Exercise # 17

The novel begins in a field outside a town of red clay roofs and checkerboard pastures. You find yourself on the dirt road – your shoes are worn – the soles thin, the leather black in places where your feet press out, the bony parts, from the inside. You haven’t brought your sweater, because no one has told you what to expect. You notice you are at the crest of a hill, the road slopes down towards the town.
The impulse is to follow it so you do.
The first cottage is whitewashed but chipped in places, cracks spreading like vines, you realize as you get closer. There are matching chickens in the yard – white with red crests. They peck at red worms. Is this one of the themes, then? Red and white? You wonder what meaning lies in this color scheme. You look down at your clothes – black worn trousers – pine green flannel shirt. Perhaps you are mistaken. Must there even be a theme? But this is a novel and you’ve walked five minutes within it so far finding no meaning.
Perhaps the point of the story is this emptiness you feel.
Now you smell the brown warm honey-ed aroma of roasting meat. You realize you are hungry. When is the last time you ate? You have no memory beyond finding yourself standing on the dirt path. No memory to direct you – no theme to dictate your choices – only the road stretching forward. You follow it.
The second cottage is freshly whitewashed. Instead of chickens scratching in the dirt, you notice a soft mossy lawn, it grows up to the sides of the house and lends a storybook feel. The wafting aroma of roasting dinner you have been following is emanating from the many-paned window, thrown open in what you now decide seems like a cheerful manner. Smoke curls from the chimney – a goat – its udder pink and full and many-fingered, bulging with milk – grazes by a tree laden with fruit – round golden orbs that are not immediately recognizable to you. But this is the house – you feel the only guidance you are being given – this quiet inner urge – telling you to stop here. Yes, perhaps this is where the story will begin – followed by the rising action – the climax - the denouement – will all happen behind this self-satisfied plump-looking structure.
The door is thatched – as you approach you feel the spring of the moss under your tired feet. Your knuckles rap against the thatch – a muted sound. How does one make his presence known with a door such as this one? You are about to knock again but the door opens – a round pale face with a neat linen cap – you notice the eyes – blue like a sky with no end – before anything else. These are eyes that will stay with you – again that inner intuit – these are eyes that are going to mean something to you – though still, at this point, as the door is pushed open wider to let you in, you are aware that you are poised on the threshold of many things. Not the least of which is, how it will come to be that these eyes, as you are now sure they will come to do – will destroy you.
“Annika?” The voice from within the cottage is deep and harsh. The pale moon round face still looking at you deeply flushes pink as if stained by the spill of wine. Now another face appears, dark skinned with the ravages of sun, wind-burned, like leather. Similar eyes though these are without the sense of endlessness. Some kind of knowledge has hardened these eyes so that a balloon traveling up through the stratosphere would hit a ceiling. A place beyond which nothing travels anymore. Where did you come up with this image of a balloon bobbing and bumping against a smooth blue ceiling, you wonder, standing on this strange doorstep, following an inner prompt to remain standing there, even with nothing familiar to hold onto.
The man, Annika’s father, you guess, is glaring now.
“What do you want?”
Many possible answers race through your head: I want to be in the place where I can find myself again. I want to feel safe and your daughter’s eyes have promised me that. I want to close my eyes and feel nothing for awhile. But most of all: I want to go home.
If only you knew what that meant.
“Can you spare some supper and a corner and blanket for the night?” This is the first time you have heard your voice. It sounds like wood, firm and strong. You feel a bit more confident.
You look directly into the dead-end eyes. Perhaps sensing your newly found firmness, they seem to soften. Though infinitesimally, it is enough. The door is swung open.
Inside the cottage is as cozy as you sensed it would be when you stopped.