From the Ground Up

From the Ground Up

Sometimes they fill the air with noise, as if they were lonely. They fret with little black things, peering above toward the loud boxes, transfixed as if a mouse was about to dart from them. They must really need practice as I always find one or the other sitting by those gadgets.

They pollute the whole house with odious odors from cans that spit clouds of offensive junk. I do wonder what they believe they will kill with those. They miss the worst and target the best. The carpets are littered with crunchy tidbits and parts of rolly pollies or crickets, but that one wasp is still trying to escape through the blinds, and the fleas are multiplying for the end of this crazy world.

Well, the roaches will eventually inherit the leftovers from the looks of the compost or whatever that mound is in the corner of the yard. I regularly patrol all sides for rodents that have laughed at those silly traps (no matter the effort) for the clever plastic boxes, the little poison pellets, or the clang of metal jaws. There seems to be a clever species to resist any of mankind's inventions.

My nostrils are desiccated by the puffing thing in the corner. It permeates all breathing space with noxious gas on a regular basis like a stinking wind in my hair. The machine that spits cold down upon us can roar and whir in such obnoxious sessions. I'd rather be hot and slovenly in a dark corner than suffer the frigid drafts that tease me bones and cramp me muscles.

In winter they heat this place beyond comfort. Only the closets offer relief, but all those smelly shoes and perfumy things clutter the same space, so forget that zone. Lay low and don't exert yourself, that's about all one can do, day or night, of course.

Well at least what the moths and weevils have left will end up as compost or mouse poop, somewhere. Nature has a way of compensating for everything, and I can find plenty to eat, after all. It's all a game, isn't it?

I can't complain too much, they let me stay here for free, so I simply sigh, glare or walk away. But most of the time I take advantage of the soft furniture in my own relaxed style. I luxuriously stretch on the couch and blend in with the décor, not to bother anyone, my coat matches the microplush of the divan, how convenient!

It's our special symbiosis that works best; it’s because my needs are so simple. They forget about me until dinner time. Some of the stuff she cooks really smells great, but her taste for veggies irritates me. She insists in offering me tasteless morsels of things not known in nature. Well, not my nature anyway.

After supper they relax in the front room. That's what they think they are doing. Relaxing. They yell, bark, burst and bellow at each other over some box games and lights. It tires me just to avoid curses and objects flying across rooms. I'm glad I'm not involved. I know all the nearest hiding places where I can ignore all of them.

That's my way. I'll try to eat when they finally sleep. I'll sniff their winds, listen to their stomach rumblings to detect fragrant eggs, ‘pootin’ popcorn, or silent-but-greasy goose fat farts.

Rumbling throats and flapping nostrils sing a nightly serenade. When tractor trailers and rural equipment stop their daily traffic, I can finally enjoy nature’s nightlife here.

The kids aren't too bad. Well, except for the one who likes to dunk my head under water. He'll leave me alone today. He's nursing a bad case of black eye. His younger brother must have been adopted. He's the only sweet one in the family. He wants to share his pickles or prunes with me, and he doesn't get mad when I turn up my nose at that. I occasionally sit on his bed as he reads me a story. I'm patient, he's dedicated; we'll survive.

He brought home a new cat box from the yard sale next door. I hope that he learns to empty it more often, before mold grows long grey hairs on those clumps. The box of cat litter that came with it shows multiple cats. One resembles me like a twin, all these silly ads are quaint, but personally, I prefer the sand below the rosebushes ‘cause their dog hates thorns. Meow!

a short story: A Willow or Two.

this story was written during my desert years and eventually published in issue number two of the excellent literary magazine " Up The Staircase Quarterly" when i first dare venture into the submission mode.

A Willow or Two
by Nadine Sellers

The willow is trembling outside the window like a nervous peeping tom. An opaque pink haze has settled upon the night in town. Head resting on pillows, I hold a book open in my palm and count what would be my blessings - dinner dishes done ' no broken bones and more squash in the fridge. Then why do I feel so, so unsettled?

Sirens screech by on main street every hour and I keep thinking it' s Joe. I know these phone calls are from him; no one talks, but I stare at the phone with doubt every time this happens. I look at the phone now, it is about to ring, I will it. The noise reverberates through the apartment, so very loud that I cringe. I extend my arm slowly, I pick it up resolutely. Hello? Hello? No one answers; The breath is that of a woman, that woman. I sense her presence, in cell phone void from satellite space, where she feels safe to reach out and bother someone.

Air swells through the veils, playing shadow games upon twilight. The telephone is a dead animal, limp in my hand. An automated voice urges me to make a call or set the thing back on its base. I hang up obediently, absently. It is only a cheap outdated model. After Joe smashed the last three, I saved myself some expense and bought bottom of the line items; no fuss, no frills. You learn to live with bare minimum when possessions come to a premature ending. Most items are of disposable consequence; detach, detach!

Twenty six saucers ago I would have winced at the perennial losses, now I count the individual breakage as material recycling. Object-d'art accumulate faster than space to keep them in. Cumulus becomes burden. I can find yard sale tables and chairs faster than they were originally manufactured. I can drag home my friends' discarded rugs and curtains faster than Joe can stain them with dark wines, stale beers or greasy leftovers. Blessings or commination? At any other time I would reason this axiology; now, I breathe a shallow intake and expel dire thoughts in puny breaths. Too much has happened for too long, I have no resource but to lay there and save myself for the day I am free of fear, free of self.

Freedom is but a word, it used to be an ideology, an honorable illusion of youth. At first I had fancied myself free of parental bondage. Then I had jumped into premature marriage; many a woman can attest to the erroneous expectation of that theory. Of course, I liked many aspects of a concrete relationship, where can a girl get steady love and someone to lavish excess tenderness on? The dog pound would be a good place to start, but? Men don't shed so much hair, and the bond is of a different dimension.

Indoctrinated in the fine art of matrimony by a stern society, I love to love. I believe in deep binding, the ties that squeeze till they hurt. I derive joy from the lesser pain after the rain of tears. Need for closeness has brought severe hardship, and yet, I look at the phone, hoping Joe is there, contained in the safety of the object, close to my ear as I call the image of his sensitive face within my closed eyelids.

He will tell me he has learned so much. So much to suffer, so much to coerce through cluttered viscera. I should rescue a cat or cruise the anonymous mall in search of societal oblivion. I would frighten the meek, scare the weak who need me to entertain them, to perform a sad social dance for them. I am in mourning for a chunk of life spoiled, my life, my loss.

There are bookshelves full of how to for the enabler, the co-dependent and the forlorn. I am free to choose among prime debaucheries to prompt an avalanche of ill feelings. Boredom and sagging minds present fair excuses. Too easy to circulate in the halls of doubt. Too unfair to assign culpability for the decay of sweet and sour co-existence. Yes, yes, love was and still is a marvel of parapsychology, a revelatory animal chemistry. The forgotten novel weights upon my hand as I reach for the covers. A tear insists on teasing me all the way to my chin, damn it, I am solid and I refuse to cry!

By now, birds nestle quietly. From the darkness of the bedroom, I scan the shape of the tree swaying to the town pulse. It must be midnight on this sundry weekday. I should sleep. Work comes early to the dutiful. Leaves brush against one another rustling lightly. The scent of artemesia streams in the tender breeze . Cold punishes my bones with denial; dry pleasure, the ascetic response. My jaw aches with stoicism. I am a native in the plain, nature, my maternal foster spirit, I faint within.

Gravel crunch, obscene lights, a car door slams and I sit up. Not again, you fool! I sneer lazily at rushing anticipation. If I am free and I am well, why do I insist on hoping ? solace of same, same sadness, same anguish? Familiarity elicits replication at the cost of disgust. Stuck in a morose leitmotiv, I wallow in the pathos of melancholy. My body knows the sheets and the blanket settles, heavy as his hand, upon my hip on a rare night. I whine and whisper my way to sleep again.

Daylight brings me to shower, brush, comb, in blind robotic automation. Then on to eat with ritualistic Zen attention; the toast feels light and scabrous to the hand, elbows bend, butter melts. A sense of otherliness overcomes the spare conscience to find comfort in minutiae, consolation in detachment. Alone with spoon in hand, apple crunching loudly under tooth. No one to hear the mechanical tempo, no one to see the spoon drop on the tablecloth. I could sing if I wanted to, I could dance around the room to some innate cadence.

Amid myriad choices, my hand refuses to push the button, to turn the knob, to play the song. Silence is mine. I am stillness. I am silence'?

©Nadine Sellers