Tag: Creative Writing

The Closet

Celine stepped into the closet closed the door reached touched and pulled the dusty white string. A vague twenty-five watt glow yawned yellow onto the walls shelves barely illuminating her face and shoulders she leaned her back against the door and slid to the shadowy floor not meaning to fall asleep.
What would possess an adult male with a reasonable job pounding nails sawing sanding caulking and levelling boards to wander barefoot in the woods ducking behind trees dodging looking listening growling quietly at any notion of fear? He would take handfuls of pine needles press and roll them between his palms inhale the forest broken open rub the scent on his skin carry on walking running flowing through moonlight and shadow eventually lying down feeling stone and root beneath him staring at stars through a ragged frame of rustling silhouettes. Once two hawks followed him for a day wherever he went he could see them watching from treetops and rooftops billboards high poles power lines even the stained statue of a city father settling on an outstretched arm behind a perfect wave of fleeing pigeons. He pulled off the main road drove slowly down the long potholed driveway and parked beside the towering two by six by eight by ten assemblage of rafters beams studs and joists that were gathering into a home. It was early and the rest of the crew had yet to arrive. He walked up the sturdy plank ramp into the house across to the sheeted-in closet where the power tools were stored turned the knob and pushed the door but something on the other side prevented him from opening it.
Funny the things you remember Paul thought standing in the hallway of the small apartment building he and his wife owned a million miles away from his time as a carpenter in rural Ontario. He was trying to push open the storage closet door but something inside must have fallen against it. What he had no idea wondering also about the light left on spilling through the crack and why he left this single space in the entire place derelict. The latter he knew was an offering to the history of the restored building some kind of shrine or testament a nod to what was. He put his shoulder to the door and pushed. Careful not to damage whatever was on the other side.

Willow-of-course

Willow-of-course was a wind watcher which is simply someone who loves and watches the wind. In fact she enjoyed observing any movement not caused by what most consider living things. Her parents were hippies whose family and friends were not. Although they had planned to call her Willow, whenever asked someone else in the room would pipe up with Willow of course. It became a bit of a joke-of-course that inadvertently wound up on her birth certificate. In some countries it is illegal to name your child anything the state would deem weird. Not the case in Canada in 1978.
Willow-of-course was not a flower child mystic poet folk singer or reflexologist. She did love to dance but so do lots of people. She was a barista waitress once transferred calls at a call centre sold ice cream delivered pizzas patient attendant parking lot attendant sold subscriptions on street corners bagged groceries and pumped gas. Basically anything that would get her through on again off again university until she got a nursing degree and went up north to work with the Inuit or moved to Ottawa or maybe Kenora.
When she was sixteen months old her parents were killed in an automobile accident. She was miraculously saved as she and her playpen went sailing from the open truck box where it was not secured in any way and landed in a very shallow pond. There were sirens red and blue flashing lights shouting in the night lily pads bullrush and momentarily silent spring peepers. She was adopted immediately by an immensely kind and loving aunt and uncle who could not have children of their own. Brenda and Troy owned a convenience store service station and diner in Kenora home of Husky the Musky a forty foot muskellunge roadside attraction where Willow-of-course learned her excellent customer service skills. Growing up everyone called her Willow. Of course. When she was fifteen she entered a brief rebellious period discovered she didn’t have much to rebel about found her birth certificate figured a name like Willow-of-course might be just as cool as rebellion and that was that. At eighteen amid tears of pride and joy she got on a Greyhound bus bound for Halifax and who knew how many years of university.
Willow-of-course lived on the third floor of an old home that had been converted into apartments and was rented to students. There was an annual and semi-annual parade of roommates good bad and irrelevant characters she the constant lease holding official tenant. The sometimes risky status assured her the best room in the house which included a balcony and overlooked a corner of the Atlantic Ocean. The balcony was her refuge out of bounds no questions asked keep out off limits no trespassing space the place where she began most days forty five minutes before sunrise. With a cup and small thermos of coffee she would go outside sit in a white plastic lawn chair on a threadbare cushion and watch the most subtle and magnificent light show on earth. She could not feel but see the turn of the planet toward the sun and the multihued brush of light across cloud bellies and an ancient sky born again day after day. One two three the last stars dissolved a breath of breeze on her cheek a strand of hair quiet rustle of green potted plant leaves and last years dry brown and curled stirring into corners. This is where Willow-of-course became a wind watcher began to notice and relish the invisible touch push imminent force movement air current swoosh of her planet imperceptibly spinning through outer space.
On the twenty first day of June summer solstice by chance she was walking on a trail in the early afternoon and a most peculiar breeze caught her attention. Odd was the distinct definition and shape of it. Waist high about three feet wide a foot deep and as steady as any freshwater stream. Young birch poplar ash and maple leaves long needles of new pine and shorter spruce all slightly bent leaned hushed rustled and whispered. She put her hand her face in the flow untied her hair sat down walked in and out and finally settled beside watched and listened to its melody of brush and touch. Willow-of-course would have liked to follow the breeze but not today for it would be without beginning or end and would take a lifetime. She was hungry and already running a little late for work.