I wake up.

Again.

Is it for the four-thousandth time? Or forty-thousandth? 400-thousandth? Maybe only four hundredth. I expected one day to crawl into bed to sleep perpetually and join my brothers who fell to sleep so long ago and sleep still, undisturbed.

They are not even a memory anymore. I cannot convince myself they were ever real, and that their faces and voices were but passing dreams of...

Morning comes twice on opening day: secondly with the appearance of the sun’s virgin rays seeping through the branches, but firstly upon the sound of the first shots ringing through the November sky. These first shots are always far off, a desolate boom faintly echoing. You feel it more than hear it. Low frequencies ripple through the cold, still air. They’re usually miles away, and more likely th...

I sat at the kitchen table. It faced into the kitchen, not into the table. Leg room. I watched as the pot slowed its final drips. A watched pot never boils, and a Mr Coffee perhaps falls into that category, too. But I had nothing else to do but sit and prepare my nerves, so I spaced out while eyeballing the warm elixir visibly create itself into being, like the Egyptian god Atum from the dark expa...

Having done this before, I convinced myself that nerves were unusual but not unexpected.

I started the Buick after prepping the pots for another round, and then dressed. First long underwear, then T-shirt and sweatpants. Third, long shirt and jeans. Finally my orange bib overalls and orange camo overcoat, followed by hat, boots, etc. I save my gloves and facemask for when I’m actually in my blind...

I never was

An early riser,

But deer camp has that

Effect on folks.

There’s a buzz in the air …

a strange

frequency

that vibrates between gestures, glances, and ‘good mornings,’

passing unseen

on invisible wires that leave you … wired.

Even before coffee.

Days getting ready for work,

school,

even Christmas

don’t begin this way.

There’s something primal and programmed in readying for

...

The road north was a quiet drive. It would have been quiet, anyway. Cars were few and my 97 Buick LeSabre hummed gently on the bare roads. There was residual snow in banks on the land, but the road had since cleared and dried.

It wasn't actually quiet, though. Metal Mix 21 spun freely in the stereo, belting anthems of war and betrayal by the likes of Dio, Slipknot, Avenged Sevenfold and Type O Neg...

There is a place. It is a place in my dreams.

The place is just down the road, probably off the corner of Walnut and 14 mile. It's always off a corner, never adjacent. The place is in the woods, or rather, it is the woods. It’s close but it “contains multitudes” (to quote Whitman, or better yet, Bobby D). I have entered it off Walnut and emerged near Bent-tree, Bennett Park, and even upstate Washi...

The cheese is under the sauce. It’s from Chicago....

Fresh pots.

Fresh. Pots.

FRESH POTS.

FRESH POTTTTTTTS....

It was midnight on October 13. Linda and Steve were dining together as they did every Friday. Steve opened the Chianti and Linda prepared the salad.

“Babe, could you grab the aerator?” Steve asked.

“Sure,” said Linda. She made for the closet.

Steve returned to the counter but did not hear the closet door open. He looked again behind him.

Linda was gone, but the closet door creaked slowly open.

A...