips out of the water and into the very air.
It’s like the god damned things are in love, he thought he heard his granddad say in his thoughts. As the gold met with the dusk in a byway like some great Celtic bard song, he began to catch them suddenly and caught their rhythm It was like pure magic! He pulled them in, one after another until he had a huge stringer of the poor, devilish things! Green and red sunfish, brown, fat ones of a longer species that were much bigger than his skillet, and the ones with red eyes that hid like damned things under rocks. All came out in madness, and he could see some of them being chased by others and they tore at their own as he pulled some of them in. Alas, he had captured it, and he was in love! The feeling akin to fear and wonder was back again and he went on catching them. It seemed as if the golden dusk was unlocking them, this secret interval, like an equinox and byway of sacred timing. And even the cottonmouth snake came at him from a small stream the led from behind him; it rode in on the very calmness of the sounds he had become entranced by, and came at him, seeking to end his life. Willy slung it onto the back and beat its head in, making sure its jaws were dismembered for good measure. He then turned and looked at the little byway of stream that it came from, much smaller than the rest of the creek to which it ran. He followed the course, encumbered by the big stringer of fish. The water ran colder here and chilled his feet through his worn loafers. It ran further still at he followed it, forgetting it was getting too dark to venture much further without light. It flowed over rocks and he found another little course that ran above on a bank of stone. It was awesome in appearance; the huge stones covered with green moss and the trickling and babbling of streams crossing here and there wherever they pleased, maddeningly. Smaller rocks were broken up all over along the ground and naturally formed in pageantry to the whole scene and he found a cold pool with which to store his fish. The water had to be coming from a spring source and was cold enough to keep the fish fresh even if they died as he explored the place. And he followed it a little further choosing a certain stream there than ran closer to the origins of purity and found limestone and a place that was surrounded by deep green ferns and cress. Here he found the holy place all at once, a great spring that sprung from the stone from what was possibly and underground cave. He calmly examined the spring, and could not believe it’s beauty. He drank deeply of her waters and fell into the pool below, where he suddenly was overcome with the passion to strip off all his clothes in the heat of something that was almost like fleshly arousal; something deeply spiritual and pure that they could never explain or guess! The water was sweet somehow, yet tasteless and he felt reborn again in a new blasphemy he was becoming more and more familiar with all too soon. It was the feeling of return somehow, but yet from something he could not remember. Strange feelings overcame him and he quivered and buckled in pleasure and joy in the waters. He felt he could not foul the pool, that it would simply overpower him.
Would he have drowned there and then he would have been satiated.
“My cup runneth over.” He babbled to himself in froth mouthed blasphemy. He felt it cleanse him and all his thoughts and truly return him to the source.
“To God!” He thought he heard his grandfather say from somewhere in the babbling waters, or perhaps even in the caverns unseen and beneath the ground and he laughed and swam nude in the mysteries the cool spring.
He got out and realized it was stark night now, and saw the dusk overtake the gold and snuff out the light. It would be too dangerous to travel back tonight, and the cool night air and the moist of night blue would release snakes. He broke his rule and had one little pinch of herb in his horn and smoked calmly and fell into trance of the shimmering, watery shadows and lovely moonlight. The frogs here were not tortured, and sounded calmer and he fell into a deep sleep, naked, beside the pool. He was aware of the moon above him and felt it as he was sleeping. It was somehow during this interval that something very strange began to happen and he felt the intense, cool white light of the moon surround him and go within him. And what was the moon but the lesser light of the sun, he wondered? It must have something of a life to its own, in its lesser form. It was at this point he was sure he was awake, that he began to confuse the babbling waters and they began to criss cross and sound like voices. He heard his grandfather’s voice amongst them but couldn’t concentrate enough to understand what he was saying. He heard soft, sweet, female voices and twisting whispers that ran mad like the waters themselves and like the gnarled roots of the great white sycamore trees that loomed like ancient sentinels of night above.
“ All waters are but degradations of the source..” He heard one say in a fast, high voice. His heart raced with fear and awe as he watched the root system. There was something there, a form, by god! And he couldn’t focus on it and it would pull away, as if he couldn’t concentrate to hold it with his will, surely making him believe it to be a phantasm. And it would form again, manifesting in a natural manner with the clouds, which caused the light to wane and shadows to shift and make it so, as if it were using them or the other way around. And it formed there somehow, a combination and formula of blue night, shadow, shimmering, reflecting waters and the roots of the tree. He beheld the shape- it was the smooth, creamy white shape of a woman, naked and lean! She was bent, as if hiding and motionless and he couldn’t believe his eyes! And something happened as she stood up and turned to look at him in the eyes- something strange, indeed. The clouds moved faster above and revealed her full breasts and long, white hair, captured and imprisoned in a bun that resembled a spiraling bee hive, and shadows culled from her and white light shone like the white smooth skin underneath the bark of a great sycamore tree. And then she writhed somewhat, as if she were still somehow a part of the roots. The shadows and water reflections were being painted like translucent art upon the stones and the whole place began to shine and blind him as her white eyes met his and he was in the thrall of passion and even a nocturnal emission caused by the intense, holy experience. The shimmering was now electric and he fell on his knees and fought to keep his sanity and sobriety from the intoxication of it all; the hot sweat of night and the chill of the pool’s cool. And he no longer wished to fight it but instead let it swallow him- let her swallow him, and the release came as pure relief and like a holy baptism and drowning in the waters; in the source.
When he awoke, it was morning and he was sure it was a spiritual dream he had witnessed. He felt as fresh as a head of cabbage as he stumbled to his feet,. He looked around and the morning retained the beauty of the dark place still. He looked upon the roots and the ordinary, yet pure beauty of the place and saw the fish lying in the cool waters, bloated and preserved in the cold pool. With some patience, he gathered them up and put his clothes back on, feeling like a man who had been on a wild drunk the night before. He took his cane and the fish stringer that was made of a tree branch and walked out of the place, stopping to turn around and look upon it before he left, having the strange urge to remain there.
He found when he got back to his cabin that he missed the place and a certain feeling of melancholy and loss. However, he felt better later as he began to cook the fish and he knew he would feast greatly and in excess for the evening. It was too hot to cook on the stove inside so he took it out to the fire ring he had in front of the cabin and cooked the fish with potatoes and onions. The god damned things, he thought, and wondered if he had meant that they were in fact, poor damned devils in the waters.
This made him laugh out loud and little and shake his head. He went in and got the bottle of wine his grandfather had left there with the two glasses and popped the cork on the thing after he had set the table for two inside and the meals he would eat himself.
“To the wellsprings.” He said aloud as he drank from the wine glass. Ah, it was homemade, he thought. Made from the very black berries and bramble of the hollow itself and by the discipline and will of granddad’s own craft. He shook his head and laughed a little, giddy from the strength of it. Then something happened; it was like a weird stirring at first, like the wind, and the wooden shutters blew open hard and suddenly, without any good reason. And he sat silently and startled at first, and it was like something was there now; like something had changed.
He wondered if it were his grandfather; could it really be possible? But nothing happened, and he returned to his eating of the meal and drank the a half a bottle of the dark, blackish wine. He lit a lamp as the night came and looked about the room. He had stumbled a little and dropped the matches on the floor by the cot. He bent down to retrieve the book of matched and stumbled onto to something more; another magic accident of discovery. Beneath the cot was a bound book, lying on it’s side as if it fell from the top of the bed. His grandfather must have kept it close to him or under his pillow even? The pillow itself was rotten and had thrown it out.
“Well, well, old timer” he said foolishly as he blew dust off it and smiled. What he had found was something special, he figured, and sat down to look upon its pages. Most of the ink was damaged by the leak above the wall against the bed, and made some corners unreadable. He began to read and couldn’t believe it- there were some love poems and prose inside, written no doubt by the old fellow himself. He laughed and closed the book, not wanting to strain his eyes by the poor light.
He remembered something about what he had read on the map of Arkansas’ back, but couldn’t recall it all; nor did he care, as the wine had washed his cares free. Soon he fell into a gentle sleep in the warm night.
At last he awoken and his sleep was broken by the sound of something slamming. The window shutters again, he wondered. It was so hot inside and he went to the window and opened it fully, finally soothed by the cool night air the crept in and sent him asleep. And then he began to dream. He was his grandfather now and awakened to open the window. There was a scratching on the glass outside as he eagerly licked his dry lips and went to open it with great joy. It seemed like others were orchestrating his dream cycle now, and he could only play the part in some strange role. Then, there she was, waiting outside the window, and floating above the ground like a ghost and she passed through the window, tall and thin and her gown flowing like the shimmering of the watery shadows of the spring he had visited. He garments seemed flowing like the waters of the spring herself, and it was the same lady he had dreamt of there. Hair was in a strange spiral like bun that almost coiled on the sides like braided horns, and her attire was that of someone who had drowned and was water logged. He could smell the waters- both the green and clear; of all the places they belonged to and from her mouth bubbled and babbled strange words like the running springs that criss crossed and trickled about. She kissed him and her breath was like fern and watercress or perhaps, lilies soaked in water and drowned. And he made love to her, and fell into the spell and it was all so very real and without terror…
When he awoke he found the window open and was covered with morning dew. He ate the leftover mass of food and watched a spider weave a web as he contemplated all that had happened. Later he read the book and delved into some charming love poetry and notes his grandfather had made; mundane things like text about what plants were in season and where and when, and such. But he found one passage that trouble him somewhat. It evoked sorrow in him and he read it aloud:
And I cannot keep her away, nor make her stay
And from some hell I am sure she came? Or from somewhere outside my brains
Or but from, the cadence of the waters or springs which I drowned her, and she me
And the rest of the dear little poem was marred by waterlog and he noticed a certain green moss like stain at the bottom of the page. And as he turned the page he saw something stranger, indeed; At the reverse side of the page was a scrawled out illustration. It was as if it were scrawled by a child- no doubt the old lover boy himself; and it was something like a great amoeba celled thing floating about and with tiny red eyes that looked as if they were painted in the old timers own blood- or at least some berry juice! And he dropped the book to the floor in shock for a moment, remembering the words at the back of the map! It was all too unreal…
He picked it backup and read on, but found nothing but a blank page and some more words therein he had missed; a fragment and water marred mess:
And I will never leave here and she will never leave me
I left the window open and cut a back door for her
And now sew herbs in my pillow to keep her away
Willy shuddered and turned back to the page with the drawing. Above the thing, was something like a spiral, like the bun that was the headdress of the white woman he had dreamt of at the pool. A pair of little, tiny red eyes were dotted and it resembled dark red berry juice or, of course, blood. It was all too insane for Willy and he closed the book. He was developing his mind lately, he reasoned, and there was nothing to fear and after all, it was his dreaming that produced these things. And with that he put up the book and went out fishing again and tending to his plants. Nothing strange occurred for the whole summer and he had taken to spearing fish with a spear and had become very masterful as a fisherman and gardener there. His crops flourished and he sat dreamily in the evenings smoking of his herbs in and lost in thought under the stars by the fire ring at nights. Fireflies filled the hollow and gave him the enchantment of company. He returned sometimes to the pool and fetched water, longing lonesomely for something like a female companion. He stared into the empty pool and longed for her, seeing his only his own, now bearded face.
Then one night he heard a loud bang in the cabin that sent chills up his spine despite the misery of the summer heat, like a sound big and angry. That night he had nightmares and she came to him as he dreamed and he opened the window for and she removed her gown and he drank of her kisses like the waters. She felt like flesh and she rode him as he lay sprawled out beneath her, and he was paralyzed. He tried to fight the cadence of her evil tide but gave in. He could barely breath and his whole body felt like an electrical storm as the heat and sweat mixed with the satanic chill and the adverse night dew, and he shivered in horror and delight. He burned feverishly in the cold fire of passion and she bucked atop him wildly like a spectral flame bends in the wind of a cave.
And her eyes flushed red and burned brightly and like fire and in accord with the classic imaginations of the demonic sense; a night creature.
And from there on she came to him every night, so that he could not sleep and his sheets were stained and wet from the night dew and sweat of their entanglement. Once she floated above him and her form was like a moth with the aura of white powder that was radiant like light, and fell from her wings in ways they could never understand or guess! She stared into his soul with eyes the burned deep red like a wild ruby fire and brought him both horror and delight; sometimes one, both, or a mixture of the two.
He tried to fight it sometimes, feeling it would stain his very soul but the tides always came in, like the waves of the sea drunk and in love with the moon.
And when winter came Bran came to hunt and found the cabin frozen and overtaken by snow and the window open. The cabin was empty and an empty set of clothes lay below the cot. When he returned the next summer to see what had happened he found the place overtaken by weeds and brush. He finally found the book inside and read its contents after having a pull off his pipe. Something came through the evening air like a chill, and his horse spooked from where it was tied outside. He came to the final entry, which was close to the same handwriting he knew to be as the grandfathers. It was written in something like a berry or perhaps, blood:
I will go and may never return now…I will go into the ground and into the caverns and earth to find the source from which these waters run
I will follow her waters into the ground and onward until if find the secrets of these mysteries
I can here the water whisper, Bran, my friend, and the bubbling and babbling of her I will find…the source
Surely you know of the place, or of her? What is her name? She is mine, and mine to know…I must go and kill her…goodbye
“What the hells?” He said aloud and laughed without being humored. And he decided to make camp there that night and found the wine and had a glass and another, until the bottle was dry and his eyes were heavy and he shut the windows to keep out the rain that night. And in the night he tossed and turned and he saw her in a nightmare, scratching at the glass of the window, and he awoke to see a pair of tiny little eyes of red in the glass. He heard his horse spook again outside and pitch a terrible fit.
It was then he awoke and took up his things and fashioned a torch from the bed sheet and wound it around a wood stick and poured the oil over the cloth. He then lit the torch ablaze and set fire to the rotten cabin in the dead of the night. As the place burned to the ground he never looked back from his horse, and he never returned to the hollow again.
