I killed a man today — another man I should say. While it caused me no great pain to end his life, I can’t say I found any particular joy in the act either.
That makes 14 in the past 22 years, maybe 23 now. Less than one a year; I’m not sure I’ve made mass murderer status yet or not. But in this miserable world without life or hope, I’m sure there are plenty of people who have killed more.
It happened like most of them did. Someone desperate, probably without a thing to eat or drink, shows up and wants to take what’s mine. Once upon a time I dreamt I’d shared with other folks. Now; well, they don’t really seem like the sharing kind, in retrospect.
I was behind the cabin (I should really call it an over-sized shed) stacking green cut wood. That’s all I do it seems, play with what Mother Nature made plentiful in this wilderness I call home. Some days it’s felling trees, others I spend my time limbing, or cutting the large logs into workable sections. After that comes splitting, and that’s back breaking work.
Once split, the fresh cut stuff gets stacked along the back of my cabin/shed. Before I can do that, I have to move the stuff that has aged for a full year to the front. Rotate your wood; cut one year, burn last year’s, stack this year’s for drying. And that’s where the trouble began.
