minding the embers (or: The Writer's Shed Project, part 8)

I’m sitting outside, half writing exam questions, mostly watching the fire burn. Occasionally I throw another board on. Larry, Ed’s cat, skittish to the max, for once prefers my company to being in his own space. Something about a fire makes him unusually clingy.




I just want it all to burn already. The good wood is gone, the rotten boards were destroyed yesterday. The deconstructing family took away all that’s salvageable. We’re left with the shaky floor, heavy support beams and whatever is buried below.


I lift a board to throw it on the flames. Underneath? An old belt. Bricks, boards, a child’s shoe. And yes, a large bone. And a dung pile. That’s truly disconcerting. Whose is it and for how long has it been there?

Woodchucks, Ed says confidently. Okay, I guess that makes it okay. But there’s still the question of the little shoe…

Some of the boards are so heavy that it takes more than even the horsepower of Ed to move them. In the morning, there were helpers.









But they're gone now. We're left with the pile of unwanted, unmovable debris.

Burn, fire. Do away with all this -- the remains of something long gone, with no good memories left. No happy tales and love-filled notes. A fallen shed, where no one could make it right again.






The sun is out today. Ed and I pick up many flats of tomatoes. And the last of the Menard windows. And a door.

You know, the ground’s not so level here, where the Writer’s Shed is to be built, Ed comments.
And so now what? Start again? Look for a new site?
I'm only saying we have to level the ground.

One obstacle removed, another revealed.

And in the neighboring field, Cha and his wife continue to plant. Up one row, down the next.