Winter Solstice by NNN Cook & Rick Weaver

An opportunity for grief burrowed into a corner of the dugout cabin during a downdraft of lack, while a soot-coat chicken struggled in the flue, unable to observe the wing trace of today’s sunrise to sunset netted in the town center’s timepiece. Addressing the sun we cry once again;

Don’t forget to come back

Don’t forget to come back

Don’t forget to come back.

We stoned the offender then used the stone to chip off some ice for the baptismal. As I watched the ice melt, roots tunneled through bullet holes at the substation. I drifted off into my dream last night, when the ATC goofed during severe weather. Plane after plane fell from the short sky, skating across the great lake. After we struggled free from the cabin’s dents and wedges, another airbus accordioned into ours. Then another. And another. The pile up cracked the lake as we rushed marrow toward low lasting embers, in hopes of unfreezing the backlog of blood lines, turnips, parsnips, and ostrich feathers. The plane’s folding generated more energy than was expended, but we didn’t have dampers installed. Most was lost. We scratched around for leftovers and chopped them into firewood. 

How long until the water in the well freezes? We dug the well deep, about 21,120,000 feet down, hiding snowballs in the cracks to avoid the fine. After the first fall, on the following day of rest, celebration vanished behind law. We crowded into a long blue Christmas in a small damp grief room. Slowly we forgot the reasons behind our grief. The law vanished underneath a soft sewn quilt of cruelty. A righteous man regards the life of his beast, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. Oysters buried in the sand. Each of us increased our indifference to beast, indifference to man. We skinned supple green bark alive and boiled evergreen needles for vitamin C. Carne vale. The last trim days, too long, where auld acquaintance be forgot. Phenols, guaiacol, catechol. A workday like any other.

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